Elliott Randall – Randall’s Island (1970)

Artist: Elliott Randall
Title: Randall’s Island
Year: 1970
Format: LP
Label: Polydor

You know. You just don’t know you know. Elliott Randall is an amazing guitar player, who did mostly session work. Remember a lot of those hound dog howling, jazz polished blues solos on early Steely Dan albums like Can’t Buy a Thrill”? That’s Elliott.

Hound dog howling jazz is perfect to describe Randall, and not just because I wrote the phrase. Randall is old school, from when being a great guitar player meant knowing how to play EVERY blues scale in EVERY possible inversion–not going to the top of thy neck, gripping thy whammy bar for thy life and going WEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

But Randall had jazz chops–major jazz chops. Buy Randall’s Island and listen to “Sour Flower,” a rock steady stomp. Randell is all over it, with speed, when it fits, choppy skid outs, when it fits–every trick in the book guitar players used to assume were part of axe, 101.

Most of Randall’s Island mixes jazz and blues and of course, Randall’s amazing work on the six string. All the tracks have great writing, and though Randall is a very flashy guitar player, there is twice the substance for every ounce of flash–something big hair idiots forgot when guitars started to come in pink and black zebra skin. (DJ Bill)

Track Listing

1. Sour Flower
2. Life In Boanical Gardens (Oh, Yes)
3. Take Out The Dog And Bark The Cat (Oh, No)
4. Mumblin’ To Myself
5. Brother People
6. Jolly Green Giant And The Statue Of Liberty
7. Bustin’ My Brains
8. All I Am’s

Essra Mohawk – Essra (1976)

Artist: Essra Mohawk
Title: Essra
Year: 1976
Format: LP
Label: Private Stock

Essra’s 1st record release was a single “The Boy With the Way” /b-side “Memory of Your Voice” on Liberty records when se was 16. “Newcomer Pick” in Cashbox, it was produced by Hutch Davie (He produced Shirley Ellis “Name Game”). A year later in New York both Koppelman & Rubin and United Artists offered her a position as a staff writer.

She took neither offer but Shadow Morton who produced both the Shangri-Las and Vanilla Fudge, discovered her and her music and two years later the Shangri-La’s recorded Essra’s song “I’ll Never Learn” . Soon after that, her song, “The Spell That Comes After” was recorded by Vanilla Fudge on their “Renaissance” album. at age 19, Essra was discovered once again.

This time by Frank Zappa who, after hearing her play was so blown away, he immediately invited her to join his band, The Mothers Of Invention, thus making her their first female member. Within a year he signed her and released her first solo album on Verve (see January 10, 2010 post) . While performing with the Mothers, Essra also opened for Cream (their first time in New York), Procol Harum (Keith Reid’s lyrics to “Quite Rightly So” are about Essra), Albert King, Electric Flag, Grateful Dead (their first performance in N.Y.),and Jimi Hendrix.

By 1969 Essra was recording her second album in L.A. and S.F. for Reprise after Mo Ostin (then Vice Pres.) discovered her singing at a club in N.Y. and asked her on the spot to come to the label. The result was “Primordial Lovers”, an LP that received a 5 star review in Downbeat, raves in Mix, and was stated as being “one of the best 25 albums ever made” in Rolling Stone magazine.

Unfortunately, these reviews came over a year after the release of the album and new fans found it hard to secure the LP due to poor distribution and the sale of the Reprise label following the release. Nevertheless, this critically acclaimed musical work continues to generate a cult following for Essra.Fans and critics rejoiced worldwide when it was reissued on CD in 2000 by by Rhino Handmade.

She wrote most of the songs while living in Mendocino, California. While recording the album, Essra married her producer, Frazier Mohawk, and from that time on was known as Essra Mohawk. She also sang in a background vocal trio with Carole King.

Essra’s third album, released in 1974 on Elektra/Asylum, once again hailed worldwide by music critics in spite of a lack of promotion, led England’s music magazine, Melody Maker, to declare it, “the richest and most unheralded event in American music” that year.

After moving back to Philadelphia in the 70’s, Ms. Mohawk continued to sing as a session vocalist. She is especially known for singing on Schoolhouse Rock, the popular educational and musical cartoon series that continues to air on TV. Essra’s vocals are on “Interjections”, “Sufferin’ Till Suffrage”, and “Mother Necessity”. After ABC Video released the cartoons on video* in the 90’s, they received an upsurge of popularity and the troupe, led by music director, Bob Dorough, began performing live in the mid-90’s.

A new album on which Essra sang wrote and produced a track entitled “Do You Wanna Party” about political parties in the U.S. was released on Rhino in Sept. ‘98 on an album called “Schoolhouse Rocks The Vote”.

Ms. Mohawk’s fourth album was released on Private Stock records in 1976. After the same lack of support that has kept Essra’s remarkable music in the shadows, she left the label and moved back to California in 1977. Paul Kantner wanted her to be the lead singer in Jefferson Starship after Grace Slick dropped out for a while but he couldn’t convince the rest of the band to use another female vocalist so they chose a male, Micky Thomas, instead.

In 1980-82 Essra performed as a background vocalist with the Jerry Garcia Band. During the same period she co-wrote “Haze” with Bobby Weir and his band Bobby and the Midnights for their Atlantic release. Also, Essra has collaborated with Al Jarreau, Bonnie Bramlett, Mark McEntee of the DiVinyls, Eric Bazilian, Al Stewart and Narada Michael Walden. She sang and recorded with John Mellencamp. (He’d seek her out wherever she lived for her advice and encouragement.)

Essra’s music and ideas inspired Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” (Essra was scheduled to play at the original Woodstock, but her manager missed a turn and they arrived too late. She finally played at the 25th Anniversary at Bethel.) David Crosby’s “Deja Vu” was inspired by Essra’s song “I Have Been Here Before”. David would ask her to play it for him whenever he saw her and then wrote “Deja Vu” as a result.

In 1982, Essra moved back to Philadelphia from L.A. and was brought into the McFadden & Whitehead pre-production sessions. She conjured up “Not With Me” overnight for the duo and they released it on their Capitol album that year.

Essra recorded two more solo albums in the 80’s. Both were released independently and both were produced by her, then, husband Daoud Shaw (Van Morrison’s drummer for many years and original drummer for Saturday Night Live).

They first met during those early days on Bleeker St. in New York’s Greenwich Village, where she jammed vocally with jazz greats: Mike Manieri, the Brecker Bros., Eddie Gomez and Jeremy Steig. As a result her vocal style developed more along the lines of a wind instrument than that of a typical pop singer. Being in the Mothers then also helped to propel the youth to such a creative and original stance as a vocalist.

Essra’s eclectic influences begin with her parents, Anne and Henry Hurvitz, who sang and wrote 40’s style standards, and include: Judy Garland, Nina Simone, The Coasters, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Little Anthony & the Imperials, Thelonius Monk, Erik Satie, Billy Holiday, Otis Redding, The Beatles, Ravi Shankar, The Rolling Stones and Ravel. (essramohawk.com)

Track Listing

1. People Will Talk [version one]
2. I Wanna Feel Ya
3. Summmersong
4. Time To Start
5. Holy Trinity
6. God Help It
7. Appointment With A Dream
8. Hello Winter
9. Hallelujah, I’ve Been Released
10. People Will Talk [version two]