Phoebe Snow, ‘Poetry Man’ Singer Has Died–”LISTEN”

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2011/04/26/135738529/phoebe-snow-poetry-man-singer-has-died

Phoebe Snow had one of the most distinctive voices in pop music. It went silent Tuesday morning, more than a year after Snow suffered a brain hemorrhage. She was 60.

Snow was born Phoebe Ann Laub. She actually thought she’d never be a singer because she was so shy. She told NPR in 1998 that she’d made up a name for the hammy part of herself — the part unafraid to get up on stage in Greenwich Village coffeehouses.

Snow was 22 when “Poetry Man” reached the Top 10 in 1975. The song sounded like nothing else on the radio. It was refreshing and unusual to see someone embraced on the strength of her voice and songwriting alone, and not her looks. She was not the prefab concoction we’ve come to know as a pop princess, yet Snow soon graced the cover of Rolling Stone.