Looks like snow

COURTESY PHOTO Phoebe Snow plays The Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Naples Thursday, Dec. 11, at 8 p.m. Is there any other voice on the planet quite like Phoebe Snow's?

The woman can growl rougher than a menacing dog, tenderly caress a lyric like a lover, and skip octaves as easy as a stone skimming a lake.

She sings jazz, folk, rock, gospel, standards and Broadway classics: everything and anything, in that idiosyncratic, amazing voice of hers.

"I can't imagine just staying with one style of music," she says. "It'd be like only eating one kind of food, like I'm going to eat Mexican food for the rest of my life… How could you not want to go outside of one category, or one format, and explore other things?"

On Dec. 11, Ms. Snow brings her diverse set list and genre-defying voice to the Philharmonic Center for the Arts in Naples.

And to whet your appetite, she's just released a new CD, "Phoebe Snow Live," on Verve. Although it's traditionally a jazz label, she says about Verve, "They're opening up to more formats. They made it clear to me, because I said, 'I know there's a perception among some people that I'm a jazz singer, but I'm not at all. That's like saying I just do jazz,'" she says. "I said, 'I'm not going to make a jazz album, OK?' And the guy who signed me said, 'We're not a jazz label. It's a misperception.'"

So the not-only-jazz singer recorded a live album for the not-only-jazz label.

And everyone was happy.

Especially Ms. Snow's fans, who have been asking for a live album for years. "I think it's because something happens in my live shows that was never really captured on a studio disk," she says.

Not only does this CD capture the vitality and high energy of her performances, but it also captures Ms. Snow's introductions. They're not quite as long as Isaac Hayes's classic monologues, but they give a nod to them. "I do this whole talking-to-theaudience stuff," she says. "And there's no place for that on a studio album."

The CD includes Ms. Snow's selfpenned "Poetry Man" and "Something Real," covers of "Piece of My Heart" and "Rockin' Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu," as well as a doo-wop version of "It's All in the Game."

Her wide love of all music developed during her childhood, because her parents listened to everything. "We were exposed to Broadway, Dixieland, Delta blues, Chicago blues, folk," she says, adding, "I brought rock 'n' roll in; my father was not pleased about that, but he just had to accept it, I guess." Because her mother was a dancer and choreographer, she says, there was "tons of classical music" around. "I got turned on to so many great classical composers. I really didn't understand it; I just knew it was part of my life."

Ms. Snow hit the national scene with her eponymous album in 1974. From that, "Poetry Man," became a No. 5 hit single and has since been covered by artists such as Zap Mama and, more recently, Queen Latifah.

Ms. Snow was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Artist, wound up on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, was a musical guest on "Saturday Night Live" multiple times, performed with Paul Simon and the Jessy Dixon Singers on the gospelflavored "Gone at Last," and toured with Donald Fagen's New York Rock and Soul Revue, along with Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs.

Time out

When her daughter Valerie was born in 1975 with severe brain injuries, Ms. Snow put her career on hold. Refusing to put her daughter in an institution, she kept her at home and was her primary caregiver.

When Valerie died in March 2007 at age 31, her mother turned to music to help with the grief. "Oh, it couldn't be anything but therapeutic," she says. "She was my child. She was my friend… my everything."

Oddly, Ms. Snow found comfort in the Disney Channel's Hannah Montana shows. "The last thing I thought would ever draw my attention would be… this gorgeous little girl who's precocious and talented and smart and a wise guy," she says. But she couldn't stop watching. "It was a lifeline," she says. She watched the show every day, reruns included.

Then someone introduced her to Steve Peterman, the show's executive producer, who invited her to a taping. Ms. Snow wound up as a special guest with a line of dialogue. (Ms. Snow refuses to divulge the line. "It's a surprise!" she says.)

"It was a like a gigantic, nurturing, extended family," she says about the Hannah Montana cast and crew. "Most of the people didn't know my circumstances, and certainly the kids had never heard of me before," she says. "I was beyond grateful, because I was surrounded by really talented kids. And I don't think they will ever understand how much I needed it."

Ms. Snow says the tenets of Buddhism, which she embraced in 2002, have also helped her cope with the loss of her daughter. Buddhist teachings about death "and the integral part, the circuitous, endless continuum of birth/death, birth/death" have helped her survive. "It's been very critical. It's like the universe knew I was going to need something."

What fans talk about

In addition to her four-octave range, fans often comment on Ms. Snow's ethnicity. "No one can figure out my ethnicity," she says. "I've been asked… speculated about. I'll be what you want me to be. I'm a racial chameleon."

The truth?

She has no idea. "On my father's side there was all this strange, unusual exotic-looking stuff, and I don't know what it was. He didn't want to talk about it. So there you go. You've got an ethnic mystery here."

She recalls a time when she was just starting out, working the clubs. She thinks it was her first paying gig, opening for the Edwin Hawkins Singers at the Bitter End, who had a hit with "Oh Happy Day."

"I just wanted to be near them. I didn't care about the gig even," she says.

In the small club, performers leaving the stage had to pass a section of the audience sitting at small tables. "I had just finished my set, and this young black woman grabs me… I was sincerely frightened. She's looking at me and looking at her friends, and in her best Ebonics she says, 'Oh, she is!'

"And the other one goes, 'No she's not.' I knew exactly what they were talking about. They're holding me by the shirt, and I said, 'Can I go?'

"'No, not 'til we're finished.' The first girl goes, 'Oh, yes she is!' And the other one goes, 'No, she's NOT.' And the third one, who hadn't spoken up to this point, goes, 'Why do you care?'

"And I kind of quietly nodded my head like, 'Yeah, listen to your friend over there. Like: who cares?'

"I don't know what you derive from that today. Because of course we care. People are very passionate about their heritage and their ethnicity. But it's a good point."

But this has been her history. When she's with someone who's Puerto Rican, they think she's Puerto Rican. When she's with someone who's racially diverse, they think she's racially diverse. When she's with someone Sicillan, they think she's Sicilian. When she's with someone Jewish, they think she's Jewish.

"They see themselves reflected in some part of me," she says. "And it's very subjective."

Which, if you think about it, is what every performer aims for: to connect with all people, to have the audience identify with them and see themselves reflected in the person and her art.

if you go

>>When: 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 11

>>Where: The Philharmonic Center for the Arts, 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd., Naples

>>Cost: $42

>>Information: Call 597-1900 or go to www. thephil.org