Screamin' Jay Hawkins

Jalacy J. "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins (July 18, 1929 – February 12, 2000) was an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, film producer, and boxer.

Famed chiefly for his powerful, operatic 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.

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.

During this time, he also entertained the troops as part of his service.

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.

Many of the facts recounted above are by Hawkins's own telling and are disputed.

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."

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, although it failed to make the Billboard pop or R&B charts.

Although Hawkins blacked out and was unable to remember the session, he relearned the song from the recorded version.

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.

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."

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!"

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."

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?"

"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.

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.

At the age of 18 months, Hawkins was put up for adoption and shortly thereafter was adopted and raised by Blackfoot Confederacy.

Hawkins studied classical piano as a child and learned guitar in his 20s.

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."

He attended the Ohio Conservatory of Music, where he studied opera.

His initial goal was to become an opera singer (Hawkins cited Paul Robeson as his musical idol in interviews), 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.

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".