{"id":5010,"date":"2012-02-29T00:50:30","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T07:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=5010"},"modified":"2012-02-29T00:55:26","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T07:55:26","slug":"william-shatner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2012\/02\/william-shatner\/","title":{"rendered":"WILLIAM SHATNER"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"WILLIAM SHATNER\u00a0<\/strong><\/h1>\n

An unlikely music maker\u2019s bold new mission:\u00a0 to create a sci-fi-concept album<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

William Shatner\u2019s philosophy toward his life and career has served him well. At the very least, it\u2019s kept things interesting. \u201cI\u2019d suggest that saying yes to opportunity is the way to lead your life, with some discretion,\u201d says Shatner, 80. \u201cSo I said yes to an album I called The Transformed Man<\/em>.\u201d That misunderstood 1968 spoken-word effort, recorded while Shatner was starring as Captain James T. Kirk on the original run of TV\u2019s Star Trek<\/em>, was for years derided as a catastrophe. But it caught the ear of a young pop musician named Ben Folds, who as a direct result produced a belated follow-up for Shatner, 2004\u2019s\u00a0Has Been<\/em>\u2014a critical and commercial hit that paved the way for a late-career diversion\u00a0into the music world.<\/p>\n

His latest adventure was just as unexpected. Cleopatra Records approached Shatner about making an album of science-fiction-themed rock songs. He was skeptical\u2014but became intrigued when he noticed just how many of the tunes revolved around the same character. The doomed astronaut \u201cMajor Tom\u201d was introduced by David Bowie in his classic \u201cSpace Oddity,\u201d and other composers have continued his lost-in-space tale ever since. \u201cSo I thought maybe I could find a dramatic line,\u201d Shatner says. \u201cI chose a number of songs that I thought might give us the story of Major Tom as he slowly dies in space. I put together things that to me are amusing and interesting, fun and entertaining to give us an arc into where he went.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ill-fated spaceman\u2019s arc is traced on Seeking Major Tom<\/em>, an ambitious double album that finds Shatner joined by guests like Sheryl Crow, Warren Haynes, Bootsy Collins and former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde\u2014the latter an indication of the project\u2019s surprising hard-rock bent. \u201cI\u2019m learning and changing so much by doing this record,\u201d Shatner says. \u201cI can\u2019t believe the music I\u2019ve missed. Up until a few months ago I would raise my windows when I heard heavy metal in somebody else\u2019s car nearby.\u201d<\/p>\n

The intensity of the music matches Shatner\u2019s trademark impassioned vocal delivery. \u201cI wish I had been able to sing,\u201d he says. \u201cI so admire singers of every ilk, whether it\u2019s country and that nasal twang, or the lyrical voice of a baritone or some guttural guy chewing on a jazz tag. But I also love the spoken word so much. There\u2019s a musicality and a rhythm to words that\u00a0as an actor I love to grasp.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Chris Neal<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WILLIAM SHATNER\u00a0 An unlikely music maker\u2019s bold new mission:\u00a0 to create a sci-fi-concept album William Shatner\u2019s philosophy toward his life and career has served him well. At the very least, it\u2019s kept things interesting. \u201cI\u2019d suggest that saying yes to opportunity is the way to lead your life, with some discretion,\u201d says Shatner, 80. \u201cSo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[2864,10156,3142],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5010"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5010"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5024,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5010\/revisions\/5024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}