Rock and horror go together like Jekyll and Hyde. Over the years, many distinguished ghouls have made a living by combining the two: Alice Cooper, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, GWAR, The Cramps, Ozzy Osborne, The Misfits, Rob Zombie, KISS, and far more than I could possibly list here. Most of these acts fall into the category of shock rock, which is when loud music meets grisly theatrics. Blood spills, heads are chopped off, creatures invade the stage, all hell breaks loose, and a good time is had by all. However, in the early days of rock, there was only one man bringing the horror to the masses: Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. Emerging from a coffin during every performance, the harrowing Hawkins would cast voodoo spells on audiences and howl like a raving maniac. This was back in the 1950s, so the idea of a Black man playing the part of a monster onstage scared the pants off of White America. If James Brown was the Godfather of Soul, Screamin’ Jay was the Gothfather.
It must be stated that I am only going to cover a small portion of the wild, weird life of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. He may not have been the sinister sorcerer he portrayed, but there was certainly no one else like him. We’re talking about a man who claimed to have placed a grenade in the mouth of his captor and pulled the pin upon liberation from a P.O.W. camp during WWII. Jay Hawkins was a complicated man with a difficult life, so I highly recommend that you check out the documentary “Screamin’ Jay Hawkins: I Put a Spell on Me” and read “I Put a Spell on You: The Bizarre Life of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins” by Steve Bergsman. For simplicity’s sake, I’m going to focus on Screamin’ Jay’s career as the Boogeyman of Blues, which is strange enough as it is.
Hawkins was born in Cleveland, Ohio, back in 1929, but our story begins in 1956. While his career began in 1951, Jay Hawkins began Screamin’ in that aforementioned year. Even before his career as the first shock rocker, Hawkins was a flamboyant figure who wore leopard skins, red leather, and crazy hats. However, Hawkins headed towards horror with “I Put a Spell on You.” Everyone has heard at least one version of the song (CCR, Nina Simone, “Hocus Pocus,” or any of the other million covers), but none of them compare to the sheer lunacy of the Hawkins original. The guttural screams and gurgles are so disturbing they shocked my grandfather back in 2019. If a song can still shock over 50 years later, that’s true rock ‘n’ roll!
According to the AllMusic Guide to the Blues, “Hawkins originally envisioned the tune as a refined ballad.” Fortunately for music history, Hawkins and his band were drunk out of their minds during that fateful recording session. The resulting track is the utterly bonkers track that was banned from some radio stations for being “cannibalistic,” as the legend goes. After “I Put a Spell on You” was released, famed radio disc jockey Alan Freed (the man who popularized the term “rock ‘n’ roll”) offered Hawkins $300 to rise from a coffin onstage. At first, Hawkins turned this offer down, reportedly saying, “No black dude gets in a coffin alive – they don’t expect to get out!” Of course, he relented and soon created a creepy new persona.
Even after decades of shock rockers picking up where he left off, Screamin’ Jay is still a wholly outlandish figure in the story of rock. Donning gold/leopard outfits and a pair of bones protruding from his nostrils, Hawkins leaped out of his coffin and stalked the stage. In his hand was a smoking skull he called “Henry.” There was smoke, fireworks, and rubber snakes. In one of my favorite examples of Screamin’ Jay’s showmanship, he would hire guys to drop greased rubber bands on a terrified crowd after warning of worms falling from the ceiling. He was scary, but there was that sort of knowing humor that made him akin to horror icons like Zacherley and Vincent Price. In my humble opinion, it’s a perfect rock persona.
However, Hawkins often lamented that the schlock shtick did him a disservice. In his words, “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?” Still, he rocked that gimmick for the rest of his life and always appeared to be giving it 100%. And despite the inherent goofiness in such a style, Screamin’ Jay’s talent and powerful voice are always evident. The young Hawkins dreamed of a career in opera, and he brought that operatic skill to his shock rock style.
Outside of “I Put a Spell on You,” Hawkins released many tracks I personally love just as much. There’s the paranoid anthem “I Hear Voices,” which makes excellent use of his trademark screams. And there’s “Little Demon,” a track that gets almost as much play as “I Put a Spell on You” during Halloween. As an “X-Files” fan, I also have to mention the rockin’ “Frenzy,” featured in the episode “Humbug.” “Alligator Wine” and “Feast of the Mau Maus” are also great spooky blues tracks, with “Alligator Wine” being more radio-friendly and “Feast…” being, well, not. While not horror, there is also “Constipation Blues,” a masterpiece of toilet humor that has Jay Screamin’ for an entirely different reason. Hawkins also did lovely covers of old standards like “Orange Colored Sky” and “Ol’ Man River.” The man had range.
in 1978. Hawkins appeared as himself in the Alan Freed biopic, “American Hot Wax.” He appeared as a hotel night clerk in Jim Jarmusch’s “Mystery Train” in 1989. He opened for Fats Domino, Tiny Grimes, and the Rolling Stones, then eventually toured with The Clash and Nick Cave. His career didn’t go in the operatic direction he had hoped for, though I don’t think anyone would say Screamin’ Jay didn’t have a heck of a run. Every spooky musician owes their top hat and fangs to the horrifying Hawkins. All these years later, we’re still under his spell.
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