Screamin' Jay Hawkins

Jalacy J. Hawkins, better known as Screamin' Jay Hawkins, was an American singer‑songwriter, musician, actor, film producer, and boxer whose flamboyant stage persona helped forge the genre of shock rock. Born on July 18, 1929 in Cleveland, Ohio, Hawkins grew up in a foster‑home where he studied classical piano before turning to the guitar in his twenties. After a brief, self‑reported stint in the U.S. Army boxing circuit, he began his music career in 1951, first backing Philadelphia guitarist Tiny Grimes and soon signing with Okeh Records. His 1956 recording of “I Put a Spell on You” – a raw, guttural track recorded while the band was intoxicated – became a million‑seller despite being banned by some radio stations and criticized by the NAACP for its perceived vulgarity. The song’s macabre aura, amplified by Hawkins’s theatrical use of coffins, skulls, and rubber snakes, earned him a reputation as a “black Vincent Price” and made him a pioneer of the horror‑themed performance style that later inspired artists from Alice Cooper to Marilyn Manson. Over the next four decades he toured relentlessly, especially in Europe, recorded eclectic albums ranging from Constipation Blues to Black Music for White People, and appeared in films such as Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train and Alex de la Iglesia’s Perdita Durango. Hawkins’s career was marked by both commercial novelty and genuine musical talent, his powerful, shouting vocal delivery influencing generations of rock and blues performers.

Beyond the stage, Hawkins’s personal life was as colorful as his performances. He married six times, fathered three children with his first wife, and claimed to have dozens more, though the exact number remains uncertain. He lived in Hawaii during the 1960s, relocated to New York in the 1980s, and spent his final years in France, where he died of an aneurysm after emergency surgery on February 12, 2000. Though never a chart‑topping recording star, his legacy endures in the theatrical excesses of modern rock and the enduring popularity of “I Put a Spell on You,” a song that continues to be covered by a wide array of artists across genres.