Caveman Bop
The following originally appeared in the GRAND JUNCTION FREE PRESS:
Which came first: the Sentence or the Song?
Nowadays, some scientists say the latter. In 1998, scientists Mario Vaneechoutte and John R. Skoyles theorized that man’s propensity for music is not merely the entertaining but trivial offshoot of his biologically programmed ability to speak, but rather the other way around — that is, our primitive proto-human ancestors could rock before they could talk.
The earliest origins of music are unknown. It predates recorded history. Archaeologists have discovered flutes fashioned from bird bones that date back more than 35-thousand years, and Professor Steven Mithen has theorized the Neanderthals were proficient musicians. Whether music came first or speech, there can be little doubt that even in the furthest recesses of prehistory, wherever there congregated at least four Cro-Magnons and a log, there was a jam band.
Maybe that explains the popularity of the caveman as a musical figure during the rock n’ roll era. Little-known singer Randy Luck recorded “I Was a Teenage Caveman” in June, 1958, a year before Roger Corman released his exploitation classic, TEENAGE CAVEMAN, which starred a pre-MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. Robert Vaughn as the titular troglodyte.
A year later, Watsonville, California’s Jerry Coulston issued “Caveman Hop” on the Christy label.
And in 1960, Tommy Roe cut “Caveman,” nine years before he would get “Dizzy.”
But perhaps the biggest Paleolithic pop song came in 1962, when Gary Paxton, Kim Fowley, Sandy Nelson and some friends brought comic strip caveman ALLEY OOP to the top of the charts, almost 30 years after cartoonist V.T. Hamlin first introduced the lantern-jawed club-wielder to the American public in the funny pages.
The caveman continued to find his way onto the music charts during the next decade as well. Before they were 10cc, the group then comprised of Eric Stewart, Lol Creme and Kevin Godley called themselves Hot Legs, and in 1970 scored a European hit with the insanely repetitive “Neanderthal Man.”
And in 1972, rhythm n’ blues veteran Jimmy Castor put the primeval back into pop when he recorded “Troglodyte” as part of the Jimmy Castor Bunch album, IT’S JUST BEGUN. “Troglodyte,” with its primitive chorus of “Gotta find a woman/Gotta find a woman/Gotta find a woman/Gotta find a woman,” struck a chord with pop-loving throwbacks everywhere, and Castor recorded a sequel, “The Bertha Butt Boogie,” three years later.
In more recent years, the cave has proven a popular domain, especially for alternative rockers. Oingo Boingo sang “The Ballad of the Caveman,” while the Crash Test Dummies took us back to “In the Days of the Caveman.” Pop punks Jimmy Eats World sang “Caveman” on their 2002 album, “Static Prevails.” And folk favorites Eddie From Ohio urged, “Let’s Get Mesolithic” on their 2001 album, “Quick.”
Perhaps only a denizen of the Stone Age could really know the meaning of rock n’ roll.