I Put a Spell on You

CTL-E-5863 · Work · song · 1956

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07116 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5863.

"I Put a Spell on You" is a 1956 song written by Jalacy "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins, who first recorded it as a ballad for Grand Records in late 1955 in a version not released at the time, then re-recorded it the following year for Columbia's Okeh Records. Hawkins recalled that producer Arnold Maxin brought food and drink into the session and that the band produced the wild, theatrical performance that became his signature: a screamed, menacing delivery far from the straight love ballad originally intended. American Songwriter's history of the song records that the recording caused a stir on release, that Hawkins leaned into the theatrics in live performance, and that the song failed to chart for Hawkins himself. Its afterlife came through covers. Nina Simone made it the title track of her 1965 Philips album I Put a Spell on You, and her version reached No. 23 on the Billboard Hot R&B chart in 1965; Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Alan Price Set, Annie Lennox, and many others have also recorded it. Hawkins's recording was later selected as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 1 — 747 Program, Wave 8; first Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): no I Put a Spell on You entity in the live graph at 3,523 entities (exact / normalized / alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5863 free. Hand-read note: the Short #30 catalog hit for this title is billed to Nina Simone, a homed person (CTL-E-5234), not to this Work; it is not a duplicate of this song entity. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Tier 4 — corpus scan sample, readiness rank 2188 (corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked clean survivor #273; scan string "Spell on You"). The scan supplied the NAME STRING ONLY; no fact in this record is sourced to it (CTL-GOV-004). SCOPE GATE: PASS — a canonical Black American song (1956) whose best-known cover is by Nina Simone (CTL-E-5234, homed); core Black music scope. STATISTICS (sourced, dated): Nina Simone's version reached No. 23 on the U.S. Billboard R&B chart in 1965, per American Songwriter's history of the song (accessed 2026-10-16); Hawkins's original did not chart, per the same source; no other statistic is asserted. MEDIA: photo HELD (label and press photographs connected to the 1956 Okeh recording are third-party works; no file-page verification in this pass); chart FILLED (charts/chart-ctl-e-5863-i-put-a-spell-on-you.svg); video HELD (no CTL Short or other video for this Work verified with a cataloged URL in this pass; the Short #30 catalog entry is billed to Nina Simone the person, not to this song entity); audio HELD (the Hawkins and Simone recordings are third-party copyrighted; no cleared audio in this pass). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Work records carry no map slot under the media-layer rule; maps attach to places and institutions.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (CTL-created SVG (black / deep red / gold) built only from this record's sourced facts) | video = HELD (No CTL Short or other video for this subject was verified with a cataloged URL in this pass.) | audio = HELD (The Hawkins (Okeh) and Simone (Philips) recordings are third-party copyrighted; no cleared audio in this pass.)

Relationships

• Screamin' Jay Hawkins — composed by
  The live graph's Work record CTL-E-5863 documents 'I Put a Spell on You' as a 1956 song written by Jalacy 'Screamin' Jay' Hawkins and first recorded by him for Okeh Records; AllMusic's opened biography confirms the 1956 Okeh recording as his signature work. composed_by runs Work→Person per the schema matrix. A co-writer credit (Herb Slotkin) in the song's reference entry is recorded as a conflict in CTL-E-6272's notes; this edge carries the documented principal authorship.

Sources

• American Songwriter, "The Story Behind 'I Put a Spell on You' by Screamin' Jay Hawkins" (accessed 2026-10-16) — supports the Maxin session account, the release stir and Hawkins's stage theatrics, the failure to chart for Hawkins, and Simone's 1965 title-track version reaching No. 23 on the Billboard R&B chart — https://americansongwriter.com/the-story-behind-i-put-a-spell-on-you-by-screamin-jay-hawkins/ (build store)
• Songs With Earlier Histories, "'Screamin' Jay' Hawkins" (August 15, 2022) — supports the 1955 Grand Records ballad recording, the 1956 Okeh re-recording, and Simone's 1965 charting version — https://www.songswithearlierhistories.com/tag/screamin-jay-hawkins/ (build store)
• CHIRP Radio, "Take Two: 'I Put a Spell on You' (Screamin' Jay Hawkins vs. Nina Simone)" (October 25, 2019) — supports the 1956 Okeh original on At Home with Screamin' Jay Hawkins and Simone's 1965 Philips album of the same name — https://staging.chirpradio.org/blog/take-two-i-put-a-spell-on-you-screamin-jay-hawkins-vs.-nina-simone (build store)

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Record CTL-E-5863 · Combined Graph record U-07116 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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