Picture a disciplined young man studying classical piano and idolizing Paul Robeson, dreaming of the refined opera stage. Now picture that same man rising from a coffin in a leopard-skin suit, shrieking and clutching a smoking skull on a stick. This deep dive explores the wild, contradictory life of Jalacy Hawkins, better known as Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.

We trace how a kid from a Cleveland boarding house accidentally invented shock rock, and why he often resented the very monster he created.

• His fragmented Cleveland childhood, classical training, and a rebel streak that had him firing his own music tutor.
• Fabricated tales of Yale, boxing titles, and wartime combat that masked a myth-making survival instinct.
• The accidental, alcohol-fueled recording of I Put a Spell on You and its censorship despite selling a million copies.
• The coffin entrance devised with promoter Alan Freed, birthing his black Vincent Price stage persona.
• His resentment of the Screamin’ label, later acting in Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train, and a posthumous search for his many children.