Screamin' Jay Hawkins: "I Put A Spell On You"
Here is an absolutely stupendous video of Screamin' Jay Hawkins in full witch doctor regalia performing "I Put A Spell On You". (Thanks, Kirsten Anderson!)
Here is an absolutely stupendous video of Screamin' Jay Hawkins in full witch doctor regalia performing "I Put A Spell On You". (Thanks, Kirsten Anderson!)
the latest
latest episodes
Screamin' Jay is teh awesome. He and Fishbone played at UC Santa Cruz's "The End" party in 1986. Or was it '85? Good times! What was the name of that black and white movie, with the girl walking around playing "I Put a Spell on You" over and over on her boombox? It was very cute.
This is such a fantastically intense song. Screamin' Jay was a wild man.
In the mid 90's I watched a black and white foreign film with a girl who carried around a tape recorder and played this song again and again. Now I'm at a loss to recall the name of it and this post makes me want to track it down to watch again. I think it was made in the Eastern Bloc - maybe Bulgaria or former Czechoslovakia.
Anyone have an idea of the film?
Was saddened to realize he's been gone eight years now, but read further and brightened at the "55 to 75 offspring".
Godfree - if that isn't synchrony. . .
h.. how many famous "Screamings" are there out there? Whatever happened to Screaming Lord Sutch? Know any others?
#1, #2, The movie is "Stranger Than Paradise" by the fantastic Jim Jarmusch. He also put Screamin' Jay in his movie "Mystery Train."
Thanks for posting the video, DP. It really takes me back. I saw Screamin' Jay a few times live at the Palomino in North Hollywood, CA. I saw him on the first New Year's Eve date that I had with my then girlfriend, and now wife.
Anyone heard his "Constipation Blues"?
What a great milestone for humanity that one is!
Art shall not be Denied:
UMM-UMMMH, aeoh
UMM-UOOMH
OOH!
OH!
UH UH
Aaah
UOH, aah
Let it go! Let it go! Let it go! Let it go!
I don't believe I can take much more
Let it go
Aah
Got a pain down inside
Won't be denied
Yeah, every time I try
I can't be satisfied
Let it go!
WOAH, UMMH
Let it, let it go!
OH!
WAAAAOOOH!
This pain down inside
Just won't let me be satisfied
Let it go!
SPLASH!!! SPSHHH....
Feel, ah, I-I feel alright
Yes ah, I'm beginning to feel alright
SPLASH!!! Shpsh...
Yeah
I tell ya, everything's gonna be alright
SPLASH!
Flush
Phew
Phew
Phew...
Feel alright
Screamin Jay is a damn genius. Form many reasons, including the fact that he wrote a song called "Armpit No"
Ia! Ia! Gojira! Ia! Ia! Yog-Sothoth! Ia! Ia! Nyarlathotep! Ia! Ia! Shub-Nigurath! Ia! Ia! Great Cthulhu! Ia Ia Cthulhu F’thagn! Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
Tak, does Howlin' Wolf count?
oh yeah
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=_LNt5J0Cesc
yeah..
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=fFZfx3r-AvE
awww, for the days when wind-up chattering teeth were considered "creepy" enough to deserve any screentime with this amazing performance.
@Takuan
Screaming Lord Sutch died in June 1999.
His Heavy Friends lp was recently reissued on vinyl.
aye, I knew that, I did. The question is; who took his soul?
How haunting and insane. Though, a sentimental chord is pulled watching this, it reminds me of Halloween specials in the early nineties.
I imagine moving left across this scene at 3 mph, contained with my little brother in a large black plastic orb with an apparition of Screamin' Jay between us yelling in that too-crazy way.
I really needed this today.
Great post.
Fantastic, thanks so much for this- brought back some great memories.
Anyone ever hear his cover of "I love Paris"?
We have a greatest hits album of his. When our kids were younger they loved it when we'd play it - and yeah - especially Constipation Blues. Screaming Jay has a fun part in Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train. Check it out if you haven't seen it.
I've always loved this song and it is on my playlists for my annual halloween party. I didn't mind one bit that it was used for a car commercial featuring Tiger Woods since I got to hear it more often while watching tv.
He's in heavy rotation on my iPod. Love him, love his music.
An ex-girlfriend of mine had a vinyl album of his (maybe a greatest hits?) that included this story on the dustjacket: Screamin' Jay carried around a stick with a skull on it that he named "Henry." So he's in Memphis or somewhere, staying in a hotel, and there's a wedding going on in the park across the street. Screamin' Jay leans out of his window, Henry in hand, and yells "Shame on you!" at the newlyweds.
That, to me, defines SJH.
Screamin' Jay makes a wonderful appearance in A Rage in Harlem (1991) as himself, performing in Harlem in the 1950s. It's a terrific film, enriched by his outrageous scene.
I remember the class all reacting in unison when we were shown a video of Hawkins performing in that outfit.
History of Rock and Roll should be mandatory.
If I remember right, Screamin' Jay arrived on stage inside of a coffin for the performance I saw. Class with a capital K!
PS. Thanks, Walrus!
@Godfree
I'd heard about Screamin' Jay emerging from a coffin before, and wish I'd been able to see it. Rumor has it that Alan Freed put him up to it, bribing him to do it the first time. On the other hand, adding a monkey to the act on his first tour of Britain might not have been the best idea...
http://deaddodo.org/ugugu/Screamin%27_Jay_Hawkins_-_Biography_1960-1969#1965
My first album was a split LP Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Lillian Briggs. I still don't get the connection, but I played it until the grooves wore out. My favorite thing to do was put on "I Hear Voices" and then quickly hide under the couch because it scared the shit out of me. Then when the song was over I would come out from under the couch and put it on again. Good times when you're five or six.
Sadly the only time I managed to get to a live show he canceled due to illness.
It is such a shame that Jay doesn't get more attention these days. His music is so rock and roll. His voice is amazing, and his performances were notorious. Plus, it is so much fun.
Anyone that enjoys this kind of music should track down Rhino's Loud, Fast, and Out of Control boxset.
Just a shout out to Chicken Hot Rod who has digitized and shared out a ton of rare videos from his/her collection over the years. Thanks! - MR
Ah, here's the story I was thinking of:
...Jay enhancing some lucky young couple's wedding, when, appearing into the afternoon summer sunlight they were greeted by the sight of Screamin' Jay Hawkins leaning from his hotel window opposite the church, waving Henry and firing blanks from a .32 shouting "Shame on you!"
http://deaddodo.org/ugugu/1982_Screamin%27_Jay_Hawkins_LP_%22Frenzy%22
About the coffin: The first time I saw him perform, his band carried the coffin out on stage, and he did indeed emerge from it (I even seem to recall a hearse being parked outside, but I might just be imagining that part). That was the only time I saw him do that. The next time I saw him (probably about a year later), he had the coffin on stage, but didn't climb out of it.
Regarding Henry: He always had Henry on stage with him. He would stick a cig in his mouth and light it with flash paper. He was a real, great, old-fashioned showman.
When I was growing up in Boston in the 1960's, and we all listened to AM radio (WBCN was still a classical station in those days), there was a DJ on WBZ who played the 'ma-wah' sound off "I Put a Spell on You", and then once in a while, he'd use the 'I don't care if you don't want me- I'M YOURS!' It must have been 20 years later before I found out where those came from. My friend Garth Danielson played a whole album for my wife and I, and I have to agree that he was wild and amazing. I remember the web page that Hawkins' lawyer had up, trying to determine how many children that he had, and I was amazed all over again.