Disabled daughter came first for Poetry Man singer

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/04/2011 (5636 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEW YORK — Phoebe Snow, a singer, guitarist and songwriter who had a defining hit of the 1970s with Poetry Man but then largely dropped out of the spotlight to care for her disabled daughter, has died.

Snow, who was nominated for best new artist at the 1975 Grammys, died Tuesday morning in Edison, N.J., from complications of a brain hemorrhage she suffered in January 2010. She was 60.

Snow’s manager, Sue Cameron, said the singer endured blood clots, pneumonia and congestive heart failure since her stroke.

“The loss of this unique and untouchable voice is incalculable,” Cameron said. “Phoebe was one of the brightest, funniest and most talented singer-songwriters of all time and, more importantly, a magnificent mother to her late brain-damaged daughter, Valerie, for 31 years. Phoebe felt that was her greatest accomplishment.”

Snow put her stamp on soul classics such as Shakey Ground, Love Makes a Woman and Mercy, Mercy Mercy.

Not long after Snow’s Poetry Man reached the Top 5 on the pop singles chart in 1975, her daughter, Valerie Rose, was born with severe brain damage, and Snow decided to care for her at home rather than place her in an institution.

Valerie, who had been born with hydrocephalus, a buildup of fluid in the brain cavity that inhibits brain development, was not expected to live more than a few years. She died in 2007 at age 31.

Over the years, Snow found time to sing on Paul Simon’s song Gone at Last and tour with him, as well as perform at the Woodstock 25th anniversary festival in 1994, as part of a soul act that included Thelma Houston, Mavis Staples and CeCe Peniston.

Snow was also recruited by Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen to participate in the New York Rock and Soul Revue, which took her, Charles Brown, Michael McDonald, Boz Scaggs and others on tour and into New York’s Beacon Theatre to record a rollicking live album in 1991.

She was born Phoebe Ann Laub to white Jewish parents in New York City in 1952, and raised in Teaneck, N.J. Though many assumed she was black, Snow never claimed African-American ancestry.

She changed her name after seeing Phoebe Snow, an advertising character for a railroad, emblazoned on trains that passed through her hometown. Snow quit college after two years to perform at Greenwich Village folk clubs.

Her first record, Phoebe Snow, came out in 1974, and showed off her songwriting chops on a selection of tunes that spanned blues, jazz and folk. Hit-bound Poetry Man took the record to No. 4 on the album charts.

After 1976’s gold-selling Second Childhood, Snow’s subsequent albums found smaller audiences. Through the 1980s and into the 1990s, Snow sang commercial jingles — for companies including Michelob, Hallmark and AT&T — and performed live here and there, including at radio host Howard Stern’s wedding to Beth Ostrosky in 2008 and for President Bill Clinton, who asked her to perform at Camp David during his presidency.

— The Associated Press