The 1958’s Chuck Berry single “Run Rudolph Run was a hit and it has since been covered by numerous other artists, sometimes under the title “Run, Run, Rudolph”. The song is a 12-bar blues, musically similar to Berry’s very popular and recognizable song “Johnny B. Goode” and melodically identical to his song “Little Queenie”, released in 1959.
Berry based the song on “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer,” giving Rudolph a bit of an attitude as he delivers the toys. Unlike Santa, however, Rudolph is copyrighted, and Berry had to give the publishing rights to Johnny Marks, who wrote the original Rudolph. Perhaps if Berry had used “Randolph” (another reindeer he mentions), he could have kept the publishing. That’s what the makers of the British TV special Robbie the Reindeer did.
Lemmy’s version
And the legendary Motörhead leader Lemmy Kilmister, as a big fan of Chuck Berry’s music, made a heavy cover for the Christmas classic. The song was recorded by Lemmy, Billy Gibbons and Dave Grohl for the album “We Wish You a Metal Xmas and a Headbanging New Year” (2008), that was produced by Bob Kulick and gathered many heavy metal artists performing classic Christmas tunes.
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Lemmy’s death
On 28 December 2015, four days after his seventieth birthday, Lemmy died at his apartment in Los Angeles at 4pm PST, from prostate cancer, congestive heart failure, and cardiac arrhythmia.
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Motörhead announced his death on their official Facebook page later that day. According to the band, his cancer had only been diagnosed two days prior to his death.
Lemmy’s manager, Todd Singerman, later revealed:
He [Lemmy] gets home [from tour], we have a big birthday party for him at the Whisky A Go Go. His friends came down and played. Two days later I could tell he wasn’t feeling good. So we took him to the hospital. “
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“They release him. Then after the brain scan, they found the cancer in his brain and his neck. The doctor comes with the result a couple of days later and says “It’s terminal.”
Lemmy’s doctor had given him between two and six months to live. Following the terminal diagnosis, Rainbow Bar owner Mikael Maglieri brought a video game machine that Lemmy was fond of playing at the establishment over to his apartment so he could continue playing it from his bedside.
Although his manager had planned to keep the news private until his eventual death, Lemmy strongly encouraged him to make the diagnosis public in early 2016, but he died before a press release could be drafted.