Lemmy was a national treasure - a unique collision of swing and amphetamines

Lemmy is what happens when a small slice of 1960s counterculture just keeps on going, oblivious to the changing world.

He was a national treasure: a Methuselah of the British music scene, and one of its more thoughtful members. His driving forces remained a unique collision of baby boomer passions: jitterbug, skiffle, swing, rock’n’roll, and a lot of amphetamines.

He was playing chirpy Mersey Beat numbers in a suit, a tie, and a smile with the Rocking Vicars when most televisions were still black and white. When the world changed, so did he. In the late 1960s he roadied for Jimi Hendrix, and later even had the patience to show Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols how to play the bass. As the titans of the age (many his friends) fell one by one to excess, he thundered on, perennially popular. In 2015, he was still belting them out at Glastonbury. (When Kanye West said that the Pyramid Stage that weekend was hosting the greatest living rock star on the planet, we all knew who he was really talking about.)