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:
"Weekend Essay Question"
Bill Wyman; Best, but mostly ignored, Stones solo career.
Donate my prize to a charity of your choice.
aged musicians still managing to rock out now. rs
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?
I heard that version of "Run Rudolph Run" at aa restaurant just yesterday! I have no idea who it was, but it totally sucked.
Dave Edmunds and Bonnie Tyler do a killer version of this song on Youtube. I think Chuck Berry would approve.
I had that single! The flip side was great too - Keith doing The Harder They Come.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG4DBip682Q
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.
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_
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