Fun Thing about Music

I keep getting surprised in my musical study! It's fun. Today I was surfing and found a link that captured my attention. Screaming Jay Hawkins, was a black stage act and played piano, so I found a Guitar chords for the song, and then in another key.

"I Put A Spell On You" was also covered by Creedance and a few others. But Screaming Jack's performance was classic.

Now could that be translated into Uke ? It looked easy, no tough chords, easy changes, tempo slow. Easy, right? :biglaugh:

However, I saw this Retrospective of his life and times. https://youtu.be/qecYcFZR6Mk

I doubt I could cover his performance. It was voice, playing and theatrics! And I doubt that I could pull off the bone nose ornament either.

You tease by telling about a specific video, and then provide a link to something else. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

LOL.

Please include the link to the specific Screaming Jay Hawkins video for "I Put A Spell On You" that you mentioned (if you did not bookmark it, look in your browser HISTORY). Otherwise nobody else can see what you saw and understand the context of why you felt that way.

This kinda thing seems to happen every once in a while so don't feel bad, but please fill in the other half of the story...

Booli said:

You tease by telling about a specific video, and then provide a link to something else. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

LOL.

Please include the link to the specific Screaming Jay Hawkins video for "I Put A Spell On You" that you mentioned (if you did not bookmark it, look in your browser HISTORY). Otherwise nobody else can see what you saw and understand the context of why you felt that way.

This kinda thing seems to happen every once in a while so don't feel bad, but please fill in the other half of the story...

Click to expand...

Here is what I found first.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kGPhpvqtOc&index=2&list=RD3S7a4Uj2yME

In the present PC age, I thought it a little weird but considering the whole performance, I was intrigued. I think this link will put up a mix of things Hawkins. I found several performances of the song from ~1955 to his last performance in 2000, which is at the end of the the first link.

It reminded me of when a buddy of mine and I went to see Moms Mabley ~1967 at a black club in LA. He and I were the only white guys in the club. Moms was hard on us, but Tim and I just laughed our a****s off!

Screaming Jay is cool (and kudos for being the original artist) but I will always prefer the Nina Simone version

Jay Man appears in the movie "Mystery Train" to good effect.

Just sayin'

I listened to several versions of the song from various artists, but haven't seen a 'my thing' way yet. I have limits to my voice and need to get it into a groove for me. Still, it is in Em and I've been working on a Em key song for a while so I have the muscle memory thing covered. I may put a low D back on the Big Zebra and use the resonance of the baritone to drive this?

Have you listened to the Van Morrison version? That might be more in your ballpark vocally.

jollyboy said:

Have you listened to the Van Morrison version? That might be more in your ballpark vocally.

Click to expand...

I'll look for it. I also wanted to hear how Credence Clear Water did it. Nina did a good thing on it but I can't even hit those notes.

Samantha Fish did a great version.
Yeah Van Morrison has more of the style I was thinking of.