Rocks

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ records didn’t go over-the-top; they started over-the-top and got more berserk from there. He lived as he sang. Screamin’ Jay’s influence can be found wherever music has sunk to new depths of depravity. Mixing voodoo rhythms and horror film props, he invented gothic rock, a genre that includes Alice Cooper, Arthur Brown, the antics of Black Sabbath’s Ozzy Osbourne, the horror film make-up of Kiss, not to mention ‘The Rocky Horror Show’. Hawkins also paved the way for George Clinton and Cameo whose lead singer, Larry Blackmon, emerged, like Jay, from a huge silver coffin. And, oh yes, he wrote and recorded the original version of
I Put A Spell On You.