Singer Phoebe Snow Passes Away at 58

[Ocala Mike]

She died the other day after a long illness. Didn't know this about her (although I should have):

"Born Phoebe Ann Laub in New York City in 1952, the singer changed her name after seeing Phoebe Snow, a fictional advertising character for a railroad, on trains that passed through her hometown in New Jersey."


RIP.

[3rdrail]

The Lackawanna, Mike. She was a fictional advertising piece of theirs, always dressed in white to symbolize the cleanliness of the Lackawanna Railroad, due I guess to the fact that it's steam engines burned "anthracite coal". The road was called "The Anthracite Route", and Phoebe, the real-life singer, apparently liked the name. I thought that she had a very unusual voice. She can be heard regularly on radio singing her popular "Poetry Man". She was a good woman. Turned away from a very lucrative career to care for a disabled child at home. RIP. Here's Phoebe, the railroad gal in the ad below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OxTVxGhHFM

[Ocala Mike]

Yes, I knew about the DL&W's Phoebe Snow, probably as famous as Chessie the cat for the C&O. Just didn't know the story of how the singer chose that name. Agree with you about her, 3rd rail.

[edbear]

I think Ms. Snow the singer even posed with a DL & W boxcar in the background for an album photo.

[JasW]

The NY Times obit goofed a bit by writing: "Phoebe Laub took her professional name from a fictional advertising character created in the early 1900s by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, which named its flagship train the Phoebe Snow. She saw the name on boxcars as the train passed through town."

Unfortunately, the town referred to in the obit is Teaneck, where the singer grew up, and through which the Phoebe Snow obviously did not pass. Likely she saw the odd DL&W boxcar with the logo "The Route of Phoebe Snow" traveling on the West Shore (which did serve Teaneck).