I Put A Spell On You

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Po from Portland OrI am trying to find out the title of a vampire movie during the eighties that featured this song. A year later, Hawkins recorded the version that became famous for another label, and transformed the song into a spooky tale about putting a curse on the girl so he can have her. So Grimes didn’t get to play that day, but Jalacey Hawkins, as he was still then known, managed to get himself backstage and meet Grimes. But when he was booked as the headline act on a Christmas show Freed put together in 1956, Freed surprised him by telling him he’d had a great idea for the show — he’d got hold of a coffin, and Hawkins could start his performance by rising out of the coffin like a vampire or zombie. Pawgrafoman from Worthing, EnglandNick Cave covered this song and relased that on his studio album 1986 'kicking against the prick'.

Its original release failed to make any impact on charts until it was included on the 2015 film Fifty Shades of Grey, after which the song did chart in the US, UK and France. It was also included in Robert Christgau's "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings—published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981) [5]—and ranked No. Additionally, the song was featured in the 2019 film Ford v Ferrari and performed by Nina Simone along with other classic 1950's songs.The next few decades would follow a recurring pattern — Hawkins would get some big break, like opening for the Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden, or recording an album with Keith Richards guesting, or finally getting to appear in a film. But while people like Sutch had admired him, Hawkins was mostly a legend in British blues circles, someone about whom almost nothing was known.

Hawkins had recorded the song already in 1955 for Herb Slotkins's Grand label in a more sedate ballad style, but it remained unissued until 1984 (Collectables 1068 single).According to Hawkins, Ruth Brown came to see the show at one point, and said of him “This is the only bitch who can sing my song better than me”. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a bad boy or a substance abuser, but I do think you put your thumb on the scale with this one. He only lasted a few weeks in that role — depending on who you asked, Domino either fired Hawkins for being vulgar on stage and screaming, as Domino claimed, or because he was jealous of Hawkins’ great leopardskin suit, as Hawkins would sometimes claim. Her voice hovers above the listeners, and you can clearly discern every facet of her expressiveness, from the smoky timbre in the lower tones to the crystalline highs in the emotional crescendos. And among the regular attendees of that club were a group of people who loved the few Screamin’ Jay Hawkins records they’d been able to get hold of.

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. He always claimed, for example, that in his time in the army he had been captured by the Japanese and tortured for eighteen months. During the recording of “Screamin’ Blues”, which would have been his first single, he got into an argument with Ahmet Ertegun, who kept telling him to sing the song more smoothly, like Fats Domino. With his deep and soulful voice and the light jazz embellishments on it, and beautiful keyboard interludes, the song was rightfully one of the top best covers of ‘I Put a Spell on You’.

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.