Jalacy J. "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins[8] (July 18, 1929 – February 12, 2000) was an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, film producer, and boxer. Famed chiefly for his powerful, shouting vocal delivery and wildly theatrical performances of songs such as "I Put a Spell on You", he sometimes used macabre props onstage, making him an early pioneer of shock rock.[9] He received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his performance in the 1989 indie film Mystery Train.[citation needed]
Early life
Hawkins in 1957.
Hawkins was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio.[8] He had three older sisters, but his mother decided to put him into foster care. He grew up in the boarding house his foster mother owned. Hawkins studied classical piano as a child and learned guitar in his 20s.[10] In a 1993 interview, Hawkins recounts telling his music tutor,
...to leave before I make your life miserable [...] because with the type of music I want to play. The things I want to do with music and don't want to do it the old conventional way that everybody knows. I want to come up with my own ideas. I've got all the information that I need to get from you to do what I want, now if you stick around, I'm going to make your life miserable.[11]
Three months after World War II ended, he dropped out of East Technical High School and joined the US Army with a forged birth certificate (aged 16).[13] He was stationed at Fort Bliss. During this time, he entertained the troops as part of his service.[14] Hawkins was an avid boxer during his years in the US Army boxing circuit. He later claimed that he won several boxing titles; however, there is no record of his wins.[15] He also told friends and reporters various embellished stories about attending Yale University and the University of Cincinnati Conservatory. Additionally, he claimed he fought in World War II and the Korean War and killed enemy combatants.[16]
Career
I Put A Spell On You record label.
Early career
In 1951, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins began his career performing vocals and keyboards for Philadelphia guitarist Tiny Grimes, and was subsequently featured on some of Grimes' recordings.[12] When Hawkins later went solo, his first single “Why Did You Waste My Time” was performed with accompaniment from Grimes’ band. In 1956, Hawkins signed with OKeh Records.[17] When Hawkins became a solo performer, he often performed in a stylish wardrobe of leopard skins, red leather, and wild hats.
"I Put a Spell on You"
Hawkins's most successful recording, "I Put a Spell on You" (1956), was selected as one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. According to the AllMusic Guide to the Blues, "Hawkins originally envisioned the tune as a refined ballad."[18] The entire band was intoxicated during a recording session where "Hawkins screamed, grunted, and gurgled his way through the tune with utter drunken abandon."[18] The resulting performance was no ballad but instead a "raw, guttural track" that became his greatest commercial success and reportedly surpassed a million copies in sales,[19][20] although it failed to make the Billboardpop or R&B charts.[21][22]
Although Hawkins blacked out and was unable to remember the session,[20] he relearned the song from the recorded version.[20] Meanwhile, the record label released a second version of the single, removing most of the grunts that had embellished the original performance; this was in response to complaints about the recording's overt sexuality.[20] Nonetheless it was banned from radio in some areas. Furthermore, the recording attracted the ire of groups such as the NAACP, "which worried that his act would reflect badly on African Americans."[23] Hawkins later credited the uproar with a boost in sales due to the perceived taboo nature of his performances.[11]
Soon after the release of "I Put a Spell on You", radio disc jockey Alan Freed offered Hawkins $300 to emerge from a coffin onstage.[19] Hawkins initially declined, reportedly saying "No black dude gets in a coffin alive – they don't expect to get out!"[24] However, he later relented and soon created an outlandish stage persona in which performances began with the coffin and included "gold and leopard-skin costumes and notable voodoo stage props, such as his smoking skull on a stick – named Henry – and rubber snakes."[19] These props were suggestive of voodoo, but also presented with comic overtones that invited comparison to "a black Vincent Price."[10][20] Despite the commercial success of the gimmick, Hawkins resented the schlock-factor that made him famous. He found it exploitative, and believed it undermined his sincerity as a vocalist and a balladeer. In a 1973 interview, he bemoaned the Screamin' epithet given to him by his label Okeh records, saying "If it were up to me, I wouldn't be Screamin’ Jay Hawkins...James Brown did an awful lot of screamin’, but never got called Screamin’ James Brown...Why can't people take me as a regular singer without making a bogeyman out of me?"[24]
Hawkins' later releases included the toilet humor song "Constipation Blues" (which included a spoken introduction by Hawkins in which he states he wrote the song because no one had written a blues song before about "real pain"), "Orange Colored Sky", and "Feast of the Mau Mau". Nothing he released, however, had the monumental success of "I Put a Spell on You". In Paris in 1999 and at the Taste of Chicago festival, he actually performed "Constipation Blues" with a toilet onstage.[25]
He continued to tour and record through the 1960s and 1970s, particularly in Europe, where he was very popular. Hawkins released a single recording of mainstream ballads in 1969, "Too Many Teardrops" and the Hawaiian styled "Makaha Waves" on the flip-side. In February 1976, he suffered facial injuries when he was burned by one of his flaming props while performing with his guitarist Mike Armando at the Virginia Theater in Alexandria, Virginia.[26][27] He appeared in performance (as himself) in the Alan Freed bio-pic American Hot Wax in 1978. Subsequently, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch featured "I Put a Spell on You" on the soundtrack – and deep in the plot – of his film Stranger Than Paradise (1983), and then cast Hawkins himself as a hotel night clerk in his film Mystery Train. Hawkins also had acting roles in Álex de la Iglesia's Perdita Durango and Bill Duke's adaptation of Chester Himes' A Rage in Harlem.
In 1983, Hawkins relocated to the New York area. In 1984 and 1985, Hawkins collaborated with garage rockers the Fuzztones, resulting in the album Screamin' Jay Hawkins and the Fuzztones Live, recorded at Irving Plaza in December 1984. They performed in the 1986 movie Joey.[28]
In 1990, Hawkins performed the song "Sirens Burnin'," which was featured in the 1990 horror film Night Angel.[29]
In July 1991, Hawkins released his album Black Music for White People.[30] The record features covers of two Tom Waits compositions: "Heartattack and Vine"[31] (which, later that year, was used in a European Levi's advertisement without Waits' permission, resulting in a lawsuit),[32] and "Ice Cream Man" (a Waits original and not a cover of the John Brim classic).[33] Hawkins also covered the Waits song "Whistlin' Past the Graveyard" on his album Somethin' Funny Goin' On. In 1993, his version of "Heartattack and Vine" became his only UK hit, reaching No. 42 on the UK singles chart.[34] In 1993, Hawkins moved to France.[35]
In 2001, the Greek director and writer Nicholas Triandafyllidis made the documentary Screamin' Jay Hawkins: I Put a Spell on Me about various stages of his life and career, including a filming of his final live performance, in Athens on December 11, 1999, two months before his death, following a performance the day before in Salonica. In the documentary notable artists such as Jim Jarmusch, Bo Diddley, Eric Burdon, Frank Ash, Arthur Brown and Michael Ochs talked about Screamin' Jay Hawkins' early life, personality and career, and about his incredible talent.[39]
Personal life
From 1962 to 1971, Hawkins lived in Hawaii. He returned to New York after purchasing a home in Hawaii and establishing his own publishing company, sustained by the royalties from covers of "I Put a Spell On You".[11] Hawkins had six marriages; his last wife was 31 at his death.[40] Singing partner Shoutin' Pat Newborn stabbed him in jealousy when he married Virginia Sabellona.[40] He had three children with his first wife and claimed variously to have 57 or 75 children in total.[40] After his death, his friend and biographer Maral Nigolian set up a website to trace these children,[41] identifying 33, at least 12 of whom met at a 2001 reunion.[40][42]
Death
Hawkins died after emergency surgery from an aneurysm on February 12, 2000, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, near Paris,[43] at 70 years old.
In the 2020 retrospective documentary mini series Red Dwarf: The First Three Million Years, Hawkins is identified as a key influence on Danny John-Jules' character Cat.[45]
Discography
Studio albums
1958 At Home with Screamin' Jay Hawkins (Okeh/Epic) – other editions entitled Screamin' Jay Hawkins and I Put a Spell on You
1965 The Night and Day of Screamin' Jay Hawkins (Planet/52e Rue Est) – also entitled In the Night and Day of Screamin' Jay Hawkins
1969 ...What That Is! (Philips)
1970 Because Is in Your Mind (Armpitrubber) (Philips)
1972 A Portrait of a Man and His Woman (Hotline) – reissued as I Put a Spell on You and Blues Shouter
1977 I Put a Spell on You (Versatile – recordings from 1966 to 1976)
1979 Screamin' the Blues (Red Lightnin' – recordings from 1953 to 1970)
1979 Lawdy Miss Clawdy (Koala)
1983 Real Life (Zeta)
1990 The Art of Screamin' Jay Hawkins (Spivey)
1991 Black Music for White People (Bizarre/Straight Records/Planet Records)
1991 I Shake My Stick at You (Aim)
1993 Stone Crazy (Bizarre/Straight/Planet)
1994 Somethin' Funny Goin' On (Bizarre/Straight/Planet)
1998 At Last (Last Call)
Live albums
1984 Screamin' Jay Hawkins and the Fuzztones Live (Midnight Records)
1988 At Home with Jay in the Wee Wee Hours (Midnight Records)
1988 Live & Crazy (Blue Phoenix)
1991 Screamin' Jay Hawkins and the Chikenhawks: Dr. Macabre (Trade Service)
1993 Rated X (Sting S) — recorded in 1970
1999 Live at the Olympia, Paris (Last Call) — live with one new studio recording
Singles
1953 "Not Anymore" / "Baptize Me in Wine" [Timely 1004]
1954 "I Found My Way to Wine" / "Please Try to Understand Me" [Timely 1005]
1955 "You're All of Life to Me" / "Well I Tried" [Wing 90005]
1955 "This Is All" / "(She Put The) Whammee (On Me)" [Mercury 70549]
^ abcdJade, Celadon (October 1991). "Screamin' Jay Hawkins". Mute on the Floor. 1 (2). Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Jaded Productions – via Online Archive of California; University of California, Los Angeles Library Special Collections.
^ abBill Dahl (2001). "Screamin' Jay Hawkins". In Vladimir Bogdanov; Chris Woodstra; Stephen Thomas Erlewine (eds.). All Music Guide: The Definitive Guide to Popular Music. Hal Leonard. p. 156. ISBN9780879306274.
^Patricia Romanowski Bashe, Holly George-Warren, and Jon Pareles, The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll: Revised and Updated for the 21st Century (Fireside, 2001), 419.
^Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine. All Music Guide to Rock: The Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul. Hal Leonard Corporation, 2002, p. 513. ISBN978-0-87930-653-3
^Betts, Graham (2004). Complete UK Hit Singles 1952–2004 (1st ed.). London: Collins. p. 346. ISBN0-00-717931-6.
^Nittle, Nadra (October 23, 2017). "Meet the Black Girls of Goth". Vox. Goth icon Screamin' Jay Hawkins was a black man from Cleveland known for his theatrical rendition of the 1956 hit "I Put a Spell on a You," which a sultry Nina Simone covered in 1965. Hawkins took his style cues from Dracula and voodoo stereotypes, with a trademark cape, slick hair, and stage props that included coffins, rubber snakes, and a skull on a stick.
