Essra Mohawk, Singer-Songwriter With Ties to Zappa, Garcia, Lauper, Tina and ‘Schoolhouse Rock,’ Dies

Essra Mohawk (Photo © Henry Diltz; used with permission)

Essra Mohawk, a singer-songwriter whose compositions were covered by everyone from the Shangri-Las and the Vanilla Fudge to Cyndi Lauper and Tina Turner, died today (Dec. 11, 2023), of as-yet-unreported causes. The place of death was not disclosed either. Her death was announced by associates, including her biographer, on her Facebook page. Mohawk was 75 and had been in hospice care for some time.

Mohawk’s wide-ranging career found her collaborating with Frank Zappa and Jerry Garcia, providing song material for the Schoolhouse Rock children’s TV series, and recording a dozen solo albums between the late ’60s and the 2010s.

Born Sandra Elayne Hurvitz on April 23, 1948, in Philadelphia, Mohawk made her first single, “The Boy With the Way,” for Liberty Records in 1964, under the name Jamie Carter. Working subsequently with producer George “Shadow” Morton, she placed songs with the Shangri-Las (“I’ll Never Learn”) and the Vanilla Fudge (“The Spell That Comes After”).

After striking up a relationship with Frank Zappa in 1967, Hurvitz began collaborating with him the following year. She recorded her debut LP, titled Sandy’s Album is Here at Last, which was released on Zappa’s Bizarre Records label and produced by Ian Underwood, a member of the Mothers of Invention. She also sang for a brief while with the Mothers.

After sharing a bill with the English band Procol Harum at New York’s Café Au-Go-Go in 1967, that band’s lyricist, Keith Reid, allegedly wrote the Procol song “Quite Rightly So” for Hurvitz.|

Watch Mohawk sing “Above the Storm” in 2008

Signed to Reprise Records in 1969, the singer-songwriter released the album Primordial Lovers in 1970. It was released under the name Essra Mohawk, which she took on after marrying her producer, Frazier Mohawk (Essra was a play on her original name of Sandra). Like all of Mohawk’s recordings, it failed to chart in Billboard, however she began to develop a devoted following that kept up with her career moves through the years.

Listen to “I Am the Breeze” from Primordial Lovers

Mohawk’s next recording, a self-titled LP, was released on the Asylum label in 1974, followed by one on the Private Stock label, simply titled Essra (1976). She began doing work as a background singer for artists such as Carole King, John Mellencamp and Kool and the Gang and, during the late ’70s, performed for some time as a background singer for the Jerry Garcia Band, the Grateful Dead guitarist’s side project. Her song “Not With Me” was recorded by the R&B duo McFadden and Whitehead during those years.

During the ’70s, Mohawk also kept busy singing songs such as “Interjections!,” “Mother Necessity” and “Sufferin’ Till Suffrage” for the Saturday morning TV series Schoolhouse Rock, and in the ‘80s she sang the theme song to the Sesame Street segment “Teeny Little Super Guy.”

Although she continued to release recordings under her own name, Mohawk’s bread and butter increasingly came from her songwriting. Cyndi Lauper covered her song “Change of Heart” in 1986, while Tina Turner cut Mohawk’s “Stronger Than the Wind” in 1989. In 1993, Mohawk moved to Nashville, where she continued to record albums and work with TV programs, including the soap opera All My Children. She worked as a background singer with former Supremes Scherrie Payne and Susaye Greene on an animated short film in 2011, and also collaborated with blues artist Keb’ Mo’. Her most recent album listed on the Discogs.com site is 2019’s The One and Only.

Watch Mohawk sing “I’ll Give It to You Anyway” from the Primordial Lovers album

Related: Other musicians who passed away in 2023

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Jeff Tamarkin

Best Classic Bands Editor Jeff Tamarkin has been a prolific music journalist for more than four decades. He is formerly the editor of Goldmine, CMJ and Relix magazines, has written for dozens of other publications and has authored liner notes for more than 80 CDs. Jeff has also served on the Nominating Committee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and as a consultant to the Grammys. His first book was 'Got a Revolution! The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane.' He is also the co-author of 'Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa, etc.,' with Howard Kaylan.

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