Born Sandra Elayne Hurvitz in Philadelphia, she attended Philadelphia College of Art as a Fine Art major on scholarship. Hurvitz's first record release was a single "The Boy With the Way" /b-side "Memory of Your Voice" on Liberty records in 1964.
In 1967, Hurvitz 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. Hurvitz was their first female member. Within a year Zappa signed her and released her first solo album on Verve.
While performing with the Mothers, Hurvitz also opened for Cream at their first concert in New York, Procol Harum, Albert King, Electric Flag, Grateful Dead (their first performance in NY) and Jimi Hendrix. The song "Quite Rightly So," by Procol Harum's Keith Reid, was written about Hurvitz.
Although much of this CD could be classified as something other than blues (maybe country-folk?), a couple of groovin' numbers do make the song list including "Money Gets in the Way of Love" and the ending "Endtime Blues."
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This review is copyright © 2000 by Matt Alcott, and Blues On Stage, all rights reserved.