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William Shatner

Best known for his role as Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise in the Star Trek franchise, actor, author, producer, director, screenwriter, philanthropist, and singer William Shatner has also enjoyed a quixotic music career that began in 1968 with The Transformed Man. The thespian revealed himself to be as startlingly adept in tragedy as in comedy, and his spoken word renderings of pop hits and readings from classic plays quickly became a camp classic. He would devote the next 35 years to his career as an actor, but as The Transformed Man's cult following grew, Shatner returned in 2004 with Has Been, which found him mixing music and spoken word with his trademark brio. Since then, Shatner regularly returned to the recording studio, collaborating with an impressive variety of musicians in his signature style on 2013's philosophical Ponder the Mystery, 2018's holiday release Shatner Claus: The Christmas Album, and 2024's album for young people, Where Will the Animals Sleep?: Songs for Kids and Other Living Things. Born in Montréal, Québec, Canada in 1931, Shatner graduated from McGill University with a degree in Economics in 1952 before training as a Shakespearean actor with Ottawa's Canadian National Repertory Theatre. He launched his professional career appearing in various productions at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, and made his Broadway debut in a staging of Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great in 1956. From there, he moved into television, starring in a variety of shows and teleplays including roles on The Twilight Zone, The Defenders, and Dr. Kildare before landing the role of James T. Kirk on creator Gene Roddenberry's landmark sci-fi series Star Trek. The show, which lasted for three seasons from 1966 to 1969, became a pop culture touchstone, marked by its cult fan base. It also cemented Shatner's image in the public's collective consciousness, forever linking him with his character Kirk's charismatic persona. This close association between Shatner the man and Captain Kirk was a fact he cheekily referenced on the cover of The Transformed Man, crediting himself as both William Shatner and Captain Kirk of Star Trek. Released in 1968, the concept album featured the actor reading classic poems and excerpts by William Shakespeare and others, juxtaposed with him singing contemporary songs with similar themes. Whether originally intended tongue in cheek or not, the album quickly achieved novelty status. Along with acting, Shatner kept making albums, appearing on Live (aka Captain of the Starship), a 1977 release from Imperial House Music. Twenty years later, MCA issued Spaced Out! The Best of Leonard Nimoy & William Shatner. The recording combined cuts from Shatner's The Transformed Man with numbers from a pair of Nimoy's albums, Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy and Mr. Spock's Music from Outer Space. Starting in the late '80s, Shatner was featured on the Rhino compilations Golden Throats: The Great Celebrity Sing Off, Golden Throats, Vol. 2: More Celebrity Rock Oddities, and Golden Throats 4: Celebrities Butcher Songs of the Beatles. The trend continued for more than a decade and included an appearance on Celebrities...At Their Worst in 1999. Not everyone viewed Shatner's musical performances solely as camp. Beck paid tribute to Shatner's cover of Elton John's "Rocket Man" in the video he shot for the single "Where It's At." Also, Shatner and Ben Folds traded musical favors, with Folds collaborating with the former Star Trek captain on the 2004 studio effort Has Been, while the pop star agreed to appear in a TV commercial with the singing Shatner. In 2011, Shatner released the double-disc studio album Seeking Major Tom, featuring a newly recorded version of his classic interpretation of "Rocket Man," and two years later he issued a sci-fi prog rock concept record called Ponder the Mystery. In 2018, he paired with Alabama's Jeff Cook for the country album Why Not Me. Also that year, he issued the holiday-themed Shatner Claus. In 2019, Shatner cut a cover of the Cramps' "Garbageman" for the multi-artist collection Dr. Demento Coverd in Punk, with the novelty song maven presenting witty interpretations of punk rock classics. Shatner's take was also issued as a single, with the Cramps' original on the flipside. Shatner surprised everyone when his 2020 album The Blues -- which featured guest spots from Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, Steve Cropper, James Burton, Ritchie Blackmore, Pat Travers, Sonny Landreth, Brad Paisley, and Albert Lee -- soared to the top of Billboard's Blues Chart. In 2021, just months after his 90th birthday, Shatner released the star-studded, genre-spanning Bill, which included features from Paisley, Joe Walsh, Joe Jonas, Dave Koz, and more. Shatner offered a treat for his younger fans with 2024's Where Will the Animals Sleep?: Songs for Kids and Other Living Things. Shatner made the album with help from guitarist Dan Miller, known for his long tenure as guitarist with They Might Be Giants, and Rob Sharenow, author of the acclaimed Young Adult novels My Mother the Cheerleader and The Girl in the Torch.
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