Poetry Woman

Jeff Cohen

Everyone who has come into even casual contact with me knows, especially after this weekend, that I hate snow. But I'll make one exception.

According to her web site, the brilliant singer/songwriter Phoebe Snow has suffered a brain aneurism and required emergency surgery. While the latest word is that she's out of ICU and improving, it's still worrisome to see her go through this now.

I have a long history with Phoebe Snow. She wouldn't remember, even in the best of health, but I do.

Snow, for those of you who are under the age of 50 (and I know who both of you are), is best known for her hit "Poetry Man," a song about an affair the then very-young Phoebe Laub had with a married man. The song was inescapable for a while in the mid-70s, never my favorite of hers, but showed off some killer acoustic guitar playing, a real talent for lyrics and a voice--it's hard to describe Phoebe Snow's voice.

Suffice it to say she could sing dental records and you'd want to hear it.

As a college arts reporter at the time (thank you, Rutgers Daily Targum!), I became aware of Snow more when she duetted with Paul Simon on "Gone At Last" and even in a supporting role, blew the star out of the water. Naturally, any review copies of her Columbia Records albums--Second Childhood (with her amazing version of "No Regrets"), It Looks Like Snow, Never Letting Go, and so on--that came into the Targum office were officially my property thereafter. I had, after all, become the arts editor by then.

When she played Avery Fisher Hall in 1977, I wrangled tickets to write a review, and invited a lovely girl I'd had my eye on (which meant I fumphered and sweated a lot whenever she was around and tried to find a way to ask her out), who agreed, to my amazement. I figured it must have been the great seats.

Snow was amazing. She has a range anywhere from four to 168 octaves, and uses all of it. She can rock out when she wants to, she can whisper, she can growl, and she can make you laugh or cry. She can sing the blues, or rock and roll, or show tunes, or swing standards, or folky compositions of her own, and make it all seem natural. And she did it all that night in the grandest of settings. For a suburban New Jersey girl from Teaneck, working that stage must have been some kind of experience.

For me, it got even more amazing when the concert was over and one of the Columbia Records publicists in our section, who knew I was from the college press, looked over and said, "want to go backstage?"

Yeah. We wanted to go backstage.

When I got to the place in the receiving line where the star of the show was seated, clearly spent after a long and energetic show, I introduced myself and said I was from the Targum, and mentioned that she'd sent a handwritten note (which I still have around here someplace) after reading my review of her previous album. And the star of the show stood up and gave me a hug. 

That's how to impress on a first date, gentlemen. Take note. That girl and I dated for over a year, and she was truly my first girlfriend. Thirty years later, she is now in a position of unspeakable power (that's a slight exaggeration), and I'm very glad she has it, and not someone else.

A number of years later, when I was married and Phoebe Snow had fallen off the charts (and off the grid, some said, as she cared for her daughter Valerie Rose, born with a severe brain injury), I heard she was planning a new album, and as a canny freelance journalist (hah!) pitched the idea of a comeback article to a number of publications. The one that bit was New Jersey Monthly, and I was tasked with the problem of finding Phoebe Snow, who was not working with an agent, a manager, a publicist, or a record company at the time. 

Through back channels, I managed to get a message through, I thought--there was no way to be sure. Until one afternoon, when Jessica and I were getting ready to go out, and the phone rang.

"Hi," the voice said, in a single octave. "This is Phoebe Snow. I hear you've been looking for me."

After a bit of explanation (the whole NJ Monthly thing is another story, and perhaps one day we'll talk about it when nobody else is listening), she agreed to do the interview. Right now. 

So Jessica went wherever we were going, I got out a fresh blank cassette (which I still have around here someplace), and for an hour and a half, I asked questions, Phoebe answered, and then Phoebe asked questions--she said that I "sound like an intelligent guy," and wanted to know something about Atlas Shrugged that I pretended badly to understand--and I made believe I could answer. She was delightful. She didn't laugh at me.

Suffice it to say Phoebe Snow is very high on my list of favorite celebrities. I was very sad to hear of the death of her daughter in 2007, at the age of 31, and I am sad now to hear of her medical problems. 

She never had the career she deserved, although she's said in interviews that she preferred being with her daughter. And now, as she prepared a new album and started booking a tour, she's hit a snag again.

But she'll come back. Phoebe Snow always comes back.

My best wishes for a quick, complete recovery, Phoebe. You deserve it more than most.

LP Conversion Project Update: This week started with Fleetwood Mac's two-disc "Tusk," and you know why it's called that? It's as heavy as a wooly mammoth! For the one or two entertaining songs found here, you have to slog through tons of pretentious crap that should have been put out as a Fleetwood Mac outtake collection. Strikingly, the follow-up (a number of years later) "Tango In the Night" isn't bad.

Moved on then to John Fogerty's "Centerfield," a classic in its own right. Is this guy every going to get old? He still looks and sounds like he just stepped off a Creedence Clearwater Revival album from 1969. And even though he keeps recycling the same three tunes, he finds a way to make them interesting each time.

Two Michael Franks albums followed, then two Stan Freberg records: the brilliant, unmatched "United States of America Part 1," and the obvious, far-too-often matched "Freberg Underground." If you have not heard "USA," you absolutely must--it's genius. If you haven't heard "Underground," well, keep going for the no-hitter.

A quick stop at Glenn Frey, then a slog through Art Garfunkel, with only occasional highlights. Art puts about one catchy tune on each album, and then shows off his angelic voice with syrupy slop the rest of the time. There's a greatest hits collection of sorts, but it really doesn't have his best work as a solo artist--the best thing to do is go on iTunes and pick and choose.

Two Genesis (the Phil Collins years) albums later--not as dated as I'd feared--we're now about midway through Steve Goodman, the doomed Chicago troubadour. Can you tell which ones are my wife's albums? Coming up this week: Billie Holliday.

Comments

[Terri P]

She sounds wonderful! And now I have music to seek out!

[Abby Zidle]

I love that Freberg album! I listened to it over and over as a child, even though I didn't get all the jokes. (Fortunately, as a child of the Boston school system, we covered our Revolutionary War history early and often.) I will still occasionally chant "Rumble rumble rumble. Mutiny munity mutiny" in contentious moments--which probably just makes me look like a crazy person, now that I think about it. But thanks for jogging my memory...

[Jeff Cohen]

Abby, whenever someone points at something and asks, "What is that?" my first impulse is to say, "French horns."

[Jeff Cohen]

I highly recommend the debut album "Phoebe Snow," and "Second Childhood," "It Looks Like Snow" and "Never Letting Go." But they're all good. "Something Real" is another good pick. Go for it, Terri!

[Leann Sweeney]

Jeff, I nominated you and your fellow bloggers for Lesa Holstine's Bold Faced Liar ... er no, "Creative Writer" Award. Check out the Cozy Chicks blog www.cozychicksblog.com for details on how to participate and see our lie and truths.

[sildenafil]

excellent grouping has remained for decades because of its great original music with a touch that only the CRC could give, thanks for the excellent blog topic and always live rock ...!!