I Put A Spell On You

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The 2016 pressing of Nina Simone’s “I Put a Spell on You” offers a sonic experience that is simply magnificent. But then some of the Twisted Wheel people went to see Little Richard at the Oasis club, another famous Manchester venue, and got chatting to Don “Sugarcane” Harris, from the support act Don and Dewey. Its original release failed to make any impact on charts until it was included on the 2015 film Fifty Shades of Grey, after which the song did chart in the US, UK and France. With his deep and soulful voice and the light jazz embellishments on it, and beautiful keyboard interludes, the song was rightfully one of the top best covers of ‘I Put a Spell on You’.

Jean-françois from Montreal, QcIn 2008 Beatrice Bonifassi (Betsy) and Champion recorded a version of this song. Her voice hovers above the listeners, and you can clearly discern every facet of her expressiveness, from the smoky timbre in the lower tones to the crystalline highs in the emotional crescendos. And most of those one-hit wonders might as well have had no hits for all the impact they actually made on the genre.Robert from Bloomington, InNatacha Atlas, a Tunisian-Belgian singer popular in Europe, recorded a wonderful middle-eastern sounding version in 2001 using rai-style percussion, synth and Tunisian backpipe. Thomas from Buffalo, NyOn the NBC-TV drama Profiler, serial killer Jack dedicated this song to the object of his obsession, Dr. Of the latter recording, Hawkins remembers producer Arnold Maxin bringing in ‘ribs and chicken and got everybody drunk, and we came out with this weird version … I don’t even remember making the record. After he got out of prison, he moved to Hawaii for a while, and became a performer again, although there was a temporary hiccup in his career when his girlfriend and singing partner stabbed him after she found out he’d married someone else without telling her.

Creedence Clearwater Revival’s take on the song was probably one of the most well-known versions of Jay Hawkins’ original ‘I Put a Spell on You’.The singer leaned fully into the theatrics of “I Put a Spell on You,” as live performances show him with bones sticking out of his nose to look like horns, dressed in a lavish outfit while holding a skull as he wails the song. It peaked at number 9 on April 27, a position it would hold for two weeks before dropping off the chart on June 8 at a position of number 50. The hit brought Hawkins together with Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed who promptly added him to his "Rock and Roll Revue". While it is not one of the more popular covers of Hawkins’ original, Natacha Atlas’ cover of ‘I Put a Spell on You’ was unique all the same.

Hawkins says that the original version sounded “cannibalistic, like a man-eating somebody,” he described, which led to the song being banned. Given that World War II ended in September 1945, that would tend to suggest that his story about having been a Japanese prisoner of war was, perhaps, not one hundred percent truthful.According to Army records, he joined the army in December 1945 and was honourably discharged in 1952. Beginning with a shocking drum piece and John Fogerty’s rugged vocals, the cover was similar yet different in various aspect from the original song. The original version gave the song an ironic theme, but Simone transformed it into a thrilling love song, complete with horns and strings. I am not going to go into too many details here, but suffice to say that Hawkins was not an admirable man.

It was also included in Robert Christgau's "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings—published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981) [5]—and ranked No.I love that SO many of the covers stay true to the song’s roots with blues or jazz takes, but there are a few standouts or different sounds. I like to acknowledge in the podcast when I’ve relied heavily on one source, and in this case the source I’m relying on most is Steve Bergsman’s book “I Put a Spell on You: The Bizarre Life of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins”. Annie Lennox recorded her own version of the song in 2013, and released it on September 15, 2014, as the lead single from her sixth studio album, Nostalgia. I Put a Spell on You" is a 1956 song written by Screamin' Jay Hawkins, whose recording was selected as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.