Last Halloween I wrote a Vinyl Story on British singer Arthur Brown’s debut album “The Crazy World of Arthur Brown,” in which I boldly stated that Brown was the “godfather of shock rock,” and gave him the sole credit of paving the way for the colorful and bizarre stage antics of rock musicians that brought macabre spectacles and horror elements into their stage acts. Now, while I still consider Arthur Brown the “godfather” of the genre, in doing so I seemed to have disregarded the bizarre legacy of American r&b musician Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and the impact that his 1956 classic “I Put a Spell On You” had both on the early rock n’ roll industry, and the future of shock rock. Even Arthur Brown himself acknowledged the importance of Hawkins by Including his own eerie version of “I Put a Spell on You” on “The Crazy World of Arthur Brown” which seamlessly fit into his Faustian concept album about a man’s decent into hell. Truth is, I’ve never really done much thinking about Screamin’ Jay over the years. But, having previously written about early shock rock acts such as Arthur Brown, Coven, Black Widow and Black Sabbath, this Halloween I felt that it was time to give Screamin’ Jay his due at Vinyl Stories, and attempt to decipher his place in the world of “shock rock.” The result was a deep dive into a colorful character where legend seems to often outweigh the reality of his reputation, and whose musical legacy lays within a unique stage act, and one hell of a single.
Perhaps my initial disinterest in Screamin’ Jay Hawkins is that when I first purchased a copy of his debut album, “At Home with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins,” I found it to be underwhelming to the point of being somewhat forgettable. An impulse buy made years ago; I’ll admit that it had been a long while since I had given the album a spin. But when I pulled out my 2016 180 pressing, released on the UK label Not Now Records, for a recent deep listen, I discovered that while it is indeed an excellent album by a gifted and unique vocalist, very little of the macabre antics which we expect from Screamin’ Jay actually exists on the album beyond “I Put a Spell on You.” Although music fans have this memory of Hawkins as a creepy ghoulish figure, or “the Black Vincent Price,” as many of his fans and contemporaries called him, his debut album has very little horror elements within it at all, let alone blues or rock n’ roll tracks. Instead, it is a showcase of Hawkins’ versatility, and his ability to adapt to many genres. He primarily performs standards from the great American songbook such as “Orange Colored Sky,” “I Love Paris,” “Ol’ Man River,” and “Deep Purple,” as well as takes a stab at the country and western standard “Give Me My Boots and Saddle” and the traditional spiritual “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.” But the Screamin’ Jay that listeners are looking for does somewhat emerge when he enters the field of “exotica” with an excellent cover of Bing Crosby’s hit “Temptation,” and the racially insensitive number “Hong Kong,” and he brings his mad antics into a strange cover of “You Made Me Love You,” which was made famous by Judy Garland. It’s an interesting collection of music, but for the exception of “I Put a Spell On You,” it is not much of a shock rock album. Memory of his live performances of “Spell” seem to stick in the public’s recollection of Screamin’ Jay far more than the reality of his musical output.
But while his debut album may have been straight forward, there is no denying that Screamin’ Jay was a colorful guy whose life and career went down a few unexpected paths which had an extraordinary influence on the future of rock n’ roll. These paths, accidental or intentional, paint the picture of Screamin’ Jay’s true legacy.
One thing that needs to be said before getting into any discourse on Screamin’ Jay Hawkins is that there seems to be a lot of legend mixed in with reality, and what is real, or fantasy has often been disputed by those who knew him and worked with him. Jay Hawkins was a storyteller, and he was prone to embellishing a lot of the details of his life.
Hawkins was born in 1929 in Clevland, Ohio, and became interested in music at a young age. Starting in classical piano, and then moving to guitar, he was initially interested in opera, which isn’t a stretch to believe when listening to his deep baritone voice and dramatic range. He could easily have been an opera singer under different circumstances. He claimed that he studied voice at the Ohio Music Conservatory, but after being forced to drop out due to financial reasons, he was swallowed into Cleveland’s blues community. During World War II, despite being underage, Hawkins joined the US Army via a forged birth certificate and claims he saw combat but spent much time entertaining fellow troops and became a boxer on the US Army circuit (he even claims he was the Alaskan middleweight champ in 1949).
But after his discharge, Hawkins showed up on Cleveland’s musical landscape around 1951 as a pianist and backing vocalist for r&b guitarist Tiny Grimes. Travelling the US with Grimes’ band, Hawkins not only got a hands on musical education, but he also differed himself from the other members of the group with his excentric fashion sense, often dressing in animal prints, red leather and elaborate hats, which isn’t a leap from the Edwardian suits and capes and exotic fezzes he’d don in later years.
Via Grimes, Hawkins got his chance to break out as a solo act in 1956 when he recorded his first single for Okeh Records, “Why Did You Waste My Time,” which featured Grimes and the band backing him. A solid record, it didn’t see much success but was enough for future sessions to be booked with Okeh which led to the recording of “I Put a Spell On You.”
When Hawkins first wrote “I Put a Spell On You,” he intended it to be a basic blues ballad, and it didn’t have any of the grunts, groans or spooky elements in it at all. It was just another love song, albeit with some strange and intense lyrics. But by pure happenstance, things changed during the recording session, dropping it into some dark inky magik and making it into one of the most outrageous and uniquely different recordings of the era.
Legend has it that the tracks’ producer Arnold Maxin brought in a feast of chicken and ribs and a crate of beer for the late night session, and everyone in the studio quickly became fairly inebriated. In fact, Hawkins would claim for the rest of his life that he was so black out drunk that he hasn’t any memory of recording the final version of “I Put a Spell On You” at all. After a few basic takes at the song were recorded, someone suggested that they put a New Orleans style death march onto it, and with the new moody and macabre sound behind him, Hawkins gave up his own inhibitions and improvise a series of grunts, snarls and other worldly sounds into his vocal performance.
Well, when the production team sobered up later and relistened to the tracks, Maxin and his colleagues were delighted by the later takes of “I Put a Spell On You” in all of its raw savagery. Nothing had ever been recorded like it before, and it had something truly unique about it. Jay Hawkins, on the other hand, was not convinced. He was still stuck on releasing his original take on the song. But, in the long run, the producers won out and the savage and spooky version of “I Put a Spell On You” was pressed on vinyl, As Hawkins would later say of the session “I found out I could do more by destroying a song and screaming it to death.”
Incidentally, the early version of “I Put a Spell On You” was eventually released in 2006 on a compilation album released by the UK label Cherry Red. It is interesting to hear the version of the song as Hawkins originally intended it to be, but there is no doubt that Alex Makin was right to release the version that we are familiar with today. There is really no denying which is the more dynamic and memorable version of the song.
When “I Put a Spell On You” was released in record stores it was an extremely original record in every way, not only for its macabre feel but because it also defied any conventional genre. Although it was supposed to be a blues recording, it seemed to surpass the genre and, instead, was embraced by the budding rock n’ roll community which was still in its infancy. But even then, it was a far cry from the rockabilly hits that were defining the genre. In 1956 the biggest hits of the year would be Carl Perkins’ “Blue Suede Shoes,” Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” and Elvis’ “Heartbreak Hotel” which had little resemblance to “I Put a Spell on You.” But the record faced a few more difficulties beyond the fact that it was stylistically different than anything else on the market. Due to Hawkin’s outlandish performance, as well as the fact that many black artists were being blacklisted in certain regions of America due to racial bigotry, “I Put a Spell On You” found itself banned from many radio stations and record shops throughout America.
But it would be fabled disk jockey Alan Freed who would make sure that the world heard “I Put a Spell on You,” as well as conjure up the elements of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ act that would eventually be imprinted in the memories of music fans forever. Not only one of the most influential figures in popularizing rock n’ roll during its early days, Freed was also a champion of black performers of the era, making sure that their records were heard by the public via his nationally aired show on WINS-1010 AM out of New York City. Upon receiving a copy of “I Put a Spell On You,” Freed recognized its power and originality and immediately started it in heavy rotation. When learning that it was finally getting played, Hawkins travelled to New York to personally thank Freed for supporting the single, which started a unique partnership between the pair.
Freed was putting together some of rock n’ rolls earliest concerts, and he immediately signed up Hawkins to become a regular on his roster. However, despite Hawkins’ already colorful persona, Freed had an idea to take things a step further. Playing on the vibe of “I Put a Spell On You,” Freed made the suggestion that Hawkins merge his music act into that of the midnight monster shows that were popularizing movie theatres at the time. He came up with the idea to have Hawkins emerge out of a coffin in a cape and fangs, and really sell the horror aspect of the song. Well, Hawkins initially rejected the whole idea. He reportedly told Freed, “No black man gets in a coffin alive because they don’t get out.” But, when Freed offered Hawkins an additional $300 to do it, he put on the cape and fangs and got in the box. When Hawkins emerged out of that coffin to a rambunctious crowd of rock n’ roll hungry teenagers, the audience went nuts and Hawkins got the biggest response that he had ever got in his entire career. Realizing it was working, Hawkins leaned into the gimmick, but eventually he played with it a fair bit. Quickly disposing of the coffin which made him so uncomfortable, he changed the vampire gimmick for a voodoo one. Wearing bones in his nose, he performed with skeletons and rubber snakes and even experimented with pyrotechnics. However, he also toned things down for laughs and the satire of his voodoo character became culturally inappropriate in a way that was degrading to traditional Hattian’s who practiced the mysterious and often misunderstood religion. Watching the voodoo inspired performances today with modern eyes is a jarring experience.
Although the stage show which Freed posed upon Hawkins gave him notoriety it proved to be something he was uncomfortable with and somewhat resented. In interviews given later in his life, he’d reveal that he felt the act cheapened his music and legacy as a performer, and he stated, “Why can’t people just take me as a regular singer, without making a boogeyman out of me?”
While “I Put a Spell On You” never made the Billboard charts, the single still managed to sell over a million copies upon its first release and would eventually find itself to be an important entry into the American songbook. Decade after decade performers from every generation would revisit “I Put a Spell On You,” including memorable recordings of it by Nina Simone, Alan Price, Creedance Clearwater Revival, The Animals, Van Morrison, Buddy Guy, Joe Cocker, Nick Cave, Bette Midler, Leon Russell, Jeff Beck, Marilyn Manson, Annie Lennox and, of course, Arthur Brown. I’ve also heard it called the “unofficial theme song of Halloween,” although I’d give that distinction to Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s 1962 novelty single “The Monster Mash,” despite “I Put a Spell on You” being the superior song.
As for Jay Hawkins, he never was able to top the success of “I Put a Spell On You.” Although he put out a number of singles and albums throughout the 1960’s, he seemed to be unable to reproduce the unhinged authenticity of the initial “I Put a Spell On You” session and his follow up releases failed to capture the imaginations of the public the same way. Instead, he was dismissed as little more of a novelty act during his prime.
But his journey through life proved to be equally as strange after his initial musical success. In the 1970’s Hawkins slipped off of the public radar when he quietly relocated to Hawaii. In later interviews he’d claim the reason for his departure was that once “I Put a Spell On You’ began getting recorded by other artists he went to the publishing company and demanded higher royalties but, in retaliation, they sent mobsters to kill him which made him flee the mainland US. Hawkins also became noted for his sexual prowess, and he claimed to have fathered 57 children. To date, via the efforts of biographer Maral Nigolian, 33 of his children have been positively identified.
In the early 1980’s Hawken quietly returned to New York with very little fanfare and, down on his luck, was playing piano in a Harlem nightclub when he met musician Rudi Potrude of The Fuzztones, which led to a collaboration released in 1985. Upon resurfacing, a new interest in Hawkins also emerged and he began making public appearances once more, which led to more recordings and opportunities. Remembering the macabre character of his early fame, Screamin’ Jay brought back all the elements of his famous act including the coffin! He eventually was able to find a newfound cult following amongst music fans and eventually retained some revenue for the use of “I Put a Spell On You.” Hawkins bought a home once again in Hawaii, and even started his own publishing company. He also maintained a popularity within Europe, and especially Parris, which he toured quite frequently. He finally died in 2000 at age 70 due to complications from an emergency surgery for an aneurysm.
So where does Screamin’ Jay Hawkins realistically fall within the confines of the “shock rock” genre? It’s hard to really say exactly. I personally feel it was not a route that he sought out, but one that he fell into which made him memorable. With his unintentional performance of “I Put a Spell on You” which he doesn’t even remember recording, and his initial resistance to take on the horror elements suggested by Alan Freed, if Jay Hawkins was a shock rocker, he was a reluctant one at best. But there is no denying that his outrageous stage persona which he eventually leaned into, and the strange and magikal recording of “I Put a Spell On You” which ignited the imaginations of audiences forever, was the beginnings of something very special and unique. If Arthur Brown was the “godfather” of shock rock, then I think it’s fair to say that Screamin’ Jay Hawkins was the “forefather” of shock rock. Whether he intended to be or not, he was the true pioneer of the genre.
