DAN'S PAPERS, May 15, 2009 Page 21 www.danshamptons.com
By Susan M. Galardi “I’m so in love with music. I will go to any length to have it in my life.” With a 30-year career of platinum and gold records, awards and industry magazine cover stories, Phoebe Snow has clearly kept music in her life, despite tough personal challenges. In her quiet, insinuating way, Snow has maintained her stature as a formidable presence in the music business. And now the jazz/blues/folk singer/songwriter with an unmistakable vocal quality that communicates irony, whimsy and knowing, is on tour with her latest CD, Phoebe Snow – Live, recorded in July 2008 at the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock, NY. Snow and her quartet of accomplished instrumentalists will bring their music to the Bay Street Theater Friday and Saturday, May 22 and 23, at 8 p.m. The CD and is a comeback of sorts for Snow, who hadn’t released an album for six years. Surprisingly, considering her impressive body of work (14 records), this is her first live recording — a venture motivated by her fans. “It was an idea floating around for a while,” she said. “I love the studio environment, but some people who see me on stage seemed to think that experience wasn’t completely translating into the recordings. So when we finally had a chance to do a live album, we went for it.” Verve released the record in October and the tour began right after. “We did tons of dates last year,” she said. “We were out all the time.” Out all the time is a good description of Snow’s early life in the music business, starting in Greenwich Village in the 1970s when she was just in her late teens. Born Phoebe Ann Laub in New York City in 1952 and raised in Teaneck, N.J., Snow grew up in a household filled with all types of music. But other than some formal piano and guitar lessons, she is primarily a self taught musician who felt the need to make music from an early age, schlepping to the Village to perform original songs in the folk clubs. The effort wasn’t always an easy one for Snow. “I had tremendous stage fright,” she said, in a relaxed and engaging interview from her home in Ft. Lee, N.J., “The shy thing was a by product of a poor self image. Getting up on stage seemed impossible. But I was good at compartmentalizing. My performing self got out there. The rest of me was trembling in the corner.” The 20-year old shrinking violet was about to be catapulted into the limelight. In 1972, playing at the Bitter End, Snow was discovered by an A/R man from Shelter Records who signed and produced her first album, Phoebe in 1974, featuring that tour de force single. Try a word association game with “Phoebe Snow,” and nine times out of ten, “Poetry Man” will be the response. That intimate, haunting song, with its winding melody that insinuates itself as it unfolds, earned Snow a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. It became a top 5 single, and the album went platinum. While touring with Jackson Brown to promote
Patraick McMullen
Who’s Here
Phoebe Snow, Singer/Songwriter
more for Natural Wonder in 2003. In March 2007, Snow lost Valerie, then 31years old. That tragedy was ultimately the motivation for Phoebe Snow – Live. “It’s a love letter to Valerie,” she said, “a spiritual offering to her.” Snow chose each song on the record in her daughter’s memory — from remakes of her originals like “You’re My Girl” and “Natural Wonder,” to covers of “All in the Game,” “With a Song in My Heart” and “Piece of my Heart.” In her matter of fact yet emotionally open style (a phrase that could also describe her singing) Snow spoke about how her special needs child took care of her. “She elevated me out of negative feelings,” she said. “She turned my world around.” An odd incident with Valerie had a profound effect on Snow’s singing. When the child was about seven, despite Snow’s dedicated efforts, she could barely crawl. “I’d put her on her mat to rest, and switch on the public television station, hoping something might stimulate her,” she said. “I left the room and when I went back in, Valerie was gone! I thought, where the hell did she go? She had inch wormed her way into her room and was sitting in front of the TV. There was a soprano on “Electric Company” singing an aria. I felt she wanted to call my attention to it — as something she responded to. So, in my mid 30s, I started studying classical singing technique.” Prior to that, Snow had never taken voice lessons, but the training is apparent in her vocals that show little wear and tear. On the new CD, the voice is rich and full — the top notes ring with a deep, resonant brilliance. “My coach calls it a chesty mix,” she said. During the interview, Snow riffed freely on topics ranging from Joni Mitchell’s smoking habit to Buddhism, her chosen spiritual path. Her thoughts segued and morphed like an improvised melody. She joked, teased. At one point, hearing a siren scream along Route 27 in Bridgehampton, she said, “Oh, now they’re coming to get me.” She discussed the current music scene, including the “American Idol” phenomenon — particularly British idol’s Susan Boyle. “That infuriated me,” she said. “What? People who look like regular people can’t be great singers?” She also talked about a question that often comes up on “Idol”: Can any singer actually ‘own’ a song. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I was thrilled when Queen Latifah did ‘Poetry Man.’ I like to share. I want people to take what I got and blow me away.” Despite some criticism of the “Idol” machine, Snow praised the show for mainstreaming lyrics. “People want to hear a killer ballad,” she said. And on the topic of the instant success “Idol” provides the chosen few, Snow was only positive. “I think people should have their dreams,” she said, “and they should dream big. I mean, why not?”
The gold-record artist, with an unmistakable vocal quality that communicates irony, whimsy and knowing, is on tour with a new CD. that CD, Snow, who’d been told repeatedly by medical professionals that she couldn’t get pregnant — was. She gave birth to her daughter, Valerie Rose, in December 1975. Most of her fans know the rest of the story. The baby, a victim of medical malpractice, was born with serious special needs. Refusing to institutionalize the girl (as was recommended), Snow dedicated her life to Valerie’s wellbeing and development. Now, in addition to music, she had a new love. While caring for her daughter, Snow released five new records in the next seven years, including Second Childhood in 1975 which went gold and was one of two albums produced by the infamous Phil Ramone. It Looks Like Snow and Never Letting Go followed. But in the ‘80s, Snow dropped from the mainstream, instead focusing on commercials and jingles before returning to the studio eight years later with Something Real in 1989. Fans waited another nine years for I Can’t Complain in 1998; five