Rock for Ages

Rock for Ages

Before Alice Cooper, before Marilyn Manson, before Doctor John’s first album, even before Arthur Brown, there was Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. On record he strikes you as an off-center blues guy, rockin’ out like some mash-up of Doctor John and Albert Collins. Then you listen a little closer, remembering that Hawkins wrote “I Put a Spell on You”, recorded by…well, pretty much everyone. Turns out he was more innovative than off-center, and worked with outstanding backing musicians, including Mickey Baker, to craft a weird, sometimes scary, sometimes funny, blues subgenre. He actually earned his living by providing rock theater to 50s audiences whose closest brush with anything this wacky had to come from regional theater companies butchering Italian opera. 

Hawkins’ stage show had him climbing out of a coffin with his primary prop, a flaming human skull named Henry. Pyrotechnics were part of his act. The whole thing must’ve been hard to pull off in the 20 minute allotments of an Alan Freed show, but somehow he made it work. Highly recommended, no family should be without. Best way to access most of his worthwhile stuff is to grab the two disk “Weird and Then Some” best of collection on Jasmine Records (photo above).