Before Ringo Starr became a Beatles legend, he played cover songs with lesser-known rock musicians. One of his signature tunes back then was a track about a caveman, but not just any caveman: a comic strip caveman. Somehow, this all connects to “Monster Mash.”
Ringo Starr played a song about a caveman to German audiences
In a 2019 Rolling Stone article, Ringo and Nirvana’s Dave Grohl interviewed one another. Grohl asked Ringo if he would sing songs as part of his pre-Beatles bands. “I’d do ‘Watch Your Step,’ and I’d do ‘Alley Oop,’” Ringo replied. “Watch Your Step” is a blues-rock hit by Bobby Parker while “Alley Oop” is a novelty song about the comic strip caveman of the same name. Between “Alley Oop” and The Flintstones, cavemen appeared to be in vogue at that time.
Ringo discussed the reaction to “Alley Oop.” “In Germany, all the Germans would always [say], ‘Spielen’ Alley Oop,’” he said. “You know, substances came into play in Germany — that was good. A lot of alcohol, of course, but speed came in, and that kept us up all night.” During a 2017 interview with People, Ringo said German audiences enjoyed “Alley Oop” because its hook was the same in every language.
How ‘Alley Oop’ connects the to early 1960s music scene and ‘Monster Mash’
For a goofball song about a caveman, “Alley Oop” did well. According to The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits, the song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for a single week. It came out in 1960, a time when novelty songs were especially popular. That same year gave us garbage like Larry Verne’s “Mr. Custer” and Brian Hyland’s “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini.” This awful era created a vacuum of quality music that The Beatles later filled.
The producer of “Alley Oop,” Gary S. Paxton, later produced another novelty hit: Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s “Monster Mash.” That song was a lot more enduring than “Alley Oop!” Perhaps Halloween is a more timeless theme than cavemen.
Ringo Starr revealed what his life was like during his cover song days
During the Rolling Stone interview, Ringo gave fans more info about his early days. He was asked how many sets he was expected to perform around that time. “At the beginning, three,” he recalled. “[Entrepenuer] Bruno Koschmider had two clubs, the Kaiserkeller where I played with [musician] Rory [Storm] and the Bambi Kino where The Beatles played. He closed the Bambi Kino and brought The Beatles to the Kaiserkeller. On the weekends, we did 12 hours between the two bands each trying to top each other. It was rock ‘n’ roll gone mad. What a life.”
Grohl asked Ringo about the covers he performed later on. “It wasn’t strange when I started doing it in The Beatles,” he said. “The first two songs I recorded with The Beatles were Carl Perkins songs, ’cause I liked that easy rock, and then we found country songs, stuff like that.”
“Alley Oop” isn’t exactly a masterpiece but it helped Ringo on the path to stardom.
