Screamin' Jay Hawkins: He'll Put a Spell on You

Because you're mine ...

I.

Never a favourite with the NAACP, Screamin' Jay Hawkins played with black racial stereotypes and white racial fears just as he experimented with music and performance, producing a unique sound and look that would later influence shock rockers from Arthur Brown and Alice Cooper to Marilyn Manson.

The above - and many others - were inspired by his mock-satanism and penchant for macabre stage accessories (including smoking skulls, rubber snakes, and shrunken heads).  

II.

A former champion boxer and Korean war veteran, Hawkins decided to try his luck as a rhythm and blues singer. After an 18 month spell fronting a band, he left to develop a solo career. His big moment came in 1955, when he recorded an astounding - and drunken - version of his composition entitled I Put a Spell On You, for a black music label owned by Columbia Records. 

The grunts, groans and screams that Hawkins added to what was otherwise a fairly standard pop ballard were deemed to be so disturbing that the record was immediately banned from the radio. Nevertheless, it was a huge hit, selling more than a million copies and secured Hawkins a place in the rock 'n' roll hall of fame. 

It also ensured he would be typecast as a performer, whose talents as a singer, songwriter and musician, became increasingly irrelevant; people wanted the outrageously dressed madman with a bone through his nose, taking to the stage in a satin-lined coffin and giving his best impression of the voodoo priest Baron Samedi.*    

As much as his grotesque persona delighted and amused white audiences - not only in the US, but also in the UK and France - it deeply offended many African Americans. Hawkins, however, was unapologetic, explaining that he was simply an entertainer looking to make a few dollars; not a role model, spokesman for the black community, or a civil rights activist.    

Although he had a number of other hit songs - including Constipation Blues (1969); a track about real pain, not merely heartbreak and loneliness - his star was well and truly beginning to fade by the 1970s, although he continued to work up until his death, aged 70, in February 2000, appearing, for example, alongside Joe Strummer in the 1989 cult movie Mystery Train (dir. Jim Jarmusch).  

Since his death, I Put a Spell on You has continued to be covered by a wide variety of artists, most of whom treat the song very seriously; very few have been brave (or foolish) enough to attempt to replicate - or better - the unique performance given by Hawkins himself ...**

Notes

* Hawkins did sometimes express his unhappiness with this; in a 1973 interview, for example, he bemoaned the fact that whilst James Brown did an awful lot of screaming, he wasn't given the name of Screamin' James Brown and nobody expected him to play the fool or questioned the sincerity of his performance. I'm not overly sympathetic with Hawkins, however, who voluntarily sold his soul to the devil.  

** Artists who have covered this song include Nina Simone, Bryan Ferry, Marilyn Manson, and even Bonnie Tyler.

Play: Screamin' Jay Hawkins, I Put a Spell On You, (Okeh Records, 1956): click here. 

And for a live TV performance of the song, click here. 

Gymnosophy 4: Oh Yes They Call it the Streak (Boogity, Boogity)

Streaker Michael O'Brien being escorted from the field at Twickenham

Photo by Ian Bradshaw (20 April 1974)

I. Don't Look Ethel

Released in the late-spring of 1974, The Streak was a smash hit single written and performed by the country western singer Ray Stevens, that comically cashed in on the then popular craze of streaking; i.e. the act of running naked through a public place - usually as a prank, although sometimes as an act of protest - and often chased by officials or policemen lending it Keystone Cops appeal.

The Streak sold over five million copies and topped the charts in both the US and UK. I didn't buy it, but I remember it with a certain fondness as one of the tunes of my childhood - probably due to the fact the record features a slide whistle - even if I found the phenomenon to which it referred somewhat disturbing.   

II.  A Brief History of Streaking

Like most things, streaking isn't without a longer and more complex history than people imagine ...

One might, for example, discuss it in relation to the behaviour of the Neo-Adamites in medieval Europe, who passed naked through towns and villages; or, indeed, the 17th-century Quaker Solomon Eagle, mentioned by both Daniel Defoe and Samuel Pepys, who would run naked through the streets of London with a burning brazier upon his head (à la Arthur Brown), crying Repent! Repent!   

Having said that, I'm not entirely convinced of the legitimacy of attempting to tie streaking in the modern sense to Christian asceticism; nor even to place it within the context of naturism. It's also distinct from flashing in the pervy sense, in that the intent is generally not to cause shock or outrage.* Ultimately, it makes more sense to see it as something that has its origins within American campus culture, with incidents of (male) college students running around naked beginning in the early 19th-century.  

It wasn't until the 1960s and '70s, however, that streaking became a much wider cultural phenomenon; suddenly everyone wanted to get naked and exhibit themselves to the world and its cameras. Even supposedly uptight Brits were throwing caution - and their clothes - to the wind and you could hardly turn on the TV without having to see some idiot interrupt the rugby or cricket.

Whilst many streakers seem to have a penchant for running naked in front of cheering and/or jeering crowds at sporting events, perhaps the most widely seen streaker in history was Robert Opel who ran across the stage at the Oscars in 1974 - an event broadcast on live tv and so witnessed by millions of viewers around the world.

Bemused host David Niven quipped: 'Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and revealing his shortcomings.' Which is funny, but not quite the amusing ad-lib that people at the time took it to be; for there's evidence to suggest that the whole thing was a stunt that had been arranged by the show's producer and that Niven's line was scripted.      

In Hollywood, even nudity is a game of artifice and spontaneity well rehearsed ...

Notes

* It should be noted, however, that unlike in the '70s, anybody now arrested for streaking in the United States risks being charged with indecent exposure and consequently branded a  sex offender upon conviction. Just one more example of the neo-puritanism that blights our times ... 

Play: Ray Stevens, 'The Streak', single release from the album Boogity Boogity (Barnaby, 1974): click here. 

Gymnosophy 1: naked philosophers: click here.

Gymnosophy 2: naked Germans: click here.

Gymnosophy 3: naked witches: click here.