SCREAMIN` JAY HAWKINS THE ORIGINAL SHOCK ROCKER

There isn`t too many blues albums you`ll find that have an explicit lyric advisory sticker on the front cover. 

In fact, I only have one in my collection and I`m about to tell you all about it. Before I go

any further, I might should warn you that the name of one song on the album is pretty damn disgusting, so if you`re easily offen-

ded, look away now okay. 

Screamin` Jay Hawkins was an eccentric avante garde experimental theatrical bluesman, I think that would best sum the man up. 

He was born in 1930 and he died in 2000. I had never heard of him until one night, very late I might add, probably at about 3 o'clock in the morning when I was delivering papers for Algester News a few years ago. 

Co-incidently I had the radio on 4ZZZ Brisbane, hence that is why I had the opportunity ty to listen to one particular shock rocker from Screamin` Jay Hawkins. 

He started his recording career way back in 1952 with`Why Did You Waste My Time`, but it wasn`t until a few years later that he got scored what would end up becoming a songwriters hit with the song `I Put A Spell On You`, which was recorded many years later by Credence Clearwater Revival and quite a number of other artists. 

Hawkins was always too left of centre for the mainstream music establishment in america, his musical abilities were questionable I would have to say, despite his piano thumping heroics there does seem to be something lacking deep down in the mix of most of his songs. 

Maybe that is why Hawkins reveled in lyrical shock, to compensate for the lack of musical meat in his compositions. He deservedly got the title of being the first ever shock rocker, Ozzy Osbourne from Black Sabbath, Frank Zappa and Alice Cooper are three other crazy dudes who were inspired by Hawkins as far as theatrical madness goes. 

His career was long-winded and commercially uneventful, from 1958 until 1980 Hawkins won some critical acclaim by recording some lewd leave nothing to the imagination rhythm and blues but there

was no way his double entendre charged version of the blues was ever going to be excepted in the bible belt of middle America. 

His biggest break of all was not in the recording studio but as a guest opening act for the Rolling Stones at Madison Square Gardens in 1980. 

In 1993, Screamin` Jay Hawkins toured Australia believe it or not, and while he was here he recorded what is probably the most cohesive and polished album in his whole career. 

Warning, the name of that offensive song is coming, so beware! The name of the album is called `I Shake My Stick At You`. I wonder what Hawkins was referring to? 

For once, he actually had a half decent

rhythm section behind him, Gene Pello on drums, Bari Southern on saxophone and Rodney Lee Schnitz on bass. 

The whole album is built around Hawkin`s swinging Fats Domino style honky tonk

piano jamming, a few songs take a while to get going but they all swing a mean hook sooner or later. 

That song! The one which is the album`s showpiece, and the one which makes Frank Zappa look like a goody two shoes is called `Furburger`. 

Please do not ask me to explain the meaning of the song title okay. I wouldn`t have a damn clue what he was talking about lol. 

No matter what you are thinking, musically it is a screamer, a blistering sonic piano bashing bonanza. The song goes for over eight minutes with a very long instrumental break covering almost half of that. 

I`m not saying the song title is tasteful, it is crude and rude and absolutely shocking, and just wait for the ending of the song, nothing

comes close in the shock rock stakes.

Disgusting but profoundly amusing, it certainly made that particular paper run a lot more exciting than the three thousand papers runs I have done since.