Screamin Jay Hawkins

Screamin Jay Hawkins – Broadcast May 2008

Today we will cover a man who by far the most outrageous performer during rock's dawn. Prone to emerging out of coffins onstage, a flaming skull named Henry his constant companion, Screamin' Jay Hawkins was an insanely theatrical figure long before it was even remotely acceptable.

And Hawkins' life story is almost as bizarre as his onstage performances.

1. Little Demon – 1956 – Voodoo Jive – Tk 2 –2.24

Jalacy J. Hawkins is born in Cleveland (Ohio),. He is placed in an orphanage as an infant and adopted at the age of 18 months by some Blackfoot Indians.

Jalacy begins to show an interest in the piano and soon learns to read and write music. He admired opera singers Paul Robeson and Enrico Caruso and later studied piano and opera at the Ohio Conservatory of Music.

At the age of 14, Jay begins boxing, before dropping out of school to join the army.

He starts playing the tenor sax in military, and spends his time as an entertainer.. Hawkins however, later claimed that he fought in the Pacific and was a POW for 18 months.

While still in the military, won a number of amateur boxing competitions, and later, in 1948 the middleweight championship of Alaska.

Hawkins got his first musical break in 1951 as pianist to veteran jazz guitarist Tiny Grimes.

On leaving Tiny Grimes, he began drifting between bands - he was fired out of Fats Domino's band for continually upstaging the boss by wearing a gold and leopard-skin outfit and turban.

He was eventually encouraged to turn solo by Wynonie Harris.

In the early 1950’s he had a number of goes at recording a track he called "Screamin' Blues", including one session with Atlantic records chief Ahmet Ertegun who wanted Hawkins to sing smoothly - like popular 1950s crooner Fats Domino. The tracks were never released.
He then moved to the Columbia subsidiary Okeh.

OKeh producer Arnold Maxim wanted Hawkins to re-record "I put a spell on you" and Maxim wants it wild. He decided to turn the session into a picnic, supply Jay and the musicians with enough food, beer and whiskey, then turn on the tape. Hawkins later told the Los Angeles Times: "[Maxim] got everybody drunk, and we came out with this weird version. I don't even remember making the record.‘

The track was released as "I put a spell on you" and is a sensation; At first the snorting delivery gets it banned from radio stations across the country. "They said it was cannibalistic, that it sounded like a man eating somebody," Hawkins has told the Washington Post. So OKeh edited the offensive portions and the song eventually sold more than a million copies

2. I Put a Spell On You – 1956 – Voodoo Jive – Tk 1 –2.29

This recording was selected as one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

New York DJ Alan Freed convinces Screamin' Jay that popping out of a coffin might be a show-stopping gimmick . Hawkins then begins barnstorming the country with his coffin, his skull and his extremely odd repertoire of deconstructed standards and novelty songs.

"The cats dig my wardrobe", Jay said in 1957. "Sometimes I mix it up. Last night [part of a week's engagement at the Apollo with Dr. Jive's Rhythm & Blues Revue] I did a show wearing a green turban, red tux, purple tie and white shoes. Man, the chicks were gassed..."

3. Frenzy – May 1957 – Voodoo Jive – Tk 6 –2.09

His toured through the US in the late 1950s are full of stories about mishaps with his stage props.
Once at the Apollo Theatre he got locked in his stage coffin through a misunderstanding with a mermber of the Drifters, who were supporting him.

He was inside it, dressed in a white tuxedo, tails, gloves, hat, cane, spats and all. He panicked, and started kicking it open from the inside. The coffin fell of its display stand and when it hit the floor it busted open. The audience thought it was part of the act, but Jay fell out, got up and started swinging.

I commenced to punchin' out every Drifter I ran into. I hit about three of them and had my sights on Ben E. King. They didn't show for the last two shows. It took seven years before we started talking again."

4. Yellow Coat – May 1958 – Voodoo Jive – Tk 11 –2.21

Like many 1950s rockers, Hawkins had a difficult time in the following decade. He worked in clubs in Hawaii and toured US military bases in the Far East.

Hawkins then joined forces with female singer called Shoutin' Pat Newborn who suffered burns when one of Hawkins' fuseboxes exploded at a club in Miami while she was watching his act. Nevertheless, they became close friends and formed a partnership: Screamin' Jay and Shoutin' Pat.

5. Ashes – 1962 – Spells &Potions Disc 2 – Tk 3 –2.49

While in Honolulu Jay Hawkins married a very pretty woman six years his junior. The marriage do not please Pat, who stuck a nine-inch butcher's knife into Jay's chest, puncturing his lung and diaphragm.

In early 1965, he went to UK for his first British tour. Jay emerged from UK customs at six in the morning, setting fire to his beard as he made his entrance.

The tour opened at Wallington Town Hall:
‘he ran on and off stage, did the splits, played piano, waved his cloak like a rabid bullfighter and screamed a slew of rock'n'roll classics for well over an hour. Jay clutched his friendly skull Henry throughout throughout his act and even made the thing smoke a cigarette’

Subsequently Hawkins has a profound influence on Arthur Brown, who copied his style. The famous stage act was also replicated by the rock group Black Sabbath (Ozzy Osbourne) for its fans.

In June 1969 he recorded a live album at a North Hollywood, Club Amigo. A fairly conventional track was released as a single with this one on its B side

6. Constipation Blues – 1969 –Voodoo Jive – Tk 17 –4.20 –play

Another track from the same session shows Hawkin’s innovation with lyrics:

"I would deliberately try to concoct lyrics that created weird images for the listener. I'd go into drugstore soda fountains and steal menus, read advertising flyers from grocery stores, then sit down and see what I could come up with."

7. Feast of the Mau Mau – 1969 – Voodoo Jive – Tk 15 –3.29

During the 1970s Hawkins split his time between Hawaii, New York City, where he played in local clubs, and Europe, where he remained a popular attraction. He quit drinking in 1974 and found he can do "I put a spell on you" just as well sober as he could drunk.

By this stage he is collecting royalties from the many cover versions of his songs, including Nina Simone and Creedence Clearwater Revival, who in 1965 and 1967 both covered "I put a spell on you"

Track from a 1973 Nashville album

8. Itty Bitty Pretty One – 1969 – Blues Collection – Tk 2 –2.26

In 1976 Hawkins suffered second degree burns and temporary blindness when he was burned on stage by one of his trademark flaming stage props. This results in a two years break from touring.

In Dec 1979 he recorded a disco version of I Put a Spell On You with Keith Richards supporting, and a year later, he opened the Rolling Stones concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Following the use of his music in a couple of films, and his own personal appearances, interest in Hawkins now mounted in earnest and a wider audience began to appreciate Hawkins's talents. He began touring the United States regularly.

In Paris, in 1988 at the Hotel Méridien: Screamin' Jay Hawkins live recording for Black & Blue Records

9. Lawdy Miss Clawdy - 1988 – Live & Crazy - Tk 1 –5.18 –play
In 1991 he was again in Australia and in Sydney recording the album I SHAKE MY STICK AT YOU

Track from a 1993 albun called Stone Crazy

10. Strange - 1993 – Stone Crazy - Tk 1 –3.15

11. Stone Crazy - 1993 – Stone Crazy - Tk 5 –2.35

In June 1996 The performance of Screamin' Jay Hawkins closes the "13th Chicago Blues Festival".

Dime-store fright props litter his piano, including a huge rabid rat, a motorized severed hand and a hopping black spider. Set on a platform just to Hawkins' left is a toilet (for the "Constipation blues") and a coffin (sadly never used). The singer, decked out all in red with a long feather boa, assaults the crowd with classics Hawkins shouts and screams, the 3-foot-long (plastic) bone he frantically waives and the tiny one he puts in his nose, and, most of all, the walking staff complete with cigarette smoking skull,‘
In Feb 1998, Screamin' Jay Hawkins is honored with the Pioneer Award at the 9th annual Rhythm & Blues Foundation dinner and awards ceremony at New York's Sheraton Hotel, hosted by Smokey Robinson.

Hawkins died in France on Feb 12 2000 at the age of 70 after surgery to treat an aneurysm.

Hawkins had nine wives (the last a 29 year old in 1998, when he was 68), and lots of children, about 55 were known (or suspected) upon his death. A friend set up a website to get them all together and the 55 soon became 75.

Finish up with a track from the album he recorded in Australia in 1991

12. Rock, Australia Rock - 1991 – I Shake My Stick At You - Tk 11 –3.45

Order CDs featured in this transcript: