I just came across this video on Facebook after it was shared on a friend's wall and I had to share.

It's Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Tom Jones delivering an earth shattering rendition of "Long Time Gone" from an episode of the ABC variety show, This is Tom Jones originally aired on October 16th, 1969.

Only a few months after Young joined the group, his blistering guitar work lays the groundwork for this loose and raucous performance. The guys in the band, Crosby and Nash in particular, are clearly amused and/or impressed by TJ's vocal prowess and collectively, they bring down the house.

This is officially now one of my favorite live performances of all time.

Enjoy!

It’s well documented that the story of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys is a dark one, filled with horrors both real and imagined. Child abuse, mental health issues, familial bickering all, in some strange way contributed to some of the most beautiful music of the modern era.

And although The Beach Boys will always be remembered for their sunny pop melodies, there have been a few occasions on which they have dabbled in the macabre.
 
They included a cover of “Monster Mash” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett & the Crypt Keepers on their 1964 live album, Beach Boys Concert.

​Here they are performing the song live on the December 23, 1964 episode of the ABC variety series, Shindig!. Whatever your personal feelings towards Mike Love are in regards to the legacy of The Beach Boys, you have to admit it’s entertaining as hell to watch him ham it up in this clip.

It turns out The Beach Boys have a more than a passing association with “Monster Mash.” According to this 2014 Noisey article, before they broke big themselves, they backed Bobby “Boris” Pickett on one of his first live performances of the song.

And apparently it still holds a special place Brian Wilson’s heat, as he has used the song to sound check with his band at least as recently as 2009.

Brian Wilson has often been described as a mad scientist in terms songwriting and studio production, and nowhere does he embrace that persona more than in this 1970 demo recording. Intended be his spin on the concept of a Halloween novelty song, “My Solution” features a trippy spoken-word rap over a bed of Gothic synthesizers, laboratory sound effects, and some signature Beach Boys harmonies thrown in for good measure.

On the surface, “Never Learn to Love” the B-Side to The Beach Boys’ 1968 single “Bluebirds over the Mountain” wouldn’t seem to have any association with anything horrific, but it does have the dubious honor of being a rewrite  by Dennis Wilson of a song  by infamous murder conspirator and guru, Charles Manson called “Cease to Exist.” Manson was allegedly furious that his not only did Dennis change the lyrics to  his song, he also failed to credit him as a writer on the album, and as a result, threatened him with murder after its release. 

​It's clear that while much of the music of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys was about having fun in the sun, they were no strangers to the creepy, crawling things that come out long after the sun has set.

With the release of “I Put a Spell On You” in 1956, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins effectively invented the concept of “shock rock”.  Rock and roll was still in its infancy and Screamin' Jay was already upsetting the status quo with a stage show steeped in occult imagery, and sexually charged vocals which ranged from guttural, inhuman growls to screams that sounded as if they were echoing from the bowels of hell.

Originally intended as a tender love ballad, legend has it that Hawkins was blackout drunk when he went into the studio and bellowed out that immortal first take of“I Put a Spell on You”. As a result, the song was transformed into a searing testimony to unrequited love gone wrong, loaded with bad intentions, and dripping with testosterone-fueled swamp magic. Jay later admitted that he had to re-learn the song from that original recording in order to perform it in concert because he literally had no recollection of doing it..

If the parents of teens in the 1950’s were concerned that rock and roll was the devil’s music, Screamin’ Jay certainly seemed to support their case. By cavorting on stage with a bone through his nose and displaying his lust through a series of animalistic grunts and groans, he subverted white America’s black stereotypes by embracing them. And in doing so, he brought their worst nightmares to life.

Although subsequent cover versions were hits, Screamin' Jay’s own version of “I Put a Spell on You” never actually made the charts. But his impact on the history of rock and roll is undeniable. His influence can be seen in the generations of countless “shock” rockers who followed in his footsteps and who valued macabre theatrics just as much (if not more) than the music they performed.

Throughout the 60’s and 70’s, Screamin’ Jay continued to tour and record new music but he never came close to matching the success of his debut single. By the time the 80’s rolled around, he was an all-but-forgotten relic of a bygone era and “I Put a Spell On You” had been relegated to the status of Halloween novelty song.

Then, in 1984, he experienced a brief renaissance after a young, indie filmmaker named Jim Jarmusch featured “I Put  A Spell On You” prominently in the soundtrack of his first major work, Stranger Than Paradise. The film briefly revived a cult interest in Hawkins which led to a string of live performances that included a stint as the opening act for Nick Cave in 1986. You can read NME’s interview with Screamin’ Jay from that tour here. It’s clear from the article that Hawkins was not afraid to speak his mind and was just as much of a character off stage as he was on.

But, the highlight of this short-lived revival was a 4-song set sitting in with New York’s garage/psych torchbearers, The Fuzztones, on December 19th, 1984 at Irving Plaza, NYC. The following year Midnight Records released a 12” EP documenting the show titled, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and The Fuzztones: Live. Long out of print, it can be found online if you’re willing to do some digging.

Reviews of the show were generally favorable, and with good reason. Amazingly, Screamin’ Jay’s voice sounds just as fearsome and earth shattering as it had thirty years earlier. And it is clear from this grainy video footage of the show that he hadn't lost a step when it came to campy stage theatrics either.  Also, I'm pretty sure he uses the term "fur burger" in this clip which includes a few minutes of stage banter before "I Put a Spell On You" that was edited out of the official release. 

The Fuzztones are firing on all cylinders here as well, obviously excited to be backing one of their heroes. They were a band eager to shake off their critics assertions that they were nothing more than a top notch bar band playing music that no longer mattered, just as Hawkins was eager to prove that he could still be relevant in this cynical, modern era. The magic combination of an underdog retro rock band, and an aging bluesman, desperate to escape obscurity, brought out the best in everyone involved. A similar pairing would prove to be just as fruitful for R.L. Burnside and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion twelve years later.

The album starts with one of the Fuzztones  introducing Screamin' Jay as an "old friend" he ran into "down in the swamp last night" who was '"gnawin' on a human leg bone". The audience welcomes him politely, but it seems that many of them are unaware of the spectacle they are about to witness. After Hawkins takes the stage they  lurch into a searing version of his 1958 single, "Alligator Wine", a plodding, shout-along, blues number in the vein of  Muddy Waters’ "Mannish Boy". The song recounts the recipe, and nefarious uses, for the eponymous beverage whose ingredients include alligator blood, fish eyes and swamp water. Hawkins also manages to slip in a reference to AIDS towards the end of the song that shows his instinct to shock was still fully intact and in touch with current events.

Next up is “I Put a Spell on You” with The Fuzztones psych-rock groove takes the song to another dimension as Screamin’ Jay furiously howls into the cosmic abyss.

By this time the crowd is eating out of Hawkins' hands. He takes a moment to acknowledge the band with whom he is obviously impressed. He explains to the audience that they "ain't even started yet” and lecherously describes their intentions to “touch parts of  you that's never been touched”. 

Hilariously, he follows this sexually charged rap with a surprisingly earnest performance of an original Christmas song, “It’s That Time Again” which he describes in the intro as “kinda a rockin', funky little thing”.

Even more hilariously, they close the set with an inspired rendition of 1969’s “Constipation Blues”, complete with some of Jay’s signature vocal improvisations that simulate the sounds of a man struggling with title’s harrowing condition. This performance gives new meaning to the concept of scat singing.

As the recording ends, the club's MC seems keenly aware that he and the crowd have just witnessed something special. He displays a genuine reverence in his voice for Screamin' Jay, repeatedly saying "What a voice" as he comes to the stage. Amusingly, the host almost seems surprised at how well The Fuzztones  played as he describes them as having done a "very capable job on the backup".

That night, the unlikely union of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and The Fuzztones tapped into that primal essence of rhythm and blues music that has the ability to stir the soul in dark and mysterious ways. And even if it was only for a few fleeting moments, they used that mojo to break through the surface of the synthesized, robotic sheen of popular music to reveal the blood and guts of rock and roll beneath . 

These sessions also introduced an early version of the song “Jack-Ass” which would be released as a single from Odelay the following year. This straight ahead country rock rendition of the song  features a slide guitar and harmonica in lieu of the hypnotic keyboard sample from Them’s cover of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” that would be added during the Odelay sessions with The Dust Brothers. Even without the glossy production, the song still shines as a great lonesome cowboy ballad.

The third track from the session is most commonly known as “Static 1” though it has been listed as “Baby” on various bootlegs that are in circulation. Not to be confused with the completely unrelated song, “Static”, which later appeared on Mutations, this haunting, finger-picked folk tune is probably the best Beck song you've never heard.

On the last track, Beck finally lets his freak flag fly (albeit in a decidedly non commercial manner) with this swaggering, noise rock cover of the Son House classic, “Grinnin’ In Your Face”. It features Beck shouting/singing the lyrics through a haze of distortion accompanied by harmonica, piano and electric guitar all shambling along to a raucous and disjointed blues groove.

The songs from these sessions eventually surfaced (often mislabeled) on bootlegs in the mid '90s, most notably on the unofficial 1996 release, Quodilbet which included a collection of BBC & MTV studio sessions, a handful of live tracks from the 1995 Reading Festival, and some alternate mixes of “Where It’s At” from the U.K. 12” single. 

These  rare recordings reveal that from the beginning,  Beck was  much more than just another novelty act. The world just didn't know it yet...