I learned something new today. Phoebe was Jewish, not Black.
Shock!!....She must have known that’s how most people saw her. I guess it was good for business, so she just ‘let it be’.
Another great female singer/songwriter of that time who influenced black pop music was Laura Nyro. Very, very significant and influential. She did not like performing, though. Refused to tour. Most people didn’t know Laura wrote songs like Stone Soul Picnic, for the 5th Dimension.
She was Lesbian, too.
I re-discovered Laura Nyro over the winter. She has got to be the best vocalist of my lifetime. Between her songwriting, her singing and her piano playing, she was a powerhouse. Her two best albums are, “Gonna take a miracle” and “Eli’s Coming and the Thirteenth”.
“Laura Nyro was of Russian Jewish and Polish Jewish descent, with Italian ancestry from her paternal grandfather”
but her songs were often covered by black groups.