Essra Mohawk

Essra Mohawk, a prolific singer-songwriter and self-described flower child whose soulful, dreamlike songs captured the sunny optimism of the Woodstock era, and whose varied career included performing with Frank Zappa and Jerry Garcia and seeing one of her songs turned into a hit single by Cyndi Lauper, died on Dec. 11 2023 at her home in Nashville. She was 75. She recorded more than a dozen albums over the years, and, early in her career, served a stint as a member of Frank Zappa’s iconoclastic band, the Mothers of Invention. Lauper’s exuberant rendition of her song “Change of Heart” shot to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1987. After graduating from George Washington High School in Philadelphia in 1966, she briefly attended the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts. Mohawk was married three times. No immediate family members survive. Her brother, Gary, died this year.