Essra Mohawk
Encyclopedia
Essra Mohawk is an American
singer-songwriter
who has recorded a dozen albums, many receiving critical acclaim. Her best known songs are "Change of Heart" recorded by Cyndi Lauper
and "Stronger Than the Wind," recorded by Tina Turner
.
. Her first record, The Boy With The Way, credited to Jamie Carter, was issued on Liberty Records
in 1964. As Sandy Hurvitz, she was then discovered by Shadow Morton
, who placed her songs with both the Shangri-Las ("I'll Never Learn") and the Vanilla Fudge
("The Spell That Comes After"). While living in New York City
in 1967 she met Frank Zappa
, who persuaded her to perform for a short time with The Mothers of Invention
and then signed her to his production company Bizarre
. Her first album Sandy's Album Is Here At Last was released on Verve
/Bizarre in December 1968.
In 1969 she was signed by Reprise Records
after executive Mo Ostin
discovered her singing at a club in New York. The resulting album, Primordial Lovers
, was later stated as being "one of the best 25 albums ever made" in Rolling Stone
magazine. The album featured contributions from CSN&Y drummer Dallas Taylor
and former Rhinoceros members Doug Hastings and Jerry Penrod
. Essra nearly joined Rhinoceros in its original line up. While recording the album, she married her producer Frazier Mohawk
and from then on was known as Essra Mohawk. "Essra" (S-ra) is an abbreviated form of Sandra.
Her third, self-titled, album came out on Asylum Records
in 1974. The next album, Essra, was released on yet another label, Private Stock
, in 1976. During that period, she also worked as a session and background singer, for John Mellencamp
, Carole King
and later she performed with the Jerry Garcia
Band, and recorded and arranged background vocals for Kool & the Gang
. In 1982 after recording another album in L.A., she worked with McFadden and Whitehead in Philadelphia, penning "Not With Me" for their Capitol album, "Movin' On". She released another solo album, "E-Turn", before Cyndi Lauper
had a big hit with her song Change of Heart in 1986. Members of Generation X
may recognize her distinctive voice from the Saturday morning TV series Schoolhouse Rock!
, as she lent her voice to Interjections! and Sufferin' Till Suffrage in the mid-70's.
She has written songs for other artists including co-writing a song entitled 'Infinite Eyes' with blues artist Keb Mo as well as recording and performing in concert. She 's released 6 more albums since moving to Nashville in 1993. Essra's songs have been aired on the TV series Joan of Arcadia and the soap opera "All My Children". Rhino released a special limited edition of her second and third albums, "Primordial Lovers MM" in 2000. Essra has been a longtime advocate of peace and environmental protection. She is a member of the board of Musicians and Artists for Peace and is their Nashville coordinator.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
who has recorded a dozen albums, many receiving critical acclaim. Her best known songs are "Change of Heart" recorded by Cyndi Lauper
Cyndi Lauper
Cynthia Ann Stephanie "Cyndi" Lauper is an American singer, songwriter, actress and LGBT rights activist. She achieved success in the mid-1980s with the release of the album She's So Unusual and became the first female singer to have four top-five singles released from one album...
and "Stronger Than the Wind," recorded by Tina Turner
Tina Turner
Tina Turner is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years. She has won numerous awards and her achievements in the rock music genre have led many to call her the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll".Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the...
.
Biography
Mohawk was born in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
. Her first record, The Boy With The Way, credited to Jamie Carter, was issued on Liberty Records
Liberty Records
Liberty Records was a United States-based record label. It was started by chairman Simon Waronker in 1955 with Al Bennett as president and Theodore Keep as chief engineer. It was reactivated in 2001 in the United Kingdom and had two previous revivals.-1950s:...
in 1964. As Sandy Hurvitz, she was then discovered by Shadow Morton
Shadow Morton
George 'Shadow' Morton is an American record producer and songwriter best known for his influential work in the 1960s and the introduction of girl group The Shangri-Las to the pop music world....
, who placed her songs with both the Shangri-Las ("I'll Never Learn") and the Vanilla Fudge
Vanilla Fudge
Vanilla Fudge is an American rock band. The band's original lineup – vocalist/organist Mark Stein, bassist/vocalist Tim Bogert, lead guitarist/vocalist Vince Martell, and drummer/vocalist Carmine Appice – recorded five albums during the years 1966–69, before disbanding in 1970...
("The Spell That Comes After"). While living in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1967 she met Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
, who persuaded her to perform for a short time with The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention were an American band active from 1964 to 1969, and again from 1970 to 1975.They mainly performed works by, and were the original recording group of, US composer and guitarist Frank Zappa , although other members have had the occasional writing credit...
and then signed her to his production company Bizarre
Bizarre Records
Bizarre Records was a record label formed for artists discovered by rock musician Frank Zappa and his business partner/manager Herb Cohen.Bizarre was originally formed as a production company...
. Her first album Sandy's Album Is Here At Last was released on Verve
Verve Records
Verve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...
/Bizarre in December 1968.
In 1969 she was signed by Reprise Records
Reprise Records
Reprise Records is an American record label, founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and operated through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:...
after executive Mo Ostin
Mo Ostin
Mo Ostin is a record executive who has worked for several companies, including Verve, Reprise Records, Warner Bros. Records, and DreamWorks. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003 by Paul Simon, Neil Young, and Lorne Michaels...
discovered her singing at a club in New York. The resulting album, Primordial Lovers
Primordial Lovers
Primordial Lovers, Reprise 6377, is a 1970 rock album by Essra Mohawk. In 1977 Primordial Lovers was listed as one of the "25 All Time Best Albums" by Rolling Stone Magazine...
, was later stated as being "one of the best 25 albums ever made" in Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine. The album featured contributions from CSN&Y drummer Dallas Taylor
Dallas Taylor (drummer)
Dallas Woodrow Taylor Jr. was born in Denver, Colorado, 7 April 1948. He is a session drummer who has played on several rock records of the 1960s and 1970s...
and former Rhinoceros members Doug Hastings and Jerry Penrod
Jerry Penrod
Jerry "The Bear" Penrod is a bass player. He was a member of Iron Butterfly and Rhinoceros. In addition to playing bass with Iron Butterfly, he contributed one of the lead vocals on their song "Look for the Sun".- References :...
. Essra nearly joined Rhinoceros in its original line up. While recording the album, she married her producer Frazier Mohawk
Frazier Mohawk
Frazier Mohawk is an American record producer and sometime photographer, publicist, circus owner and farmer....
and from then on was known as Essra Mohawk. "Essra" (S-ra) is an abbreviated form of Sandra.
Her third, self-titled, album came out on Asylum Records
Asylum Records
Asylum Records is an American record label founded in 1971 by David Geffen, and partner Elliot Roberts, who had previously worked as agents at the William Morris Agency. Founded specifically to provide a record contract for Jackson Browne, the label signed Tom Waits, Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell...
in 1974. The next album, Essra, was released on yet another label, Private Stock
Private Stock Records
Private Stock Records was a record label which was started in 1974 by Larry Uttal after he was ousted from Bell Records. The label had hit records with singles by David Soul of Starsky and Hutch fame , Starbuck , Austin Roberts , Samantha Sang , Walter Murphy and the Big Apple Band , and Frankie...
, in 1976. During that period, she also worked as a session and background singer, for John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp
John Mellencamp, previously known by the stage names Johnny Cougar, John Cougar, and John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American rock singer-songwriter, musician, painter and occasional actor known for his catchy, populist brand of heartland rock that eschews synthesizers and other artificial sounds...
, Carole King
Carole King
Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...
and later she performed with the Jerry Garcia
Jerry Garcia
Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia was an American musician best known for his lead guitar work, singing and songwriting with the band the Grateful Dead...
Band, and recorded and arranged background vocals for Kool & the Gang
Kool & the Gang
Kool & the Gang are an American jazz, R&B, soul, and funk group, originally formed as the Jazziacs in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1964.They went through several musical phases during the course of their recording career, starting out with a purist jazz sound, then becoming practitioners of R&B and...
. In 1982 after recording another album in L.A., she worked with McFadden and Whitehead in Philadelphia, penning "Not With Me" for their Capitol album, "Movin' On". She released another solo album, "E-Turn", before Cyndi Lauper
Cyndi Lauper
Cynthia Ann Stephanie "Cyndi" Lauper is an American singer, songwriter, actress and LGBT rights activist. She achieved success in the mid-1980s with the release of the album She's So Unusual and became the first female singer to have four top-five singles released from one album...
had a big hit with her song Change of Heart in 1986. Members of Generation X
Generation X
Generation X, commonly abbreviated to Gen X, is the generation born after the Western post–World War II baby boom ended. While there is no universally agreed upon time frame, the term generally includes people born from the early 1960's through the early 1980's, usually no later than 1981 or...
may recognize her distinctive voice from the Saturday morning TV series Schoolhouse Rock!
Schoolhouse Rock!
Schoolhouse Rock! is an American interstitial programming series of animated musical educational short films that aired during the Saturday morning children's programming on the U.S. television network ABC. The topics covered included grammar, science, economics, history, mathematics, and civics...
, as she lent her voice to Interjections! and Sufferin' Till Suffrage in the mid-70's.
She has written songs for other artists including co-writing a song entitled 'Infinite Eyes' with blues artist Keb Mo as well as recording and performing in concert. She 's released 6 more albums since moving to Nashville in 1993. Essra's songs have been aired on the TV series Joan of Arcadia and the soap opera "All My Children". Rhino released a special limited edition of her second and third albums, "Primordial Lovers MM" in 2000. Essra has been a longtime advocate of peace and environmental protection. She is a member of the board of Musicians and Artists for Peace and is their Nashville coordinator.
Studio albums
- 1968 Sandy’s Album is Here at Last (as Sandy Hurvitz)
- 1970 Primordial LoversPrimordial LoversPrimordial Lovers, Reprise 6377, is a 1970 rock album by Essra Mohawk. In 1977 Primordial Lovers was listed as one of the "25 All Time Best Albums" by Rolling Stone Magazine...
- 1974 Essra Mohawk
- 1976 Essra
- 1982 Burnin’ Shinnin’ (released unbeknownst to artist)
- 1985 E-Turn
- 1995 Raindance
- 1999 Essie Mae Hawk Meets the KillerGrooveBand
- 2003 You’re Not Alone
- 2006 Love is Still The Answer
- 2007 Revelations of the Secret Diva
Compilations
- 2005 "Mama Kangaroos: Philly Women Sing Captain Beefheart". Performs "Party of Special Things To Do," backed by the Philadelphia band EDO.