Screamin' Jay Hawkins - Biography 1980-1989

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1980

The various artists LP THE LONDON R&B SESSIONS [Albion DAI 2] includes Wilko Johnson's version of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' song "The Whammy". In 1986 the album is also released on CD [Albion ALCD 9.00135]

1981

Screamin Jay Hawkins' "I put a spell on you" is featured in Burger King ads. Meanwhile Dave [...] and Tony Stoltz do bookings for Screamin' Jay Hawkins and the ChickenHawks.

12-13 November 1981

Screamin' Jay Hawkins opens the Rolling Stones concerts at Madison Square Garden in New York.

1982

Edsel Records releases the compilation LP FRENZY [Edsel 104] featuring previously released OKeh and Epic material recorded in 1956 and 1957.

1983

April - May 1983

Paris: Screamin' Jay Hawkins recording session for Zeta.

Musicians: Screamin' Jay Hawkins

All songs released on

  • [Zeta 15755]
  • 1989 CD REAL LIFE [Charly Records 1963]
Deep in your love
Your kind of love
Get down France
All night
Serving time
Feast of the Mau Mau
I feel alright
Poor folks
Mountain jive
Constipation blues
Alligator wine

ca. 1983

Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Serge Gainsbourg appear live on French TV, playing a short version of the "Constipation blues".

... 1983

Screamin' Jay Hawkins tours Great Britain.

1984

In Jim Jarmusch's cult film classic Stranger In Paradise Eszter Balint proclaims "Screamin' Jay's the shit!" as she lugs a boom box blaring Screamin' Jay Hawkins' 1956 recording of "I put a spell on you" down a New Jersey street. She plays a poker-faced, newly emigrated Hungarian for whom the delirium of Screamin' Jay represents the wildness of an America she seeks but never finds - however she also says: "He's Screamin' Jay Hawkins and he's a wild man, so bug off!" Also starring in the film is long-faced saxophonist John Lurie.

Interest in Hawkins now mounts in earnest and a wider audience begins to appreciate Hawkins's talents. He begins touring the United States regularly. Before a Boston show he tells the Boston Herald, "I am going to reach into ... [spectators'] chests, grab their hearts, fumble with their emotions, and have them walking sideways and eating chop suey with chopsticks out of their ear[s] while wearing a gas mask."

ca. 1984

...: Screamin' Jay Hawkins recording session for Midnight Records.

Musicians: Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Fuzztones

It's that time again
Midnight 104

27-28 September 1984

..., Jack The Ribbers: Screamin' Jay Hawkins live recording session for Midnight Records.

Musicians: Screamin' Jay Hawkins, no band

Lawdy Miss Clawdy
Midnight 138
Hong Kong
Midnight 138
Downstairs
Midnight 138
Cherry pie
Midnight 138
In her room
Midnight 138
Constipation blues
Midnight 138
I need your love
Midnight 138
Feast of the Mau Mau
Midnight 138
Let it roll
Midnight 138
Make the blues hard
Midnight 138
Bite it (Last night)
Midnight 138
I put a spell on you (A curse for the 80's)
Midnight 138

mid-1980s

While living in Los Angeles Screamin' Jay Hawkins plays at least one concert at the Hollywood Boulevard rock pit Raji's.

1985

Screamin' Jay Hawkins makes a cameo appearance in the movie Joey.

1985 and / or 1986

Screamin' Jay Hawkins tours Australia with Nick Cave (who apparently also records his own version of "I put a spell on you"). Writes Colin Hubert:

"Nick Cave laughed. A magician friend told me that after Screaming Jay Hawkins had squeezed about a gallon of water from a lace handkerchief he had just daubed his big evil eyes with. While Hawkins played, Cave was in full view of anyone in the crowd who looked up. He laughed in public, but not on stage.[...] Mr. Cave must be supremely confident in his own ability as a performer to risk being upstaged by such a showman as Screamin' Jay Hawkins. The huge black man, in the sort of glaring white suit and tails that say overstatement, have the black wearing crowd the sort of show that Sydney never sees."

... 1985

New York, Irving Plaza: Screamin' Jay Hawkins and the Fuzztones live recording for Midnight Records.

Musicians: Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Fuzztones (Rudi Protrudi, ...)

Alligator wine
Midnight 134
I put a spell on you
Midnight 134
It's that time again
Midnight 134
Constipation blues
Midnight 134

1986

16 March 1986

Screamin' Jay Hawkins appears in Dr. Demento's radio show "Bananas".

... 1986

Hawkins tours Australia.

... 1986

Pete Townshend's new CD DEEP END LIVE! [Atlantic Atco 905532-2] includes a cover version of "I put a spell on you" (04:03). Townshend still played the song in live concerts 1996.

1987

[before 18] December 1987

Screamin' Jay Hawkins plays a concert in Washington (D. C.).

1988

Screamin' Jay plays a blues club singer in the movie Two Moon Junction, a really dumb Southern-fried romance involving a wealthy young belle (Sherilyn Fenn of Twin peaks fame) and a muscular carnival worker. Two years later on his album BLACK MUSIC FOR WHITE PEOPLE, there is an untitled country blues track, the lyrics of which appear to be: "It was me and Sherilyn Fenn / I had nightmares what it wouldn't be like to get in..." The complete song "Sherilyn Fenn" turns up on the 1993 album STONE CRAZY.

16-17 June 1988

Paris, Hotel Méridien: Screamin' Jay Hawkins live recording for Black & Blue Records [?].

Musicians: Screamin' Jay Hawkins

Lawdy Miss Clawdy
Evidence Music 26603
The Whammy
Evidence Music 26603
Hong Kong
Evidence Music 26603
Yellow coat
Evidence Music 26603
Ain't that a shame
Evidence Music 26603
Alligator wine
Evidence Music 26603
I put a spell on you
Evidence Music 26603
Little bitty pretty one
Evidence Music 26603
Constipation blues
Evidence Music 26603
Goodnight sweetheart
Evidence Music 26603
Tutti frutti
Evidence Music 26603

1989

ca. 1989

...: Screamin' Jay Hawkins recording session for Spivey.

Musicians: Screamin' Jay Hawkin, Washboard Doc Trio

Let your love
Spivey LP 1036
Little darlin'
Spivey LP 1036
Come back to me
Spivey LP 1036
It took your kind of love
Spivey LP 1036
Love nobody but me
Spivey LP 1036
In my dream
Spivey LP 1036
Furburger [instrumental]
Spivey LP 1036
I want to do it in a cave
Spivey LP 1036

... 1989

Screamin' Jay Hawkins cameos as the sardonic night clerk of a seedy Memphis hotel in Jim Jarmusch's film Mystery train, a performance that Karen Schoemer of the New York Times calls "wonderfully subdued." Screamin' Jay is arguing with his bellboy (played by Cinque Lee) about Japanese plums, and he tells him: "Well, you should do like I do! Shit, go buy your own damn cloths over at Lanski's, somewhere like that. I mean it's like they say the cloths make the man. I mean look at that damn hat on your head! You look like a damn mosquito leg chimpanzee! Ha, ha, ha, ha!" This helps a lot to revitalize his career and Jay states that,

Three white people who've spurred me on are Alan Freed, who put the coffin in my act; Louis Dulfon, who gave me my own license to run my booking agency here in California, which is called Hawkshaw Talent Company; and Jim Jarmusch, who came out with "Stranger than Paradise" and used "I put a spell on you" in it and put me in his movie "Mystery train".

Screamin' Jay Hawkins appears at the Telluride, Colorado film festival, where he screams on the stage of the opera house before the world's most distinguished directors, actors and art-house distributors.

12 May 1989

The Nipple Runs record a self-produced music tape including a cover version of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "All night".

... 1989

Screamin' Jay Hawkins and the Chicken Hawks (with veteran Beri Southern on screamin' saxophone) on tour in Britain. They play to almost 2'000 customers at London's Town and Country Club.

Biography 1990-1999