20,000 vinyl LPs 378: Screamin' Jay Hawkins ~ I Put a Spell on You

 ~  

Screamin' Jay Hawkins  ~ I Put a Spell on You

vinyl LP front cover 

 cover photographer unknown 

photo of album cover by Styrous®

Screamin' Jay Hawkins was an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, film producer and boxer who was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, and wanted to be an opera singer (Hawkins cited Paul Robeson as his musical idol in interviews), also included were Mario Lanza, Enrico Caruso, Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Brown. When his initial ambitions failed, he began his career as a conventional blues singer and pianist.      

  

Screamin' Jay Hawkins recorded I Put a Spell on You on February 12, 1956. It was co-written with Herb Slotkin, became a classic cult song and was Hawkins' greatest commercial success, reportedly surpassing a million copies in sales, even though it failed to make the Billboard pop or R&B charts.   

 

 

Screamin' Jay Hawkins  ~ I Put a Spell on You

vinyl LP back cover 

photo by Styrous®

 

From Wikipedia:

Hawkins had originally intended to record I Put a Spell on You as "a refined love song, a blues ballad". However, the producer Arnold Maxin "brought in ribs and chicken and got everybody drunk, and we came out with this weird version ... I don't even remember making the record. Before, I was just a normal blues singer. I was just Jay Hawkins. It all sort of just fell in place. I found out I could do more destroying a song and screaming it to death."

The hit brought Hawkins together with Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed who added him to his "Rock and Roll Revue". Up to this time, Hawkins had been a blues performer; emotional, but not wild. Freed suggested a gimmick to capitalize on the "demented" sound of I Put a Spell on You: Hawkins wore a long cape, and appeared onstage by rising out of a coffin in the midst of smoke and fog. The act was a sensation, later bolstered by tusks worn in Hawkins' nose, on-stage snakes and fireworks, a cigarette-smoking skull named "Henry" and, ultimately, Hawkins transforming himself into "the black Vincent Price". This theatrical act was one of the first shock rock performances.      

dates & photographers unknown

 

I Put a Spell on You was selected as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. It was also included in Robert Christgau's "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings—published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981)—and ranked No. 313 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.               

During his career he opened for Fats Domino, Tiny Grimes and the Rolling Stones. 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.        

 

Screamin' Jay Hawkins  ~ I Put a Spell on You

vinyl LP, side 1

photo by Styrous®

 

 

There have been some great covers of the song: Nina Simone, John Fogerty, Annie Lennox, Bryan Ferry, Haley Reinhart, Nick Cave, Tim Curry, The Animals and, of course, Marilyn Manson and Diamanda Galas to name but a few. With the exception of Manson and Galas, most of the covers treat the song seriously; few attempt to duplicate the  over-the-top performance by Hawkins.     

 

Screamin' Jay Hawkins  ~ I Put a Spell on You

vinyl LP, side 2

photo by Styrous®

   

Tracklist:
       
Side 1:

        

A1 - Orange Colored Sky, written by Delugg*, Stein*
A2 - Hong Kong, written by Nahan*, J. Hawkins*
A3 - Temptation, written by Freed*, N. H. Brown*
A4 - I Love Paris, written by Cole Porter
A5 - I Put A Spell On You, written by Slotkin*, J. Hawkins*
A6 - Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

       
Side 2:
       
B1 - Yellow Coat, written by Nahan*, J. Hawkins*
B2 - Ol' Man River, written by Kern*, Hammerstein II*
B3 - If You Are But A Dream, written by A. Rubinstein*, J. Fulton*, Jaffe*, Bronx*
B4 - Give Me My Boots And Saddle, written by Whitcup*, T. Powell*, Samuels*
B5 - Deep Purple, written by Parish*, De Rose*
B6 - You Made Me Love You, written by Monaco*, J. McCarthy*

Personnel

• Vocals – Jalacy Hawkins
• Guitar – Mickey Baker
• Piano – Ernie Hayes
• Tenor saxophone – Sam "The Man" Taylor
• Baritone saxophone – Bud Johnson
• Bass – Al Lucas
• Drums – David "Panama" Francis
• Arrangement – Leroy Kirkland

Credits:
       
    Conductor – Leroy Kirkland, O.B. Masingill*
    Photography By – Alfred Gescheidt
       
Barcode and Other Identifiers
 

    Matrix / Runout (Stamped Side A): XEM42622-1A
    Matrix / Runout (Stamped SIde B): XEM42623-1C

 

Screamin' Jay Hawkins – At Home With Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Label: Epic – LN 3448
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Mono
Country: US
Released: Mar 1958
Genre: Blues
Style: Rhythm & Blues

        

         

Viewfinder links:        

         

Alice Cooper        

The Animals            

Enrico Caruso              

Glenn Danzig           

Fats Domino        

Screamin' Jay Hawkins          

Mario Lanza          

Led Zeppelin               

Annie Lennox         

Vincent Price                  

Rob Zombie           

Paul Robeson         

The Rolling Stones          

Tom Waits        

        

Net links:        

         

American Blues Scene ~ Wild Operatic Bluesman Screamin' Jay Hawkins        

Grunge ~ The Crazy Real-Life Story Of Screamin' Jay Hawkins      

NPR ~ Searching For The Children Of Screamin' Jay Hawkins            

        

YouTube links:        

        

I Put a Spell on You ~              

The Animals            

Black Sabbath          

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds           

Tim Curry           

Diamanda Galas

Screamin' Jay Hawkins           

Bryan Ferry        

John Fogerty     

Annie Lennox         

Marilyn Manson        

Haley Reinhart    

Nina Simone             

        

        

        

         

        

        

        

Styrous® ~ Wednesday, February 12, 2025       
       

 

 

~

20,000 Vinyl LPs Archive
MAIN MENU - Blog Articles
~

On this day in music: 002 ~ May 28th

 ~     

     

 

 

 

 

 

What do Gladys Knight, John Fogerty, Gary Stewart, T-Bone Walker, Sonny Burgess, Kylie Minogue, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Billy Vera, Larry Gatlin, Roland Gift, Tony Mansfield, Arto Lindsay, John McGeoch, Steve Strange, and Chubb Rock have in common?      

They were all born on May 28th.

     
     
     
I have written many blogs about various artists, each blog devoted to, mostly, one each blog. That makes for a blog with only one aspect of music. I thought it would be fun to have a variety of music styles; that is what this is all about. I'll do more in the future.            

 Here is the first installment.

     
In 1910, T-Bone Walker, was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, who was a pioneer and innovator of the jump blues and electric blues sound. In 2018 Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 67 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".            

 

In 1925, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, was a German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music, one of the most famous Lieder (art song) performers of the post-war period, best known as a singer of Lieder by Franz Schubert, particularly Winterreise of which his recordings with accompanists Gerald Moore and Jörg Demus are still critically acclaimed half a century after their release.         

 

In 1929, Sonny Burgess, an American rockabilly guitarist and singer.       

 

In 1944, Gladys Knight of the fabulous Pips. Billy Vera is an American singer, songwriter, actor, author and music historian. He has been a singer and songwriter since the 1960s and continues to perform with his group Billy Vera & The Beaters, and won a Grammy Award in 2013. , Gary Stewart,     

     
In 1945, John Fogerty, is an American musician, singer, and songwriter. Together with Doug Clifford, Stu Cook, and his brother Tom Fogerty, he founded the band Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), for which he was the lead singer, lead guitarist, and principal songwriter. The group had nine top-10 singles and eight gold albums between 1968 and 1972, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993.    
      

In 1948, Larry Gatlin, is an American country and Southern gospel singer and songwriter. As part of a trio with his younger brothers Steve and Rudy, he achieved considerable success within the country music genre, performing on 33 top-40 singles (combining his solo recordings and those with his brothers). As their fame grew, the band became known as Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers.            

 

In 1953, Arto Lindsay, is an American guitarist, singer, record producer and experimental composer of No wave, noise, avant-garde jazz. He has a distinctive soft voice and an often noisy, self-taught guitar style consisting almost entirely of extended techniques. His song Seu Pai, sung in Portuguese, is right out of Brazilian Carnival and reminiscent of Black Orpheus.      

 

 

Black Orpheus movie poster

 

      

In 1955, John McGeoch, was a Scottish guitarist who played with several bands of the post-punk era, including Magazine, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Visage, and Public Image Ltd. and Tony Mansfield,   

 

In 1959, Steve Strange, was a Welsh pop singer. He became famous as the leader of the new wave synth-pop group Visage, best known for their single Fade to Grey, and was one of the most influential figures behind the New Romantic movement of the early 1980s.       

In 1962, Roland Gift, is a British singer, songwriter and actor. He is the former singer/frontman of the pop band Fine Young Cannibals.           

 

In 1968, Chubb Rock, a New York-based rapper who released several commercially successful hip hop albums in the early 1990s and Kylie Minogue,        

     

     

     

     

    

Viewfinder links:       

        

Gladys Knight & the Pips        
Kylie Minogue        
     
YouTube links:       

        

Sonny Burgess - We Wanna Boogie        

Dietrich Fischer Dieskau ~ Der Lindenbaum Die Winterreise       

John Fogerty ~ The Old Man Down the Road      

Larry Gatlin & The Gatlin Brothers ~ Houston          

Roland Gift (Fine Young Cannibals) ~ Good Thing       

Gladys Knight ~ Midnight Train To Georgia        

Arto Lindsay ~ Seu Pai        

John McGeoch (Magazine) ~ Rhythm of Cruelty        

Chubb Rock ~ Rock 'n Roll Dude        

Gary Stewart ~ She's Acting Single         

Steve Strange (Visage)  ~ Fade To Grey    

Billy Vera ~ Let You Get Away       

T-Bone Walker ~ Goin' to Chicago        

        

        
        

        
        
        
        
Styrous® ~ Friday, May 28, 2021        
        

~ 
On This Day in Music

MAIN MENU - Blog Articles

~