By
Richie Unterberger
Essra
Mohawk's 1970 album Primordial Lovers
was the first of the singer-songwriter's recordings to properly reflect
the scope of her talents. Although she had already released one LP, Sandy's Album Is Here At Last!
(originally issued billed to Sandy Hurvitz and now also available as a
CD reissue on Collectors' Choice Music), the production of that
recording had not come out as she originally intended. More
sympathetically produced by her husband of the time, Frazier Mohawk, Primordial Lovers showcases her
eclectic blend of rock, soul, and jazz elements in a variety of
arrangements. The result isn't easily comparable to fellow
singer-songwriters of that or any other era.
Primordial Lovers was recorded for
Reprise Records, home to numerous singer-songwriters as the label
evolved into a more contemporary and rock-oriented company in the late
1960s and early 1970s. Initially signed to Frank Zappa's production
company Bizarre, Essra moved to Reprise after label head Mo Ostin heard
her perform with flute player Jeremy Steig at Steve Paul's Scene Club
in New York. While her previous album had been recorded at New York's
Apostolic Studios, Primordial Lovers
would be cut in October and November of 1969 in California (primarily
in Los Angeles, with some sessions taking place in San Francisco).
Frazier Mohawk had a good deal of production
experience under his belt before Primordial
Lovers. Originally known as Barry Friedman before changing his
name in the late 1960s, he'd worked on notable recordings by Los
Angeles psychedelic folk-rockers Kaleidoscope, blues-rock pioneers the
Paul Butterfield Blues Band, goth goddess Nico, and acid-folkies the
Holy Modal Rounders. "Primordial
Lovers was a finished album, whereas the first album was
released unfinished," points out Essra today. "For the first album, I
was up against people who were keeping me from doing my art, who found
pleasure in actually erasing great takes just for the hell of it." In
contrast, "Frazier totally respected the artist and their art, and his
function as a producer was to facilitate that. We pretty much agreed on
everything and put on the best of what we had."
Though Essra's intention with her debut album had
been to use backing musicians throughout the LP, most of the tracks on
that release featured only her own piano accompaniment. On Primordial Lovers, she was able to
play with an assortment of talented instrumentalists, the lineup
varying from song to song. Among the notable contributors were
guitarist Lee Underwood, who played on numerous Tim Buckley albums;
Dallas Taylor, original drummer with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young;
and guitarist Doug Hastings, who'd been in Rhinoceros and done a brief
stint with Buffalo Springfield. Passages such as the bridge to "I'll
Give It to You Anyway" gave her the opportunity to use vocal
arrangements she terms "vocal collages," one of the things she enjoys
most about recording.
Essra was especially pleased to cut a few of the
tracks with the band of guitarist Jerry Hahn, whom she'd come across
while the group were playing at the famed Whisky A Go Go club in
Hollywood. "They had that same quality that I have and enjoy in others,
which is the ability to go anywhere musically, and not be pigeonholed,
not be stuck in a single way of sounding," she observes. "I heard their
fluidity and flexibility and therefore, [they were] more than capable
to handle my music. So much so that we wanted to be a band. That would
have been a great thing for music. But unfortunately my manager and
their manager didn't see eye to eye, and didn't let us get together.
Whereas Frazier Mohawk had the mindset to always follow the heart of
the artist—'If they want to get together, put 'em together!' It's a
shame."
Essra retains fond memories of the songs, several of
which she continues to perform to this day. "My favorite was 'I'll Give
It to You Anyway.' I still play that. 'I Am the Breeze' is one of my
favorites. I enjoy the progression and how the music takes you, where
the lyrics take you. Music is more about flowing than trying." In
addition, "I still perform 'Spiral.' In fact I've recently been
contacted by the Wilhelm Reich Foundation in San Francisco, and have
written music to Wilhelm Reich lyrics because of that song. Because it
was inspired by Wilhelm Reich, they gathered whatever few handful of
music artists were influenced in any which way by Wilhelm Reich, and
we're all writing music for this project."
In retrospect, Mohawk feels it might been wise to
release "Thunder in the Morning," written on Lowell George's baby grand
piano, as a single. "I guess it became a turntable hit. [That's] what
they called it when an album cut got a lot of airplay. If they had been
really on the case and wanted me to succeed, or wanted this project to
succeed, they would have jumped on it and made a single out of it."
Essra sees similarities between another of the LP's
tracks, "I Have Been Here Before," and a composition credited to David
Crosby on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's Déjà Vu album. "He
did make me play it for him every time he saw me over at Stephen
Stills's house," she says. "He had me play it for him a total of three
times, three different occasions. Each time I implored him to let me
play him something else. I said, 'I have lots of songs, David, let me
play some.' 'No, I want to hear that one.' He always insisted that I
just play that one. When I heard "Déjà Vu," it was real
'déjà vu' for me. 'Think I've heard that song
before'...and since then, I hooked up for a while with Tim Drummond,
who played bass with them, and played that song a lot. He said, 'Oh
wow, it's even a lot of the same chord progression to the chorus.' I
did think he should have not just given me some kind of credit, but
probably a percentage of the song."
For this CD, a piano/vocal demo of "I Have Been Here
Before" is one of five bonus tracks that have been added to the songs
that appeared on the original release. Three of these—the
aforementioned demo version of "I Have Been Here Before," "Someone Has
Captured Me," and "Could You Lift Your Heart"—are piano/vocal demos
done before the Primordial Lovers
sessions, though the final two of those songs did not end up making the
LP in any form. Essra did begin work on a subsequent recording of
"Could You Lift Your Heart" at the album's sessions, but it wasn't
finished, though she'd still like to complete a produced version of the
song. She never attempted a fully produced track of "Someone Who's
Captured Me," written about a relationship with someone she was living
with in Mendocino in 1968.
Though done at the Primordial
Lovers sessions, "Question," featuring Jerry Hahn on electric
guitar, was another song that didn't make the album. "Drifter," the
last of the bonus tracks, is so titled as it's inspired by the time in
the late 1960s when Essra was going back and forth between her native
Philadelphia and New York when she was playing with the Mothers of
Invention. Though written between her first and second albums, she's
not sure when she recorded it, and thinks it might been cut in the
period between Primordial Lovers
and her third album, Essra Mohawk.
Though pleased with the album, Mohawk was
disappointed with how the cover come out. "The cover was supposed to be
one set of bodies, so it would have been mostly white instead of mostly
black," she explains. "It would have wrapped around the front and the
back, and then superimposed would have been the sky, like a sunset or
something like that, and the earth, so that the horizon between the
heaven and earth would have matched, coincided with the line between
the two bodies. Thus the title Primordial
Lovers. That would have sold a lot, too. You know, bright colors
sell. I'm a graphic artist, I'm not just a musician; I went to college
for art. Bright colors attract the eye, not black."
Essra also regrets that the album didn't reach a
wider audience. "I was inaccessible because nobody promoted me," she
feels. "I wasn't given any opportunity to sell. There was no promotion,
there was no tours, there was nothing. I didn't get to get out and
play. Total mismanagement; no agent, no gigs, no nothing. Just my
music. I gave it all. But I was not given in return what my music
deserved." Primordial Lovers
would be her only album for Reprise, and it would be a few years before
she recorded her next LP, Essra
Mohawk, also reissued on CD by Collectors' Choice Music. –
Richie Unterberger
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