"Ice Cream Man" is a song by Van Halen which was written and originally recorded by Chicago Blues musician John Brim. Born in 1922, Brim recorded this at Chess Records in 1953. In 1994, he released a compilation album called The Ice Cream Man.
This is one of David Lee Roth's favorites. He pushed to get it on Van Halen's first album as a tribute to the Blues.
The first verse is just Roth singing and playing acoustic guitar. The full band joins in after that.
Like many American Blues songs, the lyrics are loaded with sexual imagery.
This was one of 2 covers on Van Halen's first album. The other, "You Really Got Me," was their first single.
Van Halen included this on a cassette they gave Gene Simmons before they had a record deal. Simmons didn't like this song, but let them record it anyway when he flew them to New York to make a demo. They didn't get a deal out of it, but when Warner Brothers finally signed them, the songs on the demo, including this, made up much of their first 2 albums.
In 1659 the Sicilian chef Francesco Procopia dei Coltelli perfected the making of ice cream. Twenty seven years later dei Coltelli opened Le Procope, the first cafe in Paris. Here after being considered a dessert for royalty alone, ice cream was made available to the general public for the first time. (From the book Food for Thought: Extraordinary Little Chronicles of the World by Ed Pearce)