[E24] TALKING ZAPPA with Tony Trombo. Guest: Essra Mohawk

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My special guest for this show is ESSRA MOHAWK!

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.

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.

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.