Screamin' Jay Hawkins - Voodoo Jive: The Best of Screamin' Jay Hawkins

Back in the day, Screamin' Jay Hawkins put the show in show business. His voodoo-inspired stage act included fireworks, flash powder, snakes, shrunken heads, and his faithful companion, a skull named Henry. To start his concerts, he was carried on in a coffin, from which he leaped, as if risen from the dead, often sending a good portion of his audience scampering for the exits. All of that sounds quaint by current standards, but at the time it was as controversial--perhaps more so--than Marilyn Manson is today. So was Screamin' Jay's music, which was marked with wild, wordless exhortations and orgasmic screams. "Voodoo Jive" contains Hawkins's best cuts, including the essential "I Put a Spell on You" plus "Little Demon," "Frenzy," "Alligator Wine," and "Person to Person," among others. In the grand scheme of things, Hawkins's schtick made him a legend, but in the short run, he was limited by what some saw as a mere novelty act. Still, he recorded some fine, honking R&B and proto-rock & roll that still sounds great (and completely out of control). The closing cut here, "Constipation Blues," is not for the faint of heart, but then neither is anything else Hawkins ever recorded. --Daniel Durchholz Amazon.com

Talk About The Pitfalls Of Being Type-Cast

Try as he might - and he really, really tried - Jalacy Hawkins, born in 1929 in Cleveland, could never grasp that brass ring known as a hit record. In fact, right up there with The Velvet Underground, he has to hold the record for commercial futility, as over 50 singles, including several different versions of I Put A Spell On You, failed to crack the Top 100 in either the pop or R&B fields.

And yet, judging by the way I Put A Spell On You is regarded in today's retrospective market, you'd think it was right up there with Don't Be Cruel/Hound Dog, Satisfaction, or I Want To Hold Your Hand! It's marvelous how some people latch onto mediocrity and turn it into "legend" by the simple means of loudly proclaiming it to be something special, and calling everyone who disagrees with that point of view "out of the loop."

Hawkins got his start as a pianist with Tiny Grimes & His Rocking Highlanders, among other R&B bands, before striking out on his own in 1954 for the Timely label with Baptize Me In Wine/Not Anymore and Please Try To Understand/I Found My Way To Wine.

In 1955 he moved over to Mercury/Wing where he cut She Put The Whammy On Me/This Is All, a disc that led to his growing reputation as a "voodoo man." By the time he did I Put A Spell On You/Little Demon for Columbia's Okeh subsidiary in 1956 [reputedly sloshed along with his entire band], that record plus live appearances decked out in outlandish costumes solidified the public view. Now he was trapped in a persona that he probably didn't want to pursue but, like it or not, from then on he was known as Screamin' Jay Hawkins.

Over the next decades - right into the Nineties in fact - he would hop from one label to another in North America and Europe [Epic, Apollo, Enrica, Chancellor, Roulette, Providence, Philips, Sound Of Hawaii, Queen Bee, Hot Line, London, RCA (where, believe it or not, he cut 1974's Voodoo/You Put The Spell On Me), Versatile, Paris, Midnight, Polydor, Planet, Bizarre-Straight, and Valley]. All with equally futile results insofar as a hit record was concerned.

But he was an entertainer, of that there can be no doubt. Perhaps fittingly, his curtain call came late in 1999 for a label called Last Call with the CD "Live - Olympia, Paris 1998." The following February 12 he died of an aneuryism during a brain operation at age 70.

It would have been nice had the public bought just enough of ONE of his records to nudge him onto the charts and at least leave him with the legacy of being among the many One-Hit Wonders. September 3, 2007

Great!

absolutly great cd, if you like Screamin' Jay Hawkins you'll like it very much, and also the prize. March 28, 2007

Nice, freakish, BUT

Let's be honest, Jay was a freak, so if you have your "5 Minutes" and you need such kind of music, this is it!
Besides that you can better use the CD for frisbee :-), nevertheless he created a whole genre of say weirdness in music...

The price is a drawback, i would say that 10-12 USD are fair.

Hermann March 13, 2007

Quintessential

You know nothing about blues until you have discovered Screamin Jay Hawkins. The kind of character that is missing these days. A great cultural moment for anyone capable of reading between the lines. January 16, 2007

Less than impressed

I bought this album for the song "I Put A Spell on You." Unfortunatley it is not the version of the song I wanted. It's a good version, but I wanted the one with all the vocal sound effects that got it banned. I heard it on a jukebox in a bar where it is a crowd favorite, so I know that version is available somewhere. Well then, the rest of the album. There are some interesting songs here, but if this is the best of Mr. Hawkins, then ummmm, he wasn't the best in the world. I could see myself playing a few of the songs as rare treats, but listening to the album all the way thru is not something I can't wait to do. I'm sure his stage act was great and ahead of its time, but unless you're a real Hawkins fan this album might dissappoint you. Buy it when the price goes down. September 15, 2006

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