It happened, I don't know, a thousand years ago.
I was interviewing Nick Cave and asked him about his tour of Australia with Screamin' Jay Hawkins (1929-2000).
I expected some funny anecdote, but no: “Jay was funny the first day.
Then he turned into a nightmare.
Never more".
Hawkins came from the
chitlin' circuit
, the network of venues that hosted black artists during the years of apartheid.
Conditions there were deplorable and the compensation tended toward the miserable.
However, he learned tricks that came in handy when he found himself performing before white audiences.
Circumstances permitting, he refused to appear unless he was paid before going on stage, and in cash.
Baffled, the promoter explained that he had already made a transfer to Hawkins' manager, "here's the receipt."
Unmoved, Hawkins enjoyed the man's confusion and the growing uproar from the crowd.
Generally, his will was done.
He cashed in, swept away the spectators, and left it up to the organizer to try and get the money back from him.
Everything Hawkins said had to be taken with a grain of skepticism.
From his warlike exploits (in World War II and/or the Korean conflict) to his achievements as a boxer, boasts dismantled by his biographer, Steve Bergsman.
Not to mention the number of wives and dozens of children attributed to him.
What was indisputable was the power of his voice and the gruesomeness of his imagination.
His biggest hit (actually his only hit) of his was
I Put a Spell on You,
where he puts a curse on the lover who has abandoned him.
This needs precision.
The first recorded performance of
I Put a Spell on You
was a slowed-down blues, comfortable for the players;
the next, hyperdramatized, offered a display of shouts, guffaws and growls.
That is what has remained for history, enhanced by the props, which came to include a coffin, from which the singer appeared.
A suggestion, claimed Hawkins, from Alan Freed, the godfather of
rock & roll
, that he knew of the popularity of B-movie horror among
teenagers
.
Some additions that also delighted television producers.
The extraordinary thing is that
I Put a Spell on You
did not achieve success in the voice of its creator.
White radio operators found erotic echoes in their frenzy;
his black colleagues, fighting for civil rights, rejected his suggestions of voodoo and cannibalism.
But the theme triumphed with the versions of Alan Price, Creedence Clearwater Revival or Nina Simone (who even used it to give the title to her autobiography).
His hook passes over generations: in 2015, he was successful again in the voice of Annie Lennox, after her inclusion in the soundtrack of
Fifty Shades of Gray
.
Screamin' Jay Hawkins never again found the balance between hysteria and menace that characterizes
I Put a Spell on You.
He seemed to think in terms of provocation, like any other Marilyn Manson: he even wrote
Constipation Blues,
where he stages an episode of constipation and, uh, its resolution.
And the ultimate paradox.
Apart from his appearances in films by Jim Jarmusch or Álex de la Iglesia, Hawkins only had a media presence again with his garage reading of a piece by a white composer:
Heartattack and Vine,
by Tom Waits.
He came out too well: he approached the author's wolfish voice and Levi's jeans bought the rights to the recording for a powerful television advertising campaign.
They ignored or chose to ignore Waits's total opposition to the use of his music in advertising;
he sued them and got a million-dollar compensation and public apologies from the company.
Pissed off, Screamin' Jay Hawkins could only ask who was finally imitating who.
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