Posted: Sep 11, 08 5:33am
"The Poetry Man" by Phoebe Snow
I had just bought her new album, put it on the turntable and listened to that album over and over again on a rainy day living out at the 'farm'. The farm was a small old house in front of a lake where I lived with my best friend from high school, AnnaBeth. Her daddy owned the farm and all of the land around it. We had horses in the backyard, rode them bare back, We didn't have a refrigerator, we used an Igloo ice chest to cool our drinks. Our main staple food was Sara Lee's frozen frosted brownies in the silver foil pan, just thaw and eat. They stopped making them, why? All of our friends wanted to come and visit us at the farm. We were 18 and living out in the country by ourselves. The phone was a party line to AnnaBeth's parents home phone. It was 1974, I was a hippie living on a farm by a lake. We threw the best and wildest parties back then. Everybody came, Guy, Birdman, Ron, David, all the coolest guys and all of the prettiest girls. What a great time we had. We were so young. She broke her bottle of 'Jungle Gardenia' perfume in my Chevy and it smelled of gardenias till I sold that car. I had a full time job, she worked nights at Shoney's grill in the Mall. I had to go pick her up after midnight and I'd go in my nightgown and slippers. No one was watching. What did it matter? I got to see Phoebe Snow live at a small music hall in Overton Square. I was only a few feet from her. I wanted to reach out and just touch her. She was a big part of my life with the words in her songs and the slow, bluesy tone of her voice. I still have all of her albums. And now all of her CDs...except for her new one, she has come out of retirement since her daughter Valerie Rose died and she is touring again. I have to go see her sing again. She's not coming to Memphis, I'll have to go wherever she goes. To this day, I still know all of the words to all of her songs. I had a Poetry Man. "You make things alright, yeah, yeah". I can't wait to see her again! Peace, Kash
