That Was YOU Singing? 15 White Singers We Once Thought Were Black: Part II

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Phoebe Snow

When Phoebe Snow passed in 2011 at the age of 60, NPR had this to say (and a lot more) about her life:

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.

On the cover, she was baby-faced and big, with a crop of curls. Some people couldn’t tell if she was black or white. Her parents were Jewish music lovers who made sure she could play piano and guitar. But Snow’s four-octave voice could handle anything. She recorded 16 albums.

Snow, whose voice could be heard singing the theme to the first season of “A Different World,” was reportedly born to white Jewish parents, but her voice and her look had many of us thinking she was black. Either way, her voice, and her music (“Poetry Man” is everything) were loved by many–of all backgrounds.

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