In 1956 Screamin’ Jay Hawkins recorded “I Put A Spell On You” in a drunken stupor. According to the Allmusic profile of Hawkins, the song was to have been “a refined ballad.” The alcohol apparently provided the inspiration for the touches that turned the song into his biggest hit by far. Most of the touches that made the song a hit are preserved in the over the top performance captured in the linked video, which fails only to document the emergence from a casket with which Hawkins usually introduced the song. Nina Simone provides a taste of what the song might have sounded like as a refined ballad. I came to the song through the stylings of Arthur Brown on the “Crazy World of Arthur Brown” in 1968. Halloween provides the occasion for retrieving the song today.
UPDATE: Pat Patterson reminds us of the terrific version by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
-
-
Donate to PL
-
Our Favorites
- American Greatness
- American Mind
- American Story
- American Thinker
- Aspen beat
- Babylon Bee
- Belmont Club
- Churchill Project
- Claremont Institute
- Daily Torch
- Federalist
- Gatestone Institute
- Hollywood in Toto
- Hoover Institution
- Hot Air
- Hugh Hewitt
- InstaPundit
- Jewish World Review
- Law & Liberty
- Legal Insurrection
- Liberty Daily
- Lileks
- Lucianne
- Michael Ramirez Cartoons
- Michelle Malkin
- Pipeline
- RealClearPolitics
- Ricochet
- Steyn Online
- Tim Blair
Media
Subscribe to Power Line by Email
Temporarily disabled
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.