POP MUSIC REVIEWS : Screamin’ Jay Hawkins: Sheer Madness in Motion

SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO —  Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ own assessment of the strange goings-on Friday night at the Coach House is probably as apt an explanation as anything a reviewer could venture to say.

“When we get this far, we have lost our minds,” Hawkins declared after he had outdone himself in an escalating barrage of jive-rhyming couplets devoted to sexual-scatological themes (a major motif of the evening).

Hawkins’ concert was disgusting, riotous and bizarre. Most of all, it was inscrutable.

The nearly two-hour show included some strong singing and capable playing, but any musical virtues were eclipsed by the sheer strangeness of the event and its ringmaster, who presided in a blue-and-gold, lacy-cuffed outfit that Louis XIV might have worn so as not to clash with his peacocks. However, the Sun King probably would have forgone the rubber snake and boar’s tusk pendant that Hawkins wore draped around his neck.

Hawkins, 61, made his mark jumping out of coffins during Alan Freed’s ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll revues to sing such spooky but humorous R&B; songs as “I Put a Spell on You” and “Alligator Wine.” His show at the Coach House incorporated Hawkins’ voodoo shtick and his signature banshee-howls, but it was more an odd vaudeville act than a rock ‘n’ roll horror show. David Lynch, who has devoted the “Twin Peaks” television series to strangeness for strangeness’ sake, might want to work Hawkins’ routine into some future project.

(Lynch certainly would want to cast Hawkins’ eccentric lead guitarist, Gary Snyder, who looked like a cross between Steve Martin and Leland Palmer, the nutty killer of “Twin Peaks.” Snyder managed to play fluidly while batting his eyes crazily and jabbering silently to himself. He and saxophonist Barry Southern, who looked like a slimmed-down Al Sharpton, both got myriad solo opportunities, with Hawkins calling out their names each time, in case we had forgotten. Meanwhile, the drummer and bassist behaved like thoroughly bored Vegas pros--which in these surroundings may have been one of the strangest touches of all.)

Actually, things started normally enough, with some brisk R&B; in which Hawkins displayed a light, key-tickling touch on the piano, far removed from the pounding style of such contemporaries as Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. Hawkins was in good voice, his baritone rich, clear and stentorian.

Soon enough, the Screamin’ Jay character took over. He sang the excruciating “Constipation Blues,” a loathsome display of mugging and shrieking and grunting that kept the crowd laughing at its sheer cloacal grossness. Not an ennobling experience. His caricatured ethnic yammering during “Hong Kong” was another tawdry laugh-getter.

He fared better with his salacious Cupid shtick, doing several minutes of stand-up comedy in which quips that might have been concocted in Redd Foxx’s dirty mind popped out through a declamatory voice box that could have belonged to James Earl Jones. The pliant facial expressions and piercing looks that illustrated the entire performance were all Hawkins’ own.

The most effectively zany moments were musical. Chief among them was Hawkins’ unfathomable fording of “Old Man River.” In part, it was a sincere tribute to one of his heroes, Paul Robeson, with Hawkins emulating Robeson’s trenchant, expansive, theatrical delivery.

But there were elements of parody, too, as if Hawkins thought that straight musical performance would be behavior unbefitting Screamin’ Jay. For no reason, Hawkins would stop singing and revert to character with an eruption of cackling howls driven by drum explosions. Then, as if nothing had happened, he would resume his reverent treatment of the song.

To confuse matters further, Hawkins and band also took “Old Man River” into some tasty lounge-jazz variations. Equally puzzling was Hawkins’ decision to segue into “Let My People Go” as a coda for “Alligator Wine,” the Muddy Waters-style voodoo stomp devoted to a listing of the foul ingredients that go into the brew.

The weird and the zany, the gross and the macabre, defined Hawkins’ persona in the ‘50s; 35 years on, he appears to be sticking with what worked then. Consequently, a legitimate talent has fallen into the novelty trap and become mainly a curiosity more interested in extracurricular titillation than musical release. Still, the talent remains evident, and the Hawkins sideshow is unlike anything else in pop music.

Luke & the Locomotives’ opening set of straight Chicago-style electric blues showed that Orange County-based front man Robert Lucas and his band are ready to step into the ranks of nationally recognized blues bands. Lucas is a distinctive and powerful singer, a masterful harmonica player and a watchable front man with swaying, finger-popping moves that he well may have copped from James Harman.

Lucas’ rendition of Sonny Boy Williamson’s slow, bereft, verge-of-senility blues “I Got Too Old to Think” was a leap of empathy for a singer in his late 20s. He pulled it off with a performance that captured the song’s anguish, then dived immediately into an urgent, driving younger-man’s blues of sexual need.

The Locomotives were fine throughout the 45-minute set. Rather than relying on the raw power implicit in their name, the three backup players were pliant and supple.

Paul Bryant is a tasteful lead guitarist who shaped his solos with concise phrasing and an ear for tonal variation (Lucas’ ability to alternate between harmonica and another raucous instrument, slide guitar, also helped avert that blues band’s bane, sameness). Drummer Bob Ebersol, who goes by the moniker Max Bangwell, and bassist Al (Bedrock) Bedrosian played without intrusive ego as they helped the rhythm flow with nuanced dynamics.