Thursday, December 21, 2023

And a Belated Happy Birthday to Count Dracula!

Okay, I stole the Dracula thing from Marianne Faithfull, who noted Keith's transition from a Byron-esque romantic figure to King of the Undead in an interview around the time her pornographic 1979 album Broken English came out.

In any event, and continuing this week's Rolling Stones-themed posts, please enjoy brand new octogenarian (he turned 80 last Monday) Keith Richards and the A-side of his 1978 debut solo single, i.e. a pretty much definitive cover of Chuck Berry's pretty much definitive rock Christmas song "Run Rudolph Run."

BTW, in case you're wondering why Chuck doesn't appear to get a writer's credit on the above, it's because the two Jewish fellas who wrote "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" in 1949 had the foresight to copyright the use of the name "Rudolph" against any future appropriation of their income-generating fictional character. (Sorry, Chuck. Hopefully you still got the record royalties.)

In the meantime, a coveted PowerPop No-Prize© will be awarded to the first reader who guesses today's post's relevance to the theme of tomorrow's Weekend Essay Question. Although I should warn you in advance -- this one's a toughie.

PS: Speaking of Keith's birthday, the inimitable Tom Waits has penned a fabulous poem in honor of the occasion; you can -- and should -- read it at Friend of PowerPop© Sal Nunziato's invaluable Burning Wood over HERE.

9 comments:

mistah charley, ph.d. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tinpot said...

"Weekend Essay Question"
Bill Wyman; Best, but mostly ignored, Stones solo career.
Donate my prize to a charity of your choice.

Anonymous said...

aged musicians still managing to rock out now. rs

MJConroy said...

Songs about characters created for advertising?

BTW- we were grocery shopping yesterday and they were piping in god-awful Christmas music. My wife told me to just "tune it out", but I can't. I said, "did you here that complete butchering of the Chuck Berry song?" (some female singer with a slowed down version of Run Rudolph Run). She replied, I didn't hear a Chuck Berry song. Exactly - it was nearly unrecognizable! Who was that?

steve simels said...

I heard that version of "Run Rudolph Run" at aa restaurant just yesterday! I have no idea who it was, but it totally sucked.

Anonymous said...

Dave Edmunds and Bonnie Tyler do a killer version of this song on Youtube. I think Chuck Berry would approve.

Gummo said...

I had that single! The flip side was great too - Keith doing The Harder They Come.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG4DBip682Q

joeleeh said...

I was recently reading that the story of RTRNR was written in 1939 for Montgomery Ward (for a Xmas catalog or something, I guess) and the famous song was 10 years later. So the character wasn't original to that song either.

MJConroy said...

I did a bit of searching, I think the awful version I heard was Norah Jones.

The Smithereens did a nice cover of it:
https://youtu.be/brqohge4fhQ?si=nr9d1-TGD72Qrxf_