| Screamin' Jay Hawkins | |
| Background: | solo_singer |
| Birth Name: | Jalacy J. Hawkins |
| Alias: | Jay Hawkins |
| Birth Date: | 1929 7, mf=yes |
| Birth Place: | Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. |
| Death Place: | Neuilly-sur-Seine, France |
| Years Active: | 1951–2000[1] |
Jalacy J. "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins[2] (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.[3] [4] He received a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his performance in the 1989 indie film Mystery Train.
Hawkins was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio.[2] At the age of 18 months, Hawkins was put up for adoption and shortly thereafter was adopted and raised by Blackfoot Confederacy.[5] Hawkins studied classical piano as a child and learned guitar in his 20s.[6] 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.[7]He attended the Ohio Conservatory of Music, where he studied opera.[8] His initial goal was to become an opera singer (Hawkins cited Paul Robeson as his musical idol in interviews),[9] but when his initial ambitions failed, he began his career as a conventional blues singer and pianist. Other influences included Mario Lanza, Enrico Caruso, Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Brown, Amos Milburn, Wynonie Harris, Nellie Lutcher, Roy Brown, Jimmy Witherspoon, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Roy Milton, Elmore James, Lightnin' Hopkins and H-Bomb Ferguson.
He joined the US Army with a forged birth certificate in 1942 (aged 13), and allegedly served in a combat role, with his fellow soldiers and higher-ups around him ignoring the fact he was substantially underage.[10] During this time, he also entertained the troops as part of his service.[11] In 1944, he enlisted in the Army Air Forces, being honorably discharged in 1952. Hawkins was an avid and formidable boxer during his years in the US Army (and later Air Force) boxing circuit. In 1949, he was the middleweight boxing champion of Alaska.[12]
Many of the facts recounted above are by Hawkins's own telling and are disputed.[13]
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. 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. When Hawkins became a solo performer, he often performed in a stylish wardrobe of leopard skins, red leather, and wild hats.
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." The entire band was intoxicated during a recording session where "Hawkins screamed, grunted, and gurgled his way through the tune with utter drunken abandon."[14] 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,[15] although it failed to make the Billboard pop or R&B charts.[16] [17]
Although Hawkins blacked out and was unable to remember the session,[18] he relearned the song from the recorded version.[18] 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.[18] 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."[19] Hawkins later credited the uproar with a boost in sales due to the perceived taboo nature of his performances.
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. Hawkins initially declined, reportedly saying "No black dude gets in a coffin alive – they don't expect to get out!"[20] 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." These props were suggestive of voodoo, but also presented with comic overtones that invited comparison to "a black Vincent Price."[6] [18] 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?"[20]
"I Put a Spell On You" became a classic, covered by a variety of artists such as Creedence Clearwater Revival, Nina Simone, Alan Price, The Animals, Them with Van Morrison, Arthur Brown, Bryan Ferry, Buddy Guy, Carlos Santana, Tim Curry, Leon Russell, Joe Cocker, Nick Cave, Marilyn Manson, Mica Paris, David Gilmour, Jeff Beck, Joss Stone, Diamanda Galas, and Annie Lennox. Hawkins' original version was featured during the show and over the credits of the 2003 The Simpsons episode "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can".
Hawkins' later releases included "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.[21]
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.[22] [23] 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.[24]
In 1990, Hawkins performed the song "Sirens Burnin'," which was featured in the 1990 horror film Night Angel.[25]
In July 1991, Hawkins released his album Black Music for White People.[26] The record features covers of two Tom Waits compositions: "Heartattack and Vine"[27] (which, later that year, was used in a European Levi's advertisement without Waits' permission, resulting in a lawsuit),[28] and "Ice Cream Man" (a Waits original and not a cover of the John Brim classic).[29] 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.[30] In 1993, Hawkins moved to France.[31]
When Dread Zeppelin recorded their "disco" album, It's Not Unusual in 1992, producer Jah Paul Jo asked Hawkins to guest. He performed the songs "Jungle Boogie" and "Disco Inferno". He also toured with the Clash and Nick Cave during this period, and not only became a fixture of blues festivals but appeared at many film festivals as well, including the Telluride Film Festival premiere of Mystery Train.
His 1957 single "Frenzy" (found on the early 1980s compilation of the same name) was included in the compilation CD, , in 1996.[32] This song was featured in the show's Season 2 episode "Humbug".[33] It was also covered by the band Batmobile.[34]
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.[35]
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". Hawkins had six marriages; his last wife was 31 at his death.[36] Singing partner Shoutin' Pat Newborn stabbed him in jealousy when he married Virginia Sabellona. He had three children with his first wife and claimed variously to have 57 or 75 children in total. After his death, his friend and biographer Maral Nigolian set up a website to trace these children,[37] identifying 33, at least 12 of whom met at a 2001 reunion.[38]
Hawkins died after emergency surgery from an aneurysm on February 12, 2000, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, near Paris,[39] at 70 years old.
Although Hawkins was not a major success as a recording artist, his highly theatrical performances from "I Put a Spell on You" onward earned him a steady career as a live performer for decades afterward, and influenced subsequent acts. He opened for Fats Domino, Tiny Grimes and the Rolling Stones.[6] This exposure in turn influenced rock acts such as Alice Cooper, Tom Waits, the Cramps, Screaming Lord Sutch, Black Sabbath, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Arthur Brown, Led Zeppelin, Marilyn Manson, Rob Zombie, and Glenn Danzig.[6] Vox.com described Hawkins as a "goth icon".[40]
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.[41]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1957 | Mister Rock and Roll | Himself | |
| 1966 | Day Tripper | Composer; short film | |
| 1978 | American Hot Wax | Himself | |
| 1986 | Joey | Himself | |
| 1988 | Two Moon Junction | Blues Club Singer | |
| 1989 | Mystery Train | Night Clerk | |
| 1991 | A Rage in Harlem | Himself | |
| 1994 | De Serge Gainsbourg à Gainsbarre de 1958 – 1991 | Himself | Documentary; direct-to-video |
| 1997 | Perdita Durango | Adolfo | |
| 1999 | Peut-être | Chanteur Bouge | |
| 2001 | Screamin' Jay Hawkins: I Put a Spell on Me | Himself | Documentary |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1957 | Alan Freed's Rock 'N' Roll Revue | Himself | TV special |
| 1965 | Gadzooks! It's All Happening | Himself | Episode: #1.3 |
| 1965 | Thank Your Lucky Stars | Himself | Episode: #7.23 |
| 1966 | The Merv Griffin Show | Himself | Episode: "Tom Ewell, Jacqueline Susann, Aliza Kashi, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Mitzi McCall, Charlie Brill" |
| 1978 | Thank You, Rock 'N' Roll: A Tribute to Alan Freed | Himself | TV special |
| 1989 | The Arsenio Hall Show | Himself | Unknown episode |
| 1990 | Sunday Night | Himself | Episode: #2.15 |
| 1993 | Dorothee Rock'n'roll Show | Himself | TV miniseries |
| 2001 | Cutting Edge | Himself (archive footage) | Episode: "57 Screaming Kids" |