Screamin’ Jay Hawkins

Myths & Legends By Jah Paul Jo

“How old do you think I am?”

That’s what Screaming Jay Hawkins, in that big, booming voice of his, asked me nearly every time I saw him.

“Oh, I don’t know… 42?” I would guess.

He would be pleased and then we could move on.

In the early eighties, I ran a little rock club in Old Town Pasadena, CA called Pookies. Actually it was a rock ‘n’ roll place by night and very popular sandwich shop by day. One of the girls that worked the lunch detail became friends with me and the night crew. Lei Jonette Small was a lot of fun and became invaluable to us running the club and also a friend to all the bands I had been in. Her sister Richelle was more of a free spirit… she was one of Pasadena’s first Doo Dah Parade Queens and ran the popular, pre-Starbucks, Espresso Bar in Old Town.

As the story goes (and I have difficulty following it, too, so don’t feel bad if you get lost), Richelle had *somehow* met Screaming Jay first. Jay had expessed his love for her and asked her to marry him – she turned him down flat. Then, through Richelle, Jay met Lei Jonette and asked HER to marry him. She also said no, but I don’t think she was as FINAL as Richelle had been, so she still saw him socially from time to time, but I don’t think it was ever a date situation – just friends.

Bear in mind, there is a web site devoted to the children of Screaming Jay Hawkins… as in, if you think you are one, please contact us. Evidently, Jay had been married many, many times and had so many children that he had lost count. OK!

So when Dread Zeppelin began to get popular in late 1989, Lei Jonette kept saying that she was going to bring Jay to a show, which I vigorously encouraged.

As if by magic, poof, Screaming Jay Hawkins appeared at the Palomino Club in North Hollywood. Wearing a white, almost Travolta-esque seventies looking suit, he burst into the Dread Zeppelin post-show dressing room, Lei Jonette in tow and bellowed, “You’re stealing my act!”

I somehow gathered calm and said quietly, “We only steal from the best.”

He smiled and asked, “How old do you think I am?”

He liked my answer and we became friends.

Jah Paul Jo, Sreamin' Jay & Spice at Virgin Studio, 1992

When we started the disco record, “It’s Not Unusual,” I had several ideas of where to use Jay in the recording. If you’re familiar with his work, you understand that Jay definitely has his own thing… and it’s not really something that anyone else can direct. You can only hope to harness the energy and point it in the right direction. That was my goal.

We were recording the album at Virgin Studios in oh-so-posh Beverly Hills. All of us Pasadena boys needed a special visa to get in as did Jay who arrived the first day of recording in his big orange van with oversize fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror. For some reason the van both suited him perfectly and, at the same time, was strangely inappropriate… weird.

He showed up with an old tattered notebook that he kept clutched at his side the whole time; he never put it down. We got Jay set up with a microphone and headphones and put him to work on “Jungle Boogie,” our take on the old Kool & The Gang hit. Jay opened his notebook and set it up on the music stand so only he could see it… “My notes,” he said in explanation to me.

The music started and Jay would let out with a LOUD “Aaaa woob a wooba onk oooooooooooooh ahhhhh” (nearest I can describe it!), then turn the page of his notebook. He’d let out another scream and then turn the page of his notebook. “Mustard from a gorilla’s armpit!” he’d shriek and then turn the page of the notebook.

What the heck was in that book? I’d crane my neck to get a look. Jay would snatch the book away – no one could look at it. Blueprints for various grunts, growls, groans, screams, howls and life observances.

He has that stuff WRITTEN DOWN?!!

Personally, I don’t think anything was written in that book but now I’ll never know.

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I had my production partner and friend, Rasta Li-Mon, mic the whole room – I wanted to record any stories that Jay might tell… and he had a few doozies. From memory, “My mama used to tell me to put a smile on my face first thing in the morning – cause that’s the last damn time you’ll feel happy all day.” He went on and on about how Huey Smith & The Clowns had stolen his act… now, mind you, he had accused us of the very same thing when we first met him so I tended to not be too hard on ol’ Huey (Huey Smith & The Clowns? C’mon!!!).

He told us about James Brown… he told us about using the coffin in his act (oh yeah… used to rise from the coffin, shake his voodoo stick and sing “I Put A Spell On You!”)… told us about being banned from the stage for being too weird, for being too black, for being just too… too much!

At one point, he paused, glanced over to the corner where Lei Jonette was quietly sitting and said in a soft sing-song voice, “All in good time, Lei Jonette… All in good time.”

And we busted up laughing.

Loved him, loved working with him and really felt like I had been blessed to work with an honest-to-God American original. Like most of the “big stars” that I have met personally, there was kind of a melancholy, a sadness, to him that sits uncomfortably beside the loud blustery version that everyone knows. Other than his professed love for the Small sisters, the big orange van and what he told us in the studio, I knew nothing of his personal life and really didn’t want to know.

For once… just enough information. RIP Screaming Jay.

Dedicated with love to Lei Jonette, Richelle & Lee.

Linkage:

Jay’s Kids – http://www.rockabilly.net/articles/sjhawkins5.shtml
Wiki – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Hawkins