I Put A Spell On You

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As well as his stories about being a prisoner of war, he also used to claim on a regular basis that the reason he’d loved being in the military so much was because you were allowed to kill people and wouldn’t get punished for it. But those stage gimmicks were making him a breakout star in Grimes’ band, and so at a recording session for Grimes, it was agreed that Hawkins could record a single of his own at the end of the session, if there was time. If Hawkins’ story of how the song came into being is anything to go by, it would seem that the original song in itself was a remastered version – seeing as the first recording of the song had a bluesy, ballad-like vibe to it, while the one that was released in 1956 was well known for containing the notorious screaming, courtesy a very in-form Screamin’ Jay. Coming from a multicultural background, Atlas’ musical influences included Maghrebain, hip-hop, reggae and so on. What we do know is that he seems to have grown up extremely resentful of women, particularly his mother.

which was a minor hit in the UK at the time, and has featured intermittenly in his live set since the late '90's. On his first record, with Grimes, he’s not the blues shouter that he had a reputation of being, and nor is he the screamer he would later become — instead he sounds like he’s imitating Clyde McPhatter’s singing on “The Bells” by Billy Ward and His Dominoes, but in a bass register somewhat reminiscent of Paul Robeson. Hawkins had already been getting a certain amount of criticism from the NAACP and other civil rights groups because they believed that he was making black people look bad by associating them with voodoo and cannibalism. Every now and then, we come across that one song (or many, for that matter) that just makes us wish we could sing it on our own. Po from Portland OrI am trying to find out the title of a vampire movie during the eighties that featured this song.

Over the years, various artists have come up with different presentations of ‘I Put a Spell on You’ using the influence gathered from their own genre of music. At this point Hawkins had a certain amount of potential, but was just one of a million smooth blues singers, who relied more on stage gimmicks than on singing ability. The following year, Hawkins re-recorded the song for Columbia's Okeh Records—the notorious screaming version, which was released in October 1956.

Every time, he would let his addictions to alcohol or codeine overtake him, or he would rip a friend off for a trifling sum of money, or he would just get married bigamously again. Annie Lennox recorded her own version of the song in 2013, and released it on September 15, 2014, as the lead single from her sixth studio album, Nostalgia. By this time, he had started using some of the gimmicks he would use in his stage show, though for the most part his act was still fairly tame by modern standards. I'm willing to share the chord progression I use with anyone else - the trouble is I play by ear, and I can't even identify by name one of the chords I use!After a couple more singles, Hawkins was once again dropped by his label — but once again, he moved on to a slightly bigger label, this time to OKeh, which was a subsidiary of Columbia, one of the biggest labels in the country. I quickly found out the answer was WAY more than I expected (or cared to listen to), but since that moment I’ve paid attention to how many covers I find of iconic Halloween songs…and squirreled them away into playlists to share someday.

Hawkins said everyone was indulging and enjoying themselves so much that by the time they got around to recording…they were all drunk and instead of the melodic ballad he had in mind, he scream-sang most of it and created the original version. Freed insisted, and eventually ended up paying Hawkins a large bonus — which Hawkins would later claim was multiple thousands of dollars, but which actually seems to have been about three hundred dollars, itself a lot of money in 1956. Robert from Bloomington, InNatacha Atlas, a Tunisian-Belgian singer popular in Europe, recorded a wonderful middle-eastern sounding version in 2001 using rai-style percussion, synth and Tunisian backpipe. I Put a Spell on You’ has been covered extensively by other artists; there are several hundred cover versions. It’s hard to separate truth from myth when it comes to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, not least because he was an inveterate liar.

When the producer asked why he could do the song effectively on stage but not in the studio, Hawkins explained that he never did a concert sober. Beginning with a shocking drum piece and John Fogerty’s rugged vocals, the cover was similar yet different in various aspect from the original song.