Latest / DISGRACELAND / Screamin’ Jay Hawkins: Was Screamin’ Jay Hawkins Murdered?
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a
- 0:19Speaker 1: story about how rock and roll pioneer Screamin' Jay Hawkins
- 0:23Speaker 1: may have been murdered. It's a story about an operatic
- 0:27Speaker 1: boogeyman who freaked out America in the conservative 1950s by
- 0:32Speaker 1: jumping out of a coffin on stage. And it's also
- 0:35Speaker 1: about an unreliable narrator, an arrest for statutory rape, polygamy,
- 0:41Speaker 1: and the 57-plus children fathered by the co-author of the
- 0:45Speaker 1: classic rock and roll song, I Put a Spell on You, Mr. Screamin'
- 0:50Speaker 1: Jay Hawkins. A man who made great music. Unlike that
- 0:56Speaker 1: clip I played for you at the top of the show,
- 0:58Speaker 1: that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from
- 1:02Speaker 1: my Mellotron called Caped Creepy Crooner MK1. I played you
- 1:08Speaker 1: that loop because I can't afford the rights to I
- 1:11Speaker 1: Knew I Loved You by Savage Garden. And why would
- 1:15Speaker 1: I play you that specific slice of unlikely Y2K cheese?
- 1:20Speaker 1: Could I afford it? Because that was the number one
- 1:24Speaker 1: song in America on February 12, 2000. And that was
- 1:29Speaker 1: the day that Screamin' Jay Hawkins died at the age
- 1:33Speaker 1: of 70. A death that officials said was caused by
- 1:37Speaker 1: an aneurysm, but which some later alleged was actual murder.
- 1:42Speaker 1: On this episode, the boogeyman, polygamy, fathering at least 57 children,
- 1:48Speaker 1: murder allegations, and rock and roll pioneer... Screamin' Jay Hawkins.
- 1:54Speaker 2: I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland.
- 2:10Speaker 1: Some people think that Screamin' Jay Hawkins was murdered. Yes,
- 2:15Speaker 1: that's right. The I put a spell on you guy. Murdered.
- 2:19Speaker 1: The official cause of death was multiple organ failure following
- 2:23Speaker 1: emergency surgery to treat an aneurysm. But some believe he
- 2:27Speaker 1: was slowly poisoned and that the poisoning could have led
- 2:32Speaker 1: to intestinal obstruction, which could have then triggered his aneurysm
- 2:36Speaker 1: and the multiple organ failure and all the rest of it. Now,
- 2:41Speaker 1: this is ironic as hell, by the way, because Screamin'
- 2:44Speaker 1: Jay wrote and sang a song called Constipation Blues, which
- 2:49Speaker 1: literally sounds like a guy trying to dramatically pass a
- 2:52Speaker 1: bowel movement for about four minutes straight. And this murder
- 2:56Speaker 1: theory is not widely talked about, but it's out there,
- 3:00Speaker 1: and not just in Reddit threads on the internet. There's
- 3:02Speaker 1: a book about Screamin' Jay that was published in 2019,
- 3:06Speaker 1: which mentions this theory a few times from a few
- 3:09Speaker 1: different sources, albeit briefly and at the very end. I
- 3:14Speaker 1: was completely floored when I first stumbled across these murder
- 3:17Speaker 1: allegations while researching this episode. I've always wanted to tell Screamin'
- 3:22Speaker 1: Jay Hawkins' story because it's weird and it's wild and
- 3:25Speaker 1: it's mythic, like all the best stories about rock stars.
- 3:28Speaker 1: And I always assumed that the angle of our episode
- 3:31Speaker 1: would be how when Jay died, it was revealed that
- 3:35Speaker 1: he had at least 57 children out there, most of
- 3:38Speaker 1: them illegitimate and most of them unknown to him. But
- 3:42Speaker 1: then I read about how Screamin' Jay may not have
- 3:45Speaker 1: died as we were told, how he may have been murdered.
- 3:50Speaker 1: And suddenly, everything changed. On February 12, 2000, Screamin' Jay
- 3:57Speaker 1: Hawkins was 70 years old and living outside Paris, France.
- 4:01Speaker 1: He continued to tour and perform his eccentric brand of
- 4:04Speaker 1: rock and roll, mostly in Europe. And like a lot
- 4:08Speaker 1: of 20th century jazz musicians, Jay found that he was
- 4:11Speaker 1: appreciated more abroad than he was in the States. Audiences
- 4:15Speaker 1: there liked his newer material just as much as they
- 4:17Speaker 1: dug his biggest hit, his calling card, the song I
- 4:20Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, I Put a Spell on You. You know
- 4:23Speaker 1: this song. It's been covered hundreds of times by everyone
- 4:27Speaker 1: from Nina Simone to Creedence Clearwater Revival. You've heard it
- 4:30Speaker 1: in countless movies and TV shows, and contestants on American
- 4:34Speaker 1: Idol and The Voice regularly drag it out to sing
- 4:36Speaker 1: it to the rafters. Because it's a song you want
- 4:40Speaker 1: to remember. It's a song that will last forever. It's
- 4:44Speaker 1: what the cockroaches will be listening to while they feed
- 4:46Speaker 1: off Twinkies in the post-apocalypse wasteland. I Put a Spell
- 4:50Speaker 1: on You is such a monster tune that the Rock
- 4:54Speaker 1: and Roll Hall of Fame in Jay's hometown of Cleveland
- 4:57Speaker 1: selected it for its list of 500 songs that shaped
- 5:02Speaker 1: rock and roll. Jay planned to keep playing this song
- 5:06Speaker 1: to audiences for a long time because even at 70,
- 5:10Speaker 1: despite some minor health issues that had begun to pop up,
- 5:14Speaker 1: he remained in good spirits, and he continued to perform
- 5:18Speaker 1: enthusiastically to audiences like at the famed Olympia in Paris.
- 5:23Speaker 1: That is, until one day in February 2000, when Screamin'
- 5:26Speaker 1: Jay Hawkins suddenly fell ill and was rushed to a
- 5:30Speaker 1: hospital in a Parisian suburb. A few days later, on
- 5:34Speaker 1: February 12th, Screamin' Jay Hawkins was dead. The New York
- 5:40Speaker 1: Times reported that Jay had been taken to the hospital
- 5:42Speaker 1: for emergency surgery to treat an aneurysm, and that he
- 5:45Speaker 1: died in recovery, suffering from the failure of multiple organs. Okay,
- 5:51Speaker 1: makes sense. Aneurysms can come out of nowhere and impact
- 5:54Speaker 1: even the healthiest of people. And so this was accepted
- 5:58Speaker 1: as fact, but not everyone was buying it. Two people,
- 6:02Speaker 1: in fact, two people who were very close to screaming Jay,
- 6:05Speaker 1: They had reason to believe that Screamin' Jay Hawkins didn't
- 6:08Speaker 1: die simply of an aneurysm, but a foul play. And
- 6:14Speaker 1: therein lies the million-dollar question. Was Screamin' Jay Hawkins murdered? Screamin'
- 6:22Speaker 1: Jay Hawkins was on the front lines of rock and roll.
- 6:26Speaker 1: He was part of the first wave of luminaries who
- 6:28Speaker 1: mashed up rhythm and blues, gospel, jazz, and country music
- 6:32Speaker 1: to create something new and exciting. But before he was
- 6:36Speaker 1: making music alongside better-known names such as Little Richard, Big
- 6:40Speaker 1: Joe Turner, and Chuck Berry, Screamin' Jay Hawkins was in
- 6:43Speaker 1: the Army Air Force, and after that, he was a boxer.
- 6:48Speaker 1: Although he was from Cleveland, Jay allegedly beat a Golden
- 6:51Speaker 1: Gloves champion from Alaska to clinch the title in that state.
- 6:56Speaker 1: And this could be a true story, but it's hard
- 6:58Speaker 1: to know for sure because Jay just so happened to
- 7:01Speaker 1: be one of the most unreliable narrators in rock and roll.
- 7:05Speaker 1: He'd tell you he was born in a taxi as
- 7:07Speaker 1: it was crossing state lines, or that he was left
- 7:10Speaker 1: at an orphanage and taken in by a family of
- 7:12Speaker 1: Blackfoot Indians. Not necessarily unbelievable stuff, just not backed up
- 7:18Speaker 1: by any hard proof. At times, it is near impossible
- 7:22Speaker 1: to separate fact from fiction when it comes to screaming
- 7:25Speaker 1: Jay Hawkins. But this much is true. Jay's God-given singing
- 7:31Speaker 1: style was by turn soulfully operatic and completely unhinged, punctuated
- 7:36Speaker 1: by grunts and shrieks and guttural rumblings. It's right there
- 7:41Speaker 1: in his name. Screamin' Jay was a force. But Screamin'
- 7:47Speaker 1: Jay was also weird. People tend to forget that rock
- 7:52Speaker 1: and roll was weird as fuck in the early days. Sure,
- 7:56Speaker 1: Sun Records was home to Elvis and Jerry Lee, but
- 7:58Speaker 1: it was also the label behind Billy Lee Riley's Flying
- 8:01Speaker 1: Saucer rock and roll and Malcolm Yelvington's hillbilly take on
- 8:05Speaker 1: Stick McGee's Drinking Wine's Fodioti. To an American public lullabied
- 8:09Speaker 1: by Pat Boone and the Everly Brothers, Screamin' Jay was
- 8:13Speaker 1: beyond weird. He was downright disturbing. When OK Records, an
- 8:19Speaker 1: R & B imprint of Columbia, released Jay's song I
- 8:22Speaker 1: Put a Spell on You in 1956, Audiences were so
- 8:27Speaker 1: freaked out by his snorting and snarling at the end
- 8:29Speaker 1: of the track that the label had to remix and
- 8:32Speaker 1: repress the single with the offending vocals removed. And even
- 8:37Speaker 1: with those edits made, radio stations banned it. One DJ
- 8:42Speaker 1: was fired for playing it. Screamin' Jay, it seemed, was
- 8:46Speaker 1: some kind of rock and roll boogeyman. Alan Freed, the
- 8:51Speaker 1: influential and disgraced DJ and concert promoter, was the one
- 8:56Speaker 1: to suggest that Jay emerged from a coffin like a
- 8:58Speaker 1: creature of the night on stage. This gimmick led to others.
- 9:03Speaker 1: Plastic snakes, mechanical severed hands, fuse boxes that produced fire
- 9:08Speaker 1: and smoke, a human skull that appeared to smoke cigarettes
- 9:11Speaker 1: while perched atop Jay's walking cane. If screaming Jay Hawkins
- 9:16Speaker 1: could have peered into a crystal ball, He would have
- 9:18Speaker 1: seen Iggy Pop, Frank Zappa, Alice Cooper, Kiss, The Cramps,
- 9:23Speaker 1: and even Lady Gaga all staring back at him. But
- 9:27Speaker 1: there was no crystal ball, and there was only this moment.
- 9:31Speaker 1: And in this moment, Screamin' Jay was not only a
- 9:35Speaker 1: weird and frightening force, the weird and frightening parts of
- 9:39Speaker 1: him soon became a liability. In 1956, the National Casket
- 9:45Speaker 1: Association complained that Jay's shtick made fun of the dead,
- 9:49Speaker 1: so funeral homes stopped renting coffins to him. The NAACP
- 9:53Speaker 1: took issue with the bone Jay clipped to his nose,
- 9:56Speaker 1: accusing him of perpetuating racial stereotypes. Even worse, Jerry Lee
- 10:02Speaker 1: Lewis thought Jay was nothing but a novelty act. And
- 10:05Speaker 1: this hurt Jay because Jay and Jerry Lee shared the
- 10:07Speaker 1: stage on Alan Freed's Big Beat tour. And Jay considered
- 10:11Speaker 1: Jerry Lee to be an equal, and Jay wanted a
- 10:14Speaker 1: career like Jerry Lee's. But it wouldn't be long before
- 10:17Speaker 1: any semblance of a career was put in peril, when Screamin'
- 10:21Speaker 1: Jay Hawkins was arrested for a serious crime and faced
- 10:25Speaker 1: decades behind bars. They found Screamin' Jay Hawkins inside one
- 10:31Speaker 1: of the 250 rooms at Cleveland's Majestic Hotel with a
- 10:34Speaker 1: young girl from Akron. Jay was 28. She was 15.
- 10:37Speaker 1: It was the year 1958, and Screamin' Jay Hawkins was fucked.
- 10:45Speaker 1: This was the same year that Jerry Lee Lewis was
- 10:48Speaker 1: busy working up a scandal of his own with his
- 10:50Speaker 1: 13-year-old cousin. It was the same year Buddy Holly would die.
- 10:54Speaker 1: And it was the year that Elvis broke millions of
- 10:56Speaker 1: hearts by putting his career on hold after being drafted
- 11:00Speaker 1: into the Army. And it was the year that Screamin'
- 11:03Speaker 1: Jay Hawkins was convicted of statutory rape and possession of narcotics.
- 11:08Speaker 1: He was given a 2 to 20-year sentence in an
- 11:12Speaker 1: Ohio prison, where every day he wondered, How much longer?
- 11:16Speaker 1: How much longer will I have to sit here, alone,
- 11:20Speaker 1: tormented by the demons and the devils of my mind?
- 11:25Speaker 1: The cell is small and smells of mildew and piss.
- 11:30Speaker 1: It's also dark. Jay doesn't like the dark. The dark
- 11:34Speaker 1: is where the bad things creep from a shadow in
- 11:36Speaker 1: the corner, like Jay creeps out of one of his
- 11:39Speaker 1: rented coffins. He tries to think of something else to
- 11:42Speaker 1: settle his nerves, but All he has are memories. He's
- 11:47Speaker 1: not 28 anymore. He's 18, 19, give or take, and
- 11:52Speaker 1: he's rotting on the floor of another cell just like
- 11:54Speaker 1: this one. He's reliving one of the stories he likes
- 11:58Speaker 1: to tell so much. The story of how his captors
- 12:01Speaker 1: loomed large above him. Boogeymen from another shadow in another
- 12:05Speaker 1: corner in another part of the world. These boogeymen spoke Japanese,
- 12:10Speaker 1: and they laughed at him, fucked with him, and beat him.
- 12:13Speaker 1: He had no way of knowing how long he'd been there,
- 12:16Speaker 1: when the only door into this godforsaken hovel was at
- 12:19Speaker 1: last knocked down, and when the rising sun pierced the
- 12:22Speaker 1: veil of torture, and Jay's squad was at last liberated.
- 12:27Speaker 1: Now the tables were turned. Now Jay had the upper hand.
- 12:31Speaker 1: And with that hand, he shoved a standard-issue grenade down
- 12:34Speaker 1: one of his captor's throats. Jay got some satisfaction from
- 12:38Speaker 1: watching the man gag on the cast-iron pineapple, but the
- 12:40Speaker 1: real thrill was in pulling the pin. to see this
- 12:43Speaker 1: boogeyman's head blow completely apart. Thinking of this memory in
- 12:50Speaker 1: his Ohio jail cell gives Jay what he needs to
- 12:52Speaker 1: endure another night, another week, another month in this hellhole.
- 12:57Speaker 1: But when he finally gets out of this cell, when
- 13:00Speaker 1: he's released back into the world, that world won't recognize him.
- 13:04Speaker 1: And it's then that the story of Screamin' Jay Hawkins
- 13:08Speaker 1: really begins. Screaming Jay Hawkins told variations of that POW
- 13:40Speaker 1: story his entire life, but it's not true. Jay joined
- 13:44Speaker 1: the Army Air Force in the Special Services Division as
- 13:47Speaker 1: a musician, and there is no evidence to support that
- 13:50Speaker 1: he was a prisoner of war. Understanding his proclivity for
- 13:54Speaker 1: bullshit only complicates the question, was Screaming Jay Hawkins murdered?
- 13:59Speaker 1: Because as you sift through all these details, much of
- 14:01Speaker 1: them offered up by Jay himself is you wind up
- 14:04Speaker 1: asking yourself another question, and that question is, what exactly
- 14:08Speaker 1: do I believe? Do I believe that Screamin' Jay Hawkins
- 14:12Speaker 1: once kicked the ass of Atlantic Records honcho Ahmet Erdogan
- 14:15Speaker 1: because he told Jay to sing more like Fats Domino
- 14:18Speaker 1: in the studio? Do I believe that Screamin' Jay Hawkins
- 14:21Speaker 1: took on all five members of the Drifters and roundly
- 14:24Speaker 1: kicked all their asses as well after they locked him
- 14:26Speaker 1: in his stage coffin? Perhaps, but do I believe that Screamin'
- 14:30Speaker 1: Jay Hawkins' first wife, left him for another woman, as
- 14:33Speaker 1: he once proclaimed. No, I do not. But when it
- 14:36Speaker 1: comes to that last one, what actually happened was that
- 14:38Speaker 1: Jay left his first wife, Anna Mae, and their three
- 14:41Speaker 1: young children. I do believe that Anna Mae was so upset,
- 14:45Speaker 1: so insulted, that every time Jay came back to Cleveland,
- 14:48Speaker 1: she called the cops to have him arrested for not
- 14:50Speaker 1: paying child support. And I further believe that when Jay
- 14:53Speaker 1: was granted parole and released from prison in November 1960,
- 14:57Speaker 1: two years after his arrest for statutory rape, He needed
- 15:01Speaker 1: to get as far away from Ohio as he could.
- 15:04Speaker 1: He also needed to go where there was work and opportunity.
- 15:08Speaker 1: And in the early 1960s, opportunity came calling for Screamin'
- 15:12Speaker 1: Jay Hawkins in Hawaii. 1964, Honolulu. Jay didn't see that
- 15:22Speaker 1: Pat had a knife. He didn't notice the steel catch
- 15:25Speaker 1: the light from a nearby lamp as she raised the
- 15:28Speaker 1: blade into the air. How could he? he had his
- 15:31Speaker 1: back turned to her. Besides, he never would have expected
- 15:35Speaker 1: Pat to do something so dramatic. Pat Newborn, aka Shoutin' Pat,
- 15:40Speaker 1: was a lot of things. She was 15 years younger
- 15:44Speaker 1: than 35-year-old Jay Hawkins, and she was a singer, hence
- 15:48Speaker 1: the wild stage name with the apostrophe just like Jay,
- 15:51Speaker 1: and she had recently recorded a song called Ashes with
- 15:54Speaker 1: Jay for Chancellor Records. Shoutin' Pat was also just as
- 15:59Speaker 1: sexually adventurous as Screamin' Jay. She brought other women home
- 16:03Speaker 1: to their place in Honolulu, and then Jay would have
- 16:06Speaker 1: sex with that woman while Pat watched, or Pat would
- 16:09Speaker 1: have sex with Jay while the woman watched, or more
- 16:12Speaker 1: often than not, all three of them would just go
- 16:14Speaker 1: at it all together. Shoutin' Pat was also Screamin' Jay's fiancée,
- 16:20Speaker 1: even though Jay was still legally married to his first wife,
- 16:23Speaker 1: Anna Mae. Like all the women in Jay's life, Pat
- 16:27Speaker 1: was on a need-to-know basis, and Pat didn't need to
- 16:30Speaker 1: know about Anna Mae, and she also didn't need to
- 16:32Speaker 1: know that Jay had gone and proposed to yet another woman,
- 16:36Speaker 1: Ginny Sabalona, even though he was already engaged to Pat
- 16:39Speaker 1: and still married to Anna Mae. In Jay's experience, it
- 16:42Speaker 1: was best not to let everyone know everything. But Honolulu talked.
- 16:47Speaker 1: The doormen, the barbacks, the maid men, the strippers, everyone
- 16:50Speaker 1: talked in Jack Sione's nightclubs. Jay liked to tell people
- 16:54Speaker 1: that the reason he'd come to the island in the
- 16:56Speaker 1: first place was because his life was on the line.
- 16:59Speaker 1: That he'd gone to a music publisher to insist upon
- 17:01Speaker 1: receiving a higher royalty rate for I Put a Spell
- 17:04Speaker 1: on You, seeing that it was quickly becoming a popular
- 17:07Speaker 1: song that other artists liked to cover. His demands were
- 17:10Speaker 1: so strong, his tone so threatening, that the publishing company
- 17:14Speaker 1: had no choice but to respond with intimidation. And before
- 17:17Speaker 1: too long, mafia goons were on his trail. Or so
- 17:22Speaker 1: Jay said. In reality, Honolulu entrepreneur Jack Sione had caught
- 17:27Speaker 1: wind of this rock and roll animal recently out of
- 17:29Speaker 1: the clink, looking for work, and who worked for a
- 17:32Speaker 1: rate that wasn't as high as your Ike and Tina's
- 17:34Speaker 1: or your Fats Domino's, and so Jack Sione brought Jay
- 17:37Speaker 1: Hawkins to the island with the promise of a steady gig.
- 17:42Speaker 1: The island was exile for Screamin' Jay. He had quickly
- 17:46Speaker 1: become rock and roll's forgotten outlier, Jerry Lee's punchline. a
- 17:51Speaker 1: cape-wearing ghoul climbing from a coffin on a Honolulu stage
- 17:55Speaker 1: for $ 250 a week and a percentage of that night's
- 17:58Speaker 1: liquor sales. It was exile, but it was also where
- 18:03Speaker 1: Jay's resentment really began to build up. Imagine you co-wrote
- 18:07Speaker 1: a song, a great song, a song that will go
- 18:10Speaker 1: down as one of the greatest of all time, a
- 18:12Speaker 1: song that defines rock and roll and other people and
- 18:15Speaker 1: bands cover that song like it's going out of style.
- 18:18Speaker 1: Nina Simone, The Animals, Manford Mann, Alan Price, the list
- 18:22Speaker 1: goes on, and yet here you are doing your Halloween
- 18:25Speaker 1: act for whoever stumbled into Jack Sione's joint that night. Surfers, stoners, riffraff. Chicks, man,
- 18:32Speaker 1: the chicks. The chicks, according to you, Screamin' Jay, are hot.
- 18:37Speaker 1: You've never seen women like this before, so you compartmentalize.
- 18:41Speaker 1: You close the door on resentment. You let it fester
- 18:44Speaker 1: like mold in a damp closet, and you party. Shouting
- 18:47Speaker 1: Pat brings home a new girl every night. And every
- 18:50Speaker 1: night she earns that epithet and you earn yours. Shouting
- 18:53Speaker 1: and screaming to beat the band. It's almost as if
- 18:56Speaker 1: you could go on like this forever. And at one
- 18:58Speaker 1: point you resign yourself to the idea that Honolulu was forever.
- 19:02Speaker 1: It was forever with a nice beach and a decent sunset.
- 19:05Speaker 1: But then, then Pat found out about Ginny. Pat found
- 19:11Speaker 1: out because Jay told her. And Jay told her because
- 19:15Speaker 1: the wanderer and philanderer that Jay was, he decided he
- 19:19Speaker 1: was done with Pat and he went ahead and pulled
- 19:21Speaker 1: the trigger and made it official. He married Ginny Sabalona.
- 19:25Speaker 1: Never mind that he was engaged to shouting Pat and
- 19:28Speaker 1: never mind that he was still married to Anna Mae.
- 19:32Speaker 1: Pat was beside herself. She went in and got the
- 19:35Speaker 1: knife in the kitchen, nine inches long, more than enough
- 19:39Speaker 1: to fuck Jay up. And she chose to strike when
- 19:41Speaker 1: his back was turned because fuck him. Jay's arms shot
- 19:45Speaker 1: out at his sides when he felt the blade sink
- 19:47Speaker 1: into his flesh. It sounded like he was singing the album.
- 19:50Speaker 1: of his big hit song as Pac gave the handle
- 19:52Speaker 1: a twist and then ran the knife down the length
- 19:55Speaker 1: of his back. Perhaps getting stabbed by one of the
- 19:58Speaker 1: many women he was sleeping with and proposing to had
- 20:01Speaker 1: at last opened Jay's eyes and given him perspective. Or
- 20:05Speaker 1: perhaps opportunity had packed its bags and flown east. Whatever
- 20:09Speaker 1: the case... Shortly after he was attacked by Pat, Jay
- 20:13Speaker 1: Hawkins left Hawaii and Jack Sione's nightclubs for New York,
- 20:17Speaker 1: and then for London, where he hoped at long last
- 20:21Speaker 1: to receive the respect he deserved. It was the notorious
- 20:28Speaker 1: gangster and music impresario Don Hardy. father of Sharon Osbourne,
- 20:33Speaker 1: who provided Jay Hawkins the opportunity to tour the UK
- 20:37Speaker 1: and to record at famed Abbey Road Studios. This was
- 20:42Speaker 1: in 1966. Around the same time, Don Arden walked into
- 20:46Speaker 1: the office of his rival and threatened to toss him
- 20:48Speaker 1: out the window if he ever tried to poach one
- 20:50Speaker 1: of his bands again. If anyone could strong-arm screaming Jay
- 20:55Speaker 1: Hawkins back into the cultural consciousness, it was Don Arden.
- 21:00Speaker 1: But the album that Jay made at Abbey Road, The
- 21:03Speaker 1: Night and Day of Screamin' Jay Hawkins, released on the
- 21:06Speaker 1: Planet Records label, was an attempt to mainstream Jay, or
- 21:10Speaker 1: at least drain some of the weirdness from his sound
- 21:13Speaker 1: and turn him into a crooner. It didn't work. Neither
- 21:19Speaker 1: did the other albums and singles that Jay made for
- 21:21Speaker 1: so many other labels. Over the years, Jay recorded for Decca, Roulette, Hotline,
- 21:26Speaker 1: Red Top, Koala, Blue Phoenix, Mercury, and Rika. The list
- 21:29Speaker 1: goes on and on. He bounced between record labels like
- 21:32Speaker 1: he bounced between wives and girlfriends in one night stands.
- 21:36Speaker 1: Until all that bouncing around from city to city, country
- 21:40Speaker 1: to country, woman to woman, finally caught up with him.
- 21:44Speaker 1: And perhaps, as some will tell you, it all eventually
- 21:48Speaker 1: led to murder. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. Screamin'
- 22:03Speaker 1: Jay Hawkins always believed that he deserved better. In his mind,
- 22:07Speaker 1: R & B singer Chuck Willis started wearing turbans because
- 22:10Speaker 1: Jay wore turbans. When Little Richard began to wear capes,
- 22:14Speaker 1: Jay said it was because he had worn capes first.
- 22:17Speaker 1: He saw himself reflected in the culture from 70s blaxploitation
- 22:21Speaker 1: films like Shaft and Blacula to the tens of thousands
- 22:24Speaker 1: of white hippie kids dancing to Creedence Clearwater Revival as
- 22:28Speaker 1: they performed his signature song at Woodstock. But seeing this
- 22:33Speaker 1: gave him no satisfaction because he felt that the culture
- 22:36Speaker 1: refused to see him in return. And what did Jay refuse?
- 22:42Speaker 1: Jay refused to be second best. So when he thought
- 22:45Speaker 1: that his one-time agent, Don Arden, was paying too much
- 22:48Speaker 1: attention to another artist, John Lee Hooker, Jay called up
- 22:52Speaker 1: Don pretending to be John Lee. Jay had the voice
- 22:55Speaker 1: down and everything and convinced Don that John Lee Hooker
- 22:58Speaker 1: was in jail in the U.K. Don Arden literally sent
- 23:01Speaker 1: a guy to bail out John Lee Hooker, who, of course,
- 23:04Speaker 1: was not in need of bailing out. Now, you did
- 23:08Speaker 1: not fuck with a man like Don Arden like this.
- 23:11Speaker 1: Most people would also piss themselves if Don Arden stuck
- 23:13Speaker 1: a pistol in their face, but when he did so
- 23:16Speaker 1: to Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Jay simply took it as his
- 23:19Speaker 1: cue that their professional relationship was coming to its natural conclusion.
- 23:25Speaker 1: A few years later, Jay wound up in New York
- 23:27Speaker 1: City as punk and disco were slugging it out in
- 23:30Speaker 1: the trenches. In the early 1980s, he played places like
- 23:33Speaker 1: the Mud Club, while Basquiat nursed a margarita somewhere in
- 23:37Speaker 1: the crowd. He befriended younger musicians out on the margins,
- 23:40Speaker 1: like Rudy Petrucci, whose garage rock band The Fuzztones would
- 23:44Speaker 1: sometimes back Jay up. And then the indie filmmaker Jim Jarmusch,
- 23:48Speaker 1: a former member of the New York no-wave band the
- 23:51Speaker 1: Del Byzantines, used Jay's original recording of I Put a
- 23:55Speaker 1: Spell on You in his acclaimed 1984 film Stranger Than Paradise.
- 24:00Speaker 1: A new generation heard this song for the first time
- 24:03Speaker 1: because of Jarmusch's movie. And soon that song, as well
- 24:06Speaker 1: as Jay's whole shtick, was being adopted by a new
- 24:10Speaker 1: crop of indie musicians. Down Under in Australia, Nick Cave
- 24:15Speaker 1: and the Bad Seeds were performing their own unhinged cover
- 24:18Speaker 1: of Jay's immortal song. But Jay was unmoved by the tribute.
- 24:22Speaker 1: Because when Jay flew to Australia to tour and discovered
- 24:25Speaker 1: that he would be opening for Nick Cave and not
- 24:27Speaker 1: the other way around, Jay was outraged. Nick Cave hadn't
- 24:32Speaker 1: paid his dues, he said. Actually, what Jay really said was,
- 24:36Speaker 1: my records were being sold here before his daddy knew
- 24:38Speaker 1: how to get an erection. And Jay had no choice
- 24:41Speaker 1: but to upstage Nick Cave. The coffin, the severed hand,
- 24:45Speaker 1: the plastic snakes, the fire, the cigarette-smoking skull. As a performer.
- 24:50Speaker 1: Jay Hawkins was impossible to follow. But by doing so,
- 24:54Speaker 1: Jay Hawkins was also biting the hand that wanted to
- 24:57Speaker 1: feed him, so to speak. And Jay found nothing wrong
- 25:00Speaker 1: with this approach, of course, because that's what the boogeyman does.
- 25:04Speaker 1: He bites. The cultural impact that artists like Nick Cave
- 25:10Speaker 1: and Jim Jarmusch had by elevating Screamin' Jay Hawkins cannot
- 25:14Speaker 1: be overstated. It was similar to how British invasion bands
- 25:17Speaker 1: in the 1960s shone a light on American blues and
- 25:21Speaker 1: R & B. And for his fourth feature film, Mystery Train,
- 25:25Speaker 1: instead of simply using Jay's music, Jarmusch cast Jay to
- 25:29Speaker 1: portray a Memphis hotel night clerk. It was around this
- 25:33Speaker 1: time that Jay began to record for the Bizarre and
- 25:35Speaker 1: Straight record labels, which were originally co-founded by Frank Zappa
- 25:39Speaker 1: in the late 60s. In 1991, Jay released the album
- 25:43Speaker 1: Black Music for White People, in which he remained as
- 25:46Speaker 1: uncompromising as ever with songs like Ignit and Shit and
- 25:50Speaker 1: I Want Your Body. On the album's cover, Jay is
- 25:54Speaker 1: wearing the same getup that the NAACP took offense to
- 25:57Speaker 1: decades earlier, the bone in his nose and all that,
- 26:00Speaker 1: while draped across his left arm is an unconscious white woman. Suddenly,
- 26:06Speaker 1: Jay found himself creatively rejuvenated. He was seeing more money
- 26:10Speaker 1: than he had in a long time, and he was
- 26:12Speaker 1: finally able to purchase his first house in Los Angeles.
- 26:15Speaker 1: Jay was also continuing to add to his list of
- 26:18Speaker 1: sexual conquests and continuing to rack up ex-wives. But Jay
- 26:23Speaker 1: was addicted to more than sex. Jay was addicted to
- 26:26Speaker 1: something else which threatened to completely upend his good fortune.
- 26:31Speaker 1: Robert Duffy, the producer who worked with Jay on his
- 26:34Speaker 1: Bizarre and Straight album, said that by the 1990s, Jay
- 26:38Speaker 1: had become a full-blown codeine addict. He was taking codeine
- 26:42Speaker 1: all the time, whether he was in the studio or not.
- 26:45Speaker 1: According to Duffy, Jay took so much that by 4 p.m.
- 26:49Speaker 1: every day, he was completely out of it. Jay claimed
- 26:53Speaker 1: that the reason he took so much codeine was because
- 26:55Speaker 1: of the PTSD he suffered from his time as a
- 26:57Speaker 1: prisoner of war. But that's not true. Jay took codeine
- 27:02Speaker 1: for the same reason that a lot of people take codeine,
- 27:05Speaker 1: or take any drug for that matter. Jay took codeine
- 27:08Speaker 1: because it made him feel good. It made him forget
- 27:11Speaker 1: about the things he didn't want to think about, like
- 27:13Speaker 1: skinny Aussie punks named Nick Cave who were headlining the
- 27:16Speaker 1: shows that Jay should be headlining. But there were things
- 27:19Speaker 1: that Jay could not ignore, no matter how much codeine
- 27:23Speaker 1: he took. In the mid-90s, Screaming Jay Hawkins left L.A.
- 27:29Speaker 1: in the first house he'd ever bought and moved to France.
- 27:33Speaker 1: According to Jay's fifth wife, Colette, the reason for this
- 27:36Speaker 1: was because they were an interracial couple. and Jay had
- 27:39Speaker 1: grown tired of casual racism in America. He had always
- 27:43Speaker 1: felt more comfortable in Europe, and had always felt more
- 27:46Speaker 1: appreciated as an artist there. Colette had only been married
- 27:50Speaker 1: to Jay for three years, but even after they split
- 27:53Speaker 1: and Jay married his sixth and final wife, Monique, Jay
- 27:57Speaker 1: and Colette remained tight. Colette helped Jay kick codeine, and
- 28:01Speaker 1: Colette kept all of Jay's secrets. Colette knew everything when
- 28:06Speaker 1: it came to her ex, Screamin' Jay Hawkinson. She knew
- 28:10Speaker 1: about how he did time for statutory rape. She knew
- 28:12Speaker 1: about all the children he fathered and all the child
- 28:15Speaker 1: support payments he failed to make. But the biggest secret
- 28:18Speaker 1: Colette knew had to do with Jay's health and how
- 28:22Speaker 1: that was seemingly connected to Jay's new marriage. In Steve
- 28:26Speaker 1: Bergman's book, I Put a Spell on You, The Bizarre
- 28:29Speaker 1: Life of Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Colette alleges that Jay would call, write,
- 28:33Speaker 1: and fax her well after they divorced and Jay had remarried.
- 28:38Speaker 1: And in these calls and letters, Collette says, Jay complained
- 28:42Speaker 1: about his current wife, Monique. He would tell Collette about
- 28:45Speaker 1: how Monique's cooking was making him sick and that he
- 28:49Speaker 1: needed help getting Monique and her family out of his life.
- 28:54Speaker 1: And she talks about this in Bergman's book. She wonders
- 28:57Speaker 1: out loud, quote, did she kill him, unquote, and then
- 29:01Speaker 1: answers herself with this. That's what Jay thought was happening.
- 29:08Speaker 1: February 12, 2000. Screamin' Jay Hawkins was dead at age 70,
- 29:13Speaker 1: and his widow, Monique, was going through his things. She'd
- 29:17Speaker 1: changed the locks on the apartment. No one was allowed inside.
- 29:22Speaker 1: No friends, no family, no lovers, no lawyers, and no ex-wives.
- 29:27Speaker 1: The apartment was full of Jay's costumes, capes, jewelry, and photographs.
- 29:32Speaker 1: But there was something else here, too. Copies of the
- 29:35Speaker 1: letters that Jay had faxed to his fifth wife, Colette,
- 29:39Speaker 1: the ones in which Colette alleged Jay complained about getting
- 29:43Speaker 1: sick from Monique's food and asked for help getting Monique
- 29:47Speaker 1: out of his life. Monique suspected that Colette had copies
- 29:51Speaker 1: of these letters and she wanted them back so that
- 29:53Speaker 1: no one else would see them because they were unflattering
- 29:56Speaker 1: at best. But when she called Colette to propose a trade,
- 30:01Speaker 1: copies of the letters in exchange for a bunch of
- 30:03Speaker 1: Colette's things that had been left in Jay's apartment, Colette refused.
- 30:08Speaker 1: The tension between the two women remained high at Jay's funeral,
- 30:11Speaker 1: where not one of Jay's 57-plus children were present. In
- 30:16Speaker 1: their place were rumors, now coming to a boil like
- 30:19Speaker 1: a kettle left too long on a hot stove. And
- 30:22Speaker 1: the rumors weren't coming from Colette alone. There was Jay's friend,
- 30:27Speaker 1: concert promoter Dimitra Mizuka, who said that Jay was afraid
- 30:31Speaker 1: of Monique. And there was another friend, John Lang, an
- 30:34Speaker 1: animator who went even further, alleging that Monique was physically
- 30:38Speaker 1: abusive to Jay. There was Rudy Petrucci, the guy from
- 30:41Speaker 1: the Fuzz Tones, the New York garage rock band that
- 30:43Speaker 1: sometimes backed up Jay. Rudy Petrucci said that one of
- 30:47Speaker 1: Jay's bandmates, quote, insinuated that Monique killed him, unquote. And
- 30:52Speaker 1: then there was Jay Hawkins as well. Jay's will had
- 30:56Speaker 1: gone missing for years, and only now had it resurfaced.
- 31:01Speaker 1: And there was hope that the will would provide clarity,
- 31:04Speaker 1: that it would answer outstanding questions. But the will did
- 31:07Speaker 1: the opposite. It raised new questions, and it made the
- 31:12Speaker 1: death and legacy of Screamin' Jay Hawkins as murky as
- 31:17Speaker 1: one of his tall tales. Before I get into screaming
- 31:40Speaker 1: Jay Hawkins will, let's recap what we've uncovered so far.
- 31:45Speaker 1: We have numerous friends who are on the record saying
- 31:47Speaker 1: that Jay was afraid of his final wife, Monique. We
- 31:50Speaker 1: have a bandmate who insinuated that Monique murdered Jay. And
- 31:55Speaker 1: we have an ex-wife who alleged that Jay believed that
- 31:57Speaker 1: Monique was killing him. We also have Monique changing the
- 32:01Speaker 1: locks on Jay's apartment and bargaining with Jay's ex, Colette,
- 32:05Speaker 1: to get copies of letters or faxes back from her.
- 32:08Speaker 1: Letters in which, as Colette has said, Jay may have
- 32:10Speaker 1: made claims that Monique's cooking was making him sick and
- 32:14Speaker 1: that he wanted out of the marriage. But there's something
- 32:17Speaker 1: else here, too. And I didn't catch it until much
- 32:20Speaker 1: later in my research. As I said at the top
- 32:23Speaker 1: of the episode, the official cause of Screamin' Jay Hawkins'
- 32:26Speaker 1: death was multiple organ failure following emergency surgery to treat
- 32:31Speaker 1: an aneurysm. That's what was reported in the New York
- 32:34Speaker 1: Times and other major news outlets. But the French press
- 32:38Speaker 1: gave a slightly different cause. In an article published in
- 32:41Speaker 1: the newspaper Le Monde, Just two days after Jay's death,
- 32:45Speaker 1: the reason given is not multiple organ failure. Instead, the
- 32:48Speaker 1: cause of death was occlusion intestinale. In other words, intestinal blockage.
- 32:55Speaker 1: Which makes me wonder, let's say hypothetically that Jay was
- 32:59Speaker 1: being poisoned. Could that have led to an intestinal blockage? Yes,
- 33:04Speaker 1: it can. I looked it up. And more curiously, why
- 33:07Speaker 1: were the words intestinal blockage used? not in the New
- 33:10Speaker 1: York Times obituary, which was published on the very same
- 33:13Speaker 1: day as the article in Le Monde, February 14th. Honestly,
- 33:18Speaker 1: I don't know. Even in death, it's hard to separate
- 33:22Speaker 1: fact and fiction in the Screamin' Jay Hawkins story. Harder
- 33:26Speaker 1: still would you find out what was in his will.
- 33:31Speaker 1: A single copy of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' will was found
- 33:34Speaker 1: in the possession of one of his former managers, Seth Greenkey.
- 33:38Speaker 1: But with its discovery came the revelation that the will
- 33:41Speaker 1: had not been updated since the 1970s. So it won't
- 33:45Speaker 1: come as a surprise to you to learn that Jay
- 33:47Speaker 1: left his estate not to his widow, Monique, but in
- 33:50Speaker 1: the hands of one of his many ex-wives. But which
- 33:53Speaker 1: ex-wife was written in Jay's will depends on who's telling you.
- 33:58Speaker 1: In Steve Bergsman's 2019 biography of Screamin' Jay, he writes
- 34:03Speaker 1: that Jay's ex-wife, Ginny Sabalona, was named the beneficiary. Remember Jeannie?
- 34:08Speaker 1: She was the woman Jay married while also engaged to
- 34:10Speaker 1: Shelton Pat Newborn, a treacherous act that got him the
- 34:13Speaker 1: knife in the back. But numerous articles written at the
- 34:16Speaker 1: time of Jay's death and reputable outlets like NPR and
- 34:20Speaker 1: The Guardian say that the estate was left to another ex-wife,
- 34:24Speaker 1: a woman named Mary Lou Ahuna. These articles refer to
- 34:28Speaker 1: Mary Lou Ahuna as Jay's fifth wife, yet Bergman's book
- 34:31Speaker 1: says that Colette was Jay's fifth wife. But hold up.
- 34:35Speaker 1: If the will was written back in the 70s, then
- 34:37Speaker 1: how could Jay's fifth wife, whoever she was, be in it?
- 34:40Speaker 1: The fifth wife hadn't happened yet. You confused? Here's something
- 34:44Speaker 1: else that you probably already picked up on. The name
- 34:47Speaker 1: Mary Lou Ahuna is never mentioned in Steve Bergman's book,
- 34:52Speaker 1: which appears to be the only real biography out there
- 34:55Speaker 1: on Screamin' Jay Hawkins. Again, Bergman names Colette as Jay's
- 35:00Speaker 1: fifth wife, the woman Jay had been confiding in near
- 35:04Speaker 1: the end of his life. I don't know, maybe Colette
- 35:08Speaker 1: and Mary Lou Ahuna are the same person? But Bergman's
- 35:12Speaker 1: book curiously leaves out another important piece of information. Immediately
- 35:17Speaker 1: after Jay died and the will was located, Jay's widow, Monique,
- 35:21Speaker 1: launched a legal challenge against the will in order to
- 35:25Speaker 1: get what she thought was her fair share of Jay's estate.
- 35:29Speaker 1: And so now you're asking yourself two questions. One, how
- 35:33Speaker 1: much was Jay's estate actually worth? And two, how does
- 35:36Speaker 1: this get us any closer to finding out whether or
- 35:37Speaker 1: not Screamin' Jay Hawkins was murdered? Let's tackle the first
- 35:41Speaker 1: question first. Maybe you'd think that Screamin' Jay Hawkins had
- 35:45Speaker 1: a lot to leave behind. After all, he was the
- 35:48Speaker 1: co-author of a song that will be forever enshrined at
- 35:50Speaker 1: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But if you've
- 35:53Speaker 1: been actually listening to this episode, you know better than
- 35:55Speaker 1: to think that Jay left behind millions of dollars. Jay
- 35:58Speaker 1: was a working musician. He continued to tour and perform
- 36:01Speaker 1: at age 70, not only because he knew of nothing else,
- 36:04Speaker 1: but because he had bills to pay. He had long
- 36:07Speaker 1: since sold away the rights for I Put a Spell
- 36:09Speaker 1: on You, so while he still earned income from performance royalties...
- 36:14Speaker 1: he did not see a dime from the more lucrative
- 36:16Speaker 1: publishing royalties, which are royalties that songwriters earn. And it's
- 36:21Speaker 1: hard to know exactly when Jay sold his publishing rights,
- 36:24Speaker 1: for pittance, by the way, if Jay himself is to
- 36:26Speaker 1: be believed, but we know that he'd done so at
- 36:29Speaker 1: least by 1984 when Jim Jarmusch made his film Stranger
- 36:33Speaker 1: Than Paradise. Jarmusch remembers paying a licensing fee to use
- 36:37Speaker 1: the song and being saddened to find out the hefty
- 36:40Speaker 1: sum was not going to Jay. In reality, Jay's estate
- 36:45Speaker 1: consisted of a modest annuity plus about $ 100, 000 in accrued royalties.
- 36:51Speaker 1: The 57 or more suspected children of Screamin' Jay Hawkins
- 36:54Speaker 1: did not know what their father's estate was worth because
- 36:57Speaker 1: they did not know their father. They didn't know Jay.
- 37:01Speaker 1: Even the three children he was aware of from his
- 37:03Speaker 1: first marriage hardly knew him. But when Jay was on
- 37:06Speaker 1: his deathbed, he supposedly asked a new friend of his,
- 37:10Speaker 1: an investment banker named Miral Nagolian, to track down all
- 37:14Speaker 1: 57-plus of his kids so they could, I don't know,
- 37:18Speaker 1: get together and shed a tear over their dearly departed
- 37:21Speaker 1: deadbeat dad whom they'd never known? Stay with me here
- 37:24Speaker 1: because I'm going somewhere with all of this. Jay was
- 37:27Speaker 1: unfazed by fatherhood. When Honolulu nightclub owner Jack Sione asked
- 37:31Speaker 1: Jay if he ever sent his children money, Jay responded,
- 37:34Speaker 1: that's the mother's problem. But here we are, being told
- 37:38Speaker 1: that his dying wish was to round up the kids
- 37:40Speaker 1: he ignored his whole life. And he asks this of
- 37:43Speaker 1: a third act character in his life, Miral Nagolian, an
- 37:47Speaker 1: investment banker who is routinely referred to as Jay's biographer,
- 37:52Speaker 1: but who has not written a biography on Jay in
- 37:54Speaker 1: the 26 years since he died. Anything's possible. This all
- 37:58Speaker 1: just strikes me as a little strange. Meral Nagolian went
- 38:03Speaker 1: ahead and set up a website, jayskids.com, and did receive
- 38:08Speaker 1: upwards of 2,500 submissions from people claiming to be Jay's progeny.
- 38:13Speaker 1: We can only assume that the majority of those were
- 38:15Speaker 1: bogus claims, scammers looking to make a buck. But then again,
- 38:20Speaker 1: who the hell knows? Here's what we do know. Approximately
- 38:26Speaker 1: one year after Jay's death, a total of 36 legit
- 38:30Speaker 1: children have been identified. But we don't know what happened
- 38:34Speaker 1: beyond that first year because, well, because the papers stopped
- 38:38Speaker 1: printing stories about it. Just like the papers stopped printing
- 38:41Speaker 1: stories about what eventually happened with Jay's estate. Did it
- 38:44Speaker 1: go to his ex, Ginny Sabalona, as Steve Bergsman's book said?
- 38:49Speaker 1: Did it go to Mary Lou Ahuna, another alleged ex-wife
- 38:52Speaker 1: who was never even mentioned in that book? Or was
- 38:55Speaker 1: Jay's widow, Monique, successful in her challenge of the will?
- 38:59Speaker 1: And speaking of Monique... If she murdered Jay as Colette
- 39:04Speaker 1: and others have suggested, then why? For money? We've already
- 39:08Speaker 1: established that Jay didn't have a fortune. But then perhaps
- 39:12Speaker 1: $ 100, 000 in royalties and a modest annuity was good enough.
- 39:16Speaker 1: All we're left with are questions. Questions, allegations, and suspicious behavior.
- 39:23Speaker 1: But there is simply not enough evidence to prove that Screamin'
- 39:27Speaker 1: Jay Hawkins was murdered discreetly. what has been said about him.
- 39:33Speaker 1: Here's a few more things that we do know. For one, Screamin'
- 39:37Speaker 1: Jay Hawkins fathered more children than anyone in rock and
- 39:40Speaker 1: roll history. And also, in his hotly contested will, Jay
- 39:44Speaker 1: left his three legitimate children, the children he had with
- 39:48Speaker 1: his first wife, Anna Mae, One dollar each. One dollar each.
- 39:54Speaker 1: Imagine that. Imagine you're one of Jay's kids. One of
- 39:57Speaker 1: his only kids that he acknowledged in his lifetime. Imagine
- 40:01Speaker 1: that your dad walks out on the family when you're little.
- 40:04Speaker 1: You barely remember what he looked or smelled like. All
- 40:07Speaker 1: you remember is how it was like that stupid cliche.
- 40:10Speaker 1: How he actually went out for cigarettes or milk or
- 40:12Speaker 1: whatever and never came back. But he was out there,
- 40:16Speaker 1: wearing his capes, playing with his skulls and his plastic snakes,
- 40:20Speaker 1: climbing out of coffins, rubbing elbows with Fats Domino and
- 40:23Speaker 1: Jerry fucking Lee Lewis and Jim Jarmusch and Nick Cave,
- 40:26Speaker 1: sleeping with countless women, while back home, you and your
- 40:29Speaker 1: siblings and your mom struggled to keep food on the table.
- 40:33Speaker 1: You try to reach out to your dad, to find him,
- 40:34Speaker 1: to hear it directly from his mouth that he's happier
- 40:37Speaker 1: without you, that he doesn't miss you, that he doesn't
- 40:40Speaker 1: think about you, because honestly, you simply can't believe that
- 40:43Speaker 1: to be true. But you never find him. Because he's
- 40:47Speaker 1: a boogeyman. And the boogeyman doesn't want to be found.
- 40:51Speaker 1: And when he finally does die, you find out that
- 40:54Speaker 1: it's not just you and your two siblings, but that
- 40:57Speaker 1: you have 57 or possibly more half-brothers and half-sisters all
- 41:01Speaker 1: over the world. And all you get out of it
- 41:04Speaker 1: is a buck. That's a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and
- 41:12Speaker 1: this is Disgraceland. All right. Thanks for hanging with us
- 41:35Speaker 1: in this incredibly weird episode on Screamin' Jay Hawkins. My God,
- 41:39Speaker 1: what a character. What do you think? Was Screamin' Jay
- 41:42Speaker 1: Hawkins murdered? Let me know. You know, I actually tend
- 41:46Speaker 1: to think he was. We couldn't find all the facts
- 41:48Speaker 1: to say definitively, but I got to say where my
- 41:50Speaker 1: gut goes on this. I'm not going to tell you
- 41:52Speaker 1: here who I think did it. We can talk about
- 41:54Speaker 1: that in the after party. We can talk about that
- 41:56Speaker 1: on the socials. You can hit me up at disgracelandpod.
- 41:59Speaker 1: You can hit us up 617-906-6638. Leave us your opinion
- 42:03Speaker 1: on voicemail and text. You might hear yourself in the
- 42:05Speaker 1: next bonus episode of Disgraceland. Here comes some credits. Disgraceland
- 42:12Speaker 1: was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership
- 42:15Speaker 1: with Double Elvis, The Exactly Right Network, and iHeart Podcasts.
- 42:20Speaker 1: Credits for this episode can be found on the show
- 42:22Speaker 1: notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland
- 42:27Speaker 1: All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We
- 42:29Speaker 1: really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a
- 42:32Speaker 1: member right now by going to DisgracelandPod.com slash membership. Members
- 42:37Speaker 1: can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad-free. Rate and
- 42:41Speaker 1: review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter,
- 42:44Speaker 1: and Facebook at DisgracelandPod and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash
- 42:49Speaker 1: at DisgracelandPod. Rock and roll up. He's a bad, bad man.