Essra Mohawk obit

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

 She was not on the list.

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.|

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.

Members of Generation X may recognize her distinctive voice from the Saturday morning TV series Schoolhouse Rock!, as she lent her voice to "Interjections!", "Mother Necessity" and "Sufferin' Till Suffrage" in the mid-1970s. In addition, Mohawk sang the theme song to "Teeny Little Super Guy", a regular segment on Sesame Street during the 1980s.

Her third, eponymous, album came out on Asylum Records in 1974. It was panned by Village Voice critic Robert Christgau, who wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981): "Here is a vocalist who should throw away all her Leon Russell records. When she calls herself a 'full-fledged woman,' it sounds like 'pool player's' woman, which given her persona makes more sense." 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 and 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 hit with her song "Change of Heart" in 1986.

In 2011 she provided the lead vocal for an animated short film produced by TDA Animation, about the struggle for gay rights, called "Sufferin' Till You're Straight". The spot featured former Supremes Scherrie Payne and Susaye Greene on background vocals.

Mohawk wrote 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 released six more albums after 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. Mohawk was a longtime advocate of peace and environmental protection. She was a member of the board of Musicians and Artists for Peace and was their Nashville coordinator.

Mohawk died on December 11, 2023, at the age of 75.