I always thought Phoebe Snow was black

I did, too. I saw a pic of her ages ago, though and found out she wasn't. I used to think Dr. John was black, too.

Same here. Her music came out when I was a kid and I thought she was black. I saw a pic of her many years later and was surprised to see she was not.

Also, this reminds me of a joke from the 70s:

What do you call a fear of bad singing?

Phoebesnowbia.

"PHOEBE Snow is so often mistaken for African-American, she’s decided to get to the bottom of her ethnic roots. “I’m going to take a DNA test,” Snow, a Jew whose real name is Phoebe Ann Laub, told Page Six. Her decision comes after New Jersey’s (201) magazine feted the singer as one of Bergen County’s “black music-industry greats” along with Stevie Wonder, George Benson, Ben E. King, the Isley Brothers and Diddy. “I was peeing in my pants laughing. I was like, this is fantastic, to be in such great company,” said Snow, who had a smash hit with “Poetry Man” in 1974. “Believe me, people have been asking me about this since I started in the recording industry. My mom was the whitest, alabaster-skinned person you can imagine, but who knows what went on four generations ago? "

God, she had an amazing voice. She should have been way bigger than she was.

I didn't know this until just now and I've seen her in pictures and interviews.

I remember her from (I think) the Jerry Lewis Labor Day telethon. Did they stop that because he died? Was that for muscular dystrophy or multiple sclerosis? I don't *think* it was for cerebral palsy, but I'm not completely ruling it out. Chita Rivera and Lola Falana, I only knew them from the telethon but apparently they were famous.

At the height of her fame, she gave birth to a daughter who was severely mentally and physically handicapped. She didn't want to institutionalize her daughter, and cared for her at home. That put a strain on her career and was why she wasn't bigger. Tremendous talent.

She was white?

Her husband was gay.

The original Phoebe Snow didn’t exist. She was a character in the advertising of the Lackawanna railroad which used a hard, cleaner-burning coal to fire the boilers of their locomotives, resulting in less smoke and cinders for the passengers in the coaches behind the locomotive. Hence the slogan:

“Phoebe Snow, dressed in white, rides the rails of anthracite.”

She was white-adjacent.

And then white singers like Carly Simon and Steven Tyler are found to be part black.

I thought Victoria Newman was black.

Phoebe looks white to me...

R3 And what was the result of the DNA test?

Me too. Although she looks like Jewish women I know.

I think it was the jew-fro... she kind of looked like Angela Davis back in the day.

Now, what about Tom Jones, Janis Ian and Carol Channing?

Why can I only find the audio?

She ain't black!

r19, they also sang the Shoop Shoop song on SNL. NBC and/or the music publisher probably demanded it be removed. The Shoop Shoop clip used to be around. Linda does not dance well in it.

Here it is!

She is Ashkenazi, and because Ashkenazi are a creole mix of people from the middle east and Europeans, many do not look “white”. She has dark skin and curly hair, which is a feature common in people of the middle east.

I'm still not convinced she wasn't black. How sad she cared for her daughter who died at 31 and she lasted only a few more years.

The white person attempt at a 'fro was a deal. I graduated HS in 1968... my hair got shaggy and I found I could "tease it" into a Bob Dylanish fro. Cool. The girls thought it was so hot (though I still was deeply in crush with that Mexican boy with the black hair and milk-white skin...)

No, this is not me, but it is evidence of the zeitgeist's hair goals...

Who cares what color she was?

R26, because EVERYTHING is about race.

I think she had a good sense of humor about it and had a beautiful voice. I was lucky enough to see her at the Lone Star Road House in the early 90s and had forgotten about it until this thread. Now I can’t remember who else was performing that night.

Poetry Man is an exquisite song, just beautiful.

She was so dowdilyly dressed and always had the worst haircuts and (photo-grey) eyeglasses.

It's like she went to a stylist and said, "Make me look as much like Dory Previn as possible!"

Phoebe Snow, an amazing voice. Back when people could sing. No auto-tune, nothing digital, just genuine musical talent.

She never claimed to be a glamour gal, r29.

Was she related to Chrissie Snow?

I thought the bitch was WHITE!!!

I had a friend who insisted Chaka Khan was white.

I always thought she was Aaron Neville.

Her version of “There’s a train leaving soon for New York” is lovely.

Karyn White is Black and Karen Black was White.

Clearly, R36 never saw Porgy and Bess...or did but didn't listened to the lyrics

FETISH doll! Damn autocorrect!

Though a fetus doll would be kind of interesting.

Haha actually saw it with Audra McDonald just too drunk to check the title.

This was the song that I first heard of her...

I thought she was like Norah Jones but with more talent.

I thought the bitch was white!

^^^^ Oh shit I was already beat to that response, oops

Having only seen her in a shadowy picture in a book, I always thought Katharine Ross was black. My mom found that quite funny when I mentioned it.

I can’t heat a microwave meal without thinking of her 😢.

It sucks that that's how she had to make a living.