Customer Reviews

Sandy's Album Is Here at Last

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Sandy Hurvitz is(was) a writer of hauntingly beautiful lyrics. This album, her first (and I think only) was masterful. Void of any overdubbing, electronic embellishments, or over-production, "Sandy's Album is Here at Last", is one of my most treasured CD's. Everyone should add a copy to their collection.

Essra Mohawk, while then still performing under her birth name of Sandy Hurvitz, released this album in 1969 for Frank Zappa's Bizarre Productions. Zappa quickly handed production over to fellow-Mother of Invention Ian Underwood, who seemingly had no talent for or interest in producing the album. The sound quality is that of demo tracks, which gives this a sense of performance innocence but obscures Hurvitz's lyrics. There are instrumental cameos by saxophonist Jim Pepper and Jeremy Steig, and Hurvitz is accompanied by bass and drums on a few tracks, but mostly Underwood leaves her to wander around original compositions with only her piano.

Once you adjust to the poor production quality you'll find Hurvitz expresses herself flowingly, like a meandering version of Laura Nyro or a less pointed variation of the young Janice Ian; she sings and plays as if the songs were extemporaneous. There's clearly talent here, and Mohawk would go on to a successful career as a singer and songwriter (she'd already written the haunting waltz "I'll Never Learn" for the Shangri-Las), but the seeds of that success were obscured by Zappa's hostile indifference and Underwood's lack of production chops. Collectors' Choice's domestic reissue adds the bonus track "Life is Scarlet," whose lyrics were printed on the original album's back cover, but whose music was omitted from the record. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

I was surprised to find that Sandy Hurvitz' debut album hadn't dated a bit since I bought it in 1967. There's no facade here, just Sandy and her piano, with occasional accompaniment by Jeremy Steig and Jim Pepper. What this album captures is not a moment of history but a moment of a perceptive, introverted young woman's life as she looks back at the wonder of childhood and forward toward the inevitable disappointment of adulthood as that wonder disappears. Hurvitz' later albums (as Essra Mohawk) are more complex and comfortable with (or at least resigned to) the adult world, but there's only one Sandy Hurvitz' Album Is Here at Last. Go back to the 1967 of your life by listening to it.