By
Richie Unterberger
In some
ways, Essra Mohawk's debut album was not representative of the talents
that would launch her to a career as a singer-songwriter that's still
going strong more than forty years later. For one thing, it wasn't
originally issued under the name of Essra Mohawk. Instead it was
credited to the previous name under which she billed herself, Sandy
Hurvitz. (Actually her name at that point was Essra Hurvitz. "Essra"
evolved from the nickname "Essie" that was given to her by
then-roommate Monica Boscia, the receptionist at Apostolic Studio where
this album and all of Frank Zappa's projects at the time were
recorded.) In addition, differing views regarding the production meant
that the end result was not what Essra had intended. Nonetheless, it
did introduce the first material by a unique singer-songwriter to reach
the marketplace in an LP format. Its unfinished state, as Essra says
today, yields music "for people who want to hear things raw."
Mohawk began her
songwriting and recording career as a teenager in the mid-1960s,
issuing a single on Liberty at the age of sixteen. She also wrote "I'll
Never Learn," which appeared on a 1966 Shangri-Las single, and "The
Spell That Comes After," recorded by the Vanilla Fudge for their Renaissance album. The album Sandy's Album Is Here At Last! came
about through her association with the Mothers of Invention,
particularly their leader, Frank Zappa.
"Some girls from L.A. stopped in Philly to see Cal
[Schenkel]," explains Essra today. "They were friends of Cal's, who I
later introduced to Frank to become Frank's graphic artist. [Cal and I]
met at Philadelphia College of Art. Anyway, they invited me to come
along with them to New York City. As [the girls and I] were walking
down Bleecker Street [in the Village], we spotted Frank coming our way.
He was heading to the Garrick Theater to play. The girls yelled out the
name of their hangouts in L.A., so he let us all in for free. I was, as
he later called me, the strange little person from Philadelphia who
just happened to be with them along for the ride.
"The Mothers and I started hanging out, and it
wasn't long before [Mothers keyboardist] Don Preston wasn't feeling
well one day, and Frank had a new keyboard set up on the stage at the
Garrick Theater. He didn't play keyboards, and knew I did, so he asked
me if I would play it for him. I got up there and the only thing I knew
how to play was my own songs, which I began to play, and naturally I
sang along. He grabbed a microphone and stuck it in front of me,
stepped back into the theater, listened some more. I finished singing
my song, and he said, 'step into my office,' which was really just a
couple rows back, sitting in the theater," she chuckles. "We sat down
in the chairs, and he said, 'How would you like to be a Mother?' And I
said, 'Sure.'"
Essra performed with the Mothers at the
Garrick "and in a short amount of time, Frank had me sign to his
production company, Bizarre, and wanted to produce an album. I was the
first artist he signed; the first person he wanted to record besides
himself." "Archgodliness of Purpleful Magic" was recorded first,
“because that's the song we performed every night at the Garrick. Frank
only did two songs that he didn't write. One was mine, and the other
was Don Preston's 'Epistle to Thomas.'"
It soon became apparent, however, that Mohawk and
Zappa had different visions of how the studio recordings should
proceed. "The original plan was for me to do an album with the Mothers
backing me up," she remembers. "Day one, after tracking that first
song, I simply made a suggestion about the drums to Frank. I said that
the way Billy Mundi played in the rideout was really great, really
cookin'. Frank used to write out everything, so you didn't have a
natural feel that the song needed throughout the song until the end.
Then where the chart ended, Billy played his ass off. So I asked, very
respectfully, 'Gee, why wait until the end of the song for it to cook?
Can't Billy play more like that from the top?' And [Frank] replied,
'Well, who's producing the album, anyway?' He had a way of saying
things that went right through you like an arrow. I just felt
humiliated and left."
Continues Essra, "So this album was, 'Oh, you want
things natural?' They did this whole bare-bones thing, and it's not
what I wanted at all." While the LP's production and arranging duties
are credited to Mothers of Invention multi-instrumentalist Ian
Underwood, in Mohawk's view, "he totally wasted the studio time. He
didn't arrange anything or produce anything. He really was an
anti-producer, anti-arranger. He would waste the whole day putting on
horn parts and erasing them. There's not a single horn part on there of
his, but that's what he spent most of the time doing. And he didn't
know anything about production. Once after recording an incredible
vocal performance, I left the control room for only a moment and when I
came back, Ian had erased it for no good reason. It's like it wasn't my
album. It was really raw. It's just something that Frank did to me,
putting him in charge of the project."
Emphasizes Essra, "I ran into [Underwood] years
later, and I forgave him. He was just following orders to basically
obstruct my art. So he was taken aback that I was nice and forgiving.
But nevertheless, that doesn't change the facts of what did take
place." One result of the situation was that just a few of the tracks
had backing musicians, though as Mohawk points out, "they were all
supposed to have other musicians. The ones that don't, it's because it
was left unfinished. I came into the studio to work one day, and
everyone was gone. [They'd] left for Europe, and I was told it was
over. No one even told me that they were just gonna stop." The majority
of the tracks feature just Essra and her own piano accompaniment,
capturing how she performed the songs in concert at the age of nineteen.
Although the circumstances in which Sandy's Album Is Here At Last! was
made weren't optimal, Essra maintains affection for the songs and some
of the musicians involved with the recording. "My favorite is 'You'll
Dance Alone.' I’d like to pitch that song to Faith Hill. 'Tree of
Trees' is an important song because it honors nature." It also reflects
the influence of tenor saxophonist Jim Pepper who plays on "I Know the
Sun." Pepper was a member of pioneering '60s jazz-rock band the Free
Spirits (which featured guitarist Larry Coryell), and according to
Essra, "Pepper was the one good thing Ian brought into this album."
Several other musicians—flute player Jeremy Steig
(of Jeremy & the Satyrs), Eddie Gomez (bassist for jazz piano great
Bill Evans), and drummer Donald McDonald—join Essra on "Three Hawks,"
"Many Different Things," and "Love Is What I Found." For the last of
those tracks, Mohawk "pan-potted an effect in and out for that bridge
section. It's kind of like an otherworldly effect. I know what I wanted
and I got it. I believe they lost the masters and had to recreate it at
one point, and didn't get it quite as good as I had it. They acted all
amazed that I was able to do that. I don't know why it was such a big
deal. You're fading something in and out, and how hard can that be if
you have ears?"
Frank Zappa's favorite track, incidentally, was
"Woman"; as to elaboration upon this and other aspects of her colorful
career, "all will be revealed in my forthcoming book that I've been
writing." This edition of the CD also includes a bonus track, "Life Is
Scarlet," which, at the start, was intended to be contained on the
album. Oddly, the original LP release printed the lyrics on the back,
though the track itself somehow escaped inclusion on the record.
Essra did have input into Cal Schenkel's cover art,
as it was her idea to put a picture of someone in the television
announcing the album's title, "and Frank put his photo there. I came up
with the title, but then my name changed to Essra. I asked them to
change it to Essra, and they said it was too late. They had already
started the packaging. I don't think they thought it was going to
last." More than 40 years later, her name's still Essra: "My name
lasted longer than poor Frank! It's still going strong, and he's gone,
sadly. I wish he wasn't. Ultimately Frank and I ended up on good terms.
He called me on occasion and a few years before he died [when] I saw
him last, we had a good hug, and all was good."
Victim to poor promotion as many of the LPs
distributed by Verve were at the time, Sandy's Album Is Here At Last! was
not so much released as slipped out by the label around early 1969,
according to Essra. It was as Essra Mohawk that the singer-songwriter
would record her next LP, Primordial
Lovers, a story continued in the liner notes to Collectors'
Choice Music's CD reissue of that album. – Richie Unterberger
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