"I hear those Voices again... I Smell Nookie!"... at least that's what I always thought he said... - BenT
Liner notes by Pete Brown 1988
The wildman stops pounding out the blues on the piano and strolls over to where a long stick with a greenish-white skull on top stands. He picks up the stick, lights a cigarette, and places it in the skull's mouth. He regards the skull with a mixture of delight and disdain as it appears to puff the cigarette. A strange French band plays uneasy riffs in the background. Screamin' Jay Hawkins is in town
• Eating a wax feather sandwich • In the middle of • Nineteen hundred and yesterday
Some of us in the Beat poetry movement in the late fifties / early sixties, under the influence of various forbidden or destructive liquids and substances, used to play a game invented by Corso, Kerouac etc called "wordslings". We'd make up weirder and weirder juxtapositions of images and sentiments, trying to outweird each other, with pauses for laughter. A kind of surrealist contest or exercise. Later we would incorporate some of our findings in our work. We didn't know then but Screamin' Jay Hawkins had done it all already, without anything in his bloodstream but his own blood.
• Yesterday's comin' back tomorrow • Is is now
Let's face it, individuality is a pretty scarce commodity in these days of clip-on weirdness kits and midi'd chestwigs. People don't even make their own records anymore. Courage is even scarcer, because Courage and Corporate don't mix. That's why it's great to have these two albums, long favourites of mine, back in circulation, to stretch and disturb the minds of another generation of music lovers.
I'm not going into the history. The best of these performances are timeless and speak for themselves, standing proudly for themselves, standing proudly beside the work of Slim Gaillard, Eddie Harris, Sleepy John Estes, Victoria Spivey and Wynonie Harris (well, whoever wrote his songs).
These blasts put the most savage punk bands to shame, and rival the fiercest social and sexual commentators of our time.
• A pain called • "Had to eat more" • Made me get a job
and
• I've been hurt • Till I love the pain
I don't hesitate to say that WHAT THAT IS is a masterpiece. What album these days can boast a track like "The Feast Of The Mau Mau"?
• Cut the fat off the back of a baboon • Boil it down to a pound in a spoon • Scoop the eyes from a fly flying backwards • Take the jaws and the paws off a 'coon...
This should be compulsory listening for all white South Africans. And it gets heavier - how about the sheer graphic horror of "Constipation Blues" ("nobody ever made a record about real pain") with the great Plas Johnson's baritone sax expressively suggesting dark dysfunctions of the digestive system?
WHAT THAT IS was recorded live in a Hollywood club over two days with a changing personnel with more interesting contributions from Johnson and from the legendary British pianist Graham Bond (also signed to Mercury at the time), jazz guitarist Herb Ellis and the excellent Earl palmer on drums. I wish I'd been there. Just to see the audience. There are few albums in the history of obscurely popular music less uninhibited than this. The second album, BECAUSE IS IN YOUR MIND / ARMPITRUBBER (both titles appear on the original sleeve) contains, on first impressions, more conventional material. It's efficiently produced by Huey Meaux, with a solid studio band and some nice horn charts. It's more soul than blues-orientated especially on such numbers as "Tryin' To Reach My Goal" and "Our Love". - to be continued...
musicans:
Mr. Hawkins, VOICE, piano; Earl Palmer, drums; Lule Ritz, bass; Plas Johnson, sax; Mike Anthony, guitar
traxfromwax disc 1:
1. What That Is! 2. Feast Of The Mau Mau 3. Do You Really Love Me 4. Stone Crazy 5. I Love You 6. Constipation Blues 7. I'm Lonely 8. Thing Called Woman 9. Dig! 10. I'm Your Man 11. Ask Him 12. Reprise
Ripped from Vinyl by RYP with Audacity 3.7.9 : Thorens TD 318/Audio-Technica VM95E - Yamaha A-S301 - Q Acoustics 3020i / Yamaha NS-SW050
Let's Drink A Toast To The Road And It's Master! In 1994, Screamin' Jay Hawkins released one rocker of an album, every song on this masterpiece has the possibility of making you house fall down, if you play it a maximum volume your girlfriend's clothes fall off. Screamin' Jay Hawkins classics such the title track, Brujo and 14 Wives still show's Screamin' Jay's nice little warped sense of humor. - Dean
trax:
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