It probably wasn't intentional, but Phoebe Snow's opening song at Tampa Theatre on Wednesday night, "Standing On Shaky Ground," was acutely autobiographical. She turned in a spirited, funky rendition of the tune, but the subtext was that Snow, in fact, is standing on shaky ground, and she's not doing anything to conceal it.
This coming Saturday, her daughter Valerie would've turned 33. But Valerie died of a sudden brain hemorrhage last March. This was Snow's only child, who was born severely brain-injured and never was able to speak. Two people were never more in love, and Snow has not hidden her pain and desperation.
This article appears in Dec 10-16, 2008.