Monday, September 10, 2012

#592 Screamin' Jay Hawkins - At Home with Screamin' Jay Hawkins

You probably know I Put a Spell on You, and that's basically the one sound Hawkins has going for him, put on display again and again here, for better or for worse.

The man's voice is an imposing baritone when he chooses to sing, but mostly you get a chaotic, gutteral, sputtering rant, shout-sung out of a mouth as big as the world. The words are slurred, seemingly pulled out of the air: see in particular the free-association (and I Put a Spell on You carbon copying) on Hong Long and I Love Paris. This works especially well when the initial structure is in needing of some punching up, as on the I'm a Man / Bad to the Bone blues of Yellow Coat, which Hawkins heaves maniacally beyond good taste and right on to brilliant.

The unhinged delivery is fun, but the flipside is that the whole thing is kind of sloppy in a bad way too. This is especially true on the ballads, which generally don't work for me, the booming vocal power on display notwithstanding. What you end up with is at best a series of highlights that sound a bit like eachother, but at least together they sound like something you've never heard before 3/5

No comments:

Post a Comment