William Shatner is 80 and I thought that this fact, in itself, was pretty incredible when I looked at him smiling and signing his third album ‘Seeking Major Tom’ at Amoeba music on Friday evening. He was not late, even a little in advance, and people who were waiting outside were all ages and shapes, from toddlers to seniors.
The album was played during the signing and Shatner’s usual spoken-word delivery was resonating inside the store while I was looking at his constant smiling face, not saying much to people but playing his famous I-have-conquered-the-world (or the space for that matter) assurance, without an ounce of arrogance, a sort of cheesiness totally embraced by the youth. Shatner is cool, do you know that? And he can even record a new version of ‘Space Oddity’ without even singing, with his funny-affected delivery using long dramatic silences between words, and getting away with it.
With this new album, Captain Kirk has returned to his beloved space (thus all these Star Trek t-shirts among the crowd) and around this theme, Shatner is daring anything, reworking Bowie (’Space Oddity’), U2 (‘In a Little While’), Deep Purple (‘Space Truckin'), The Police (‘Walking on the Moon’) or even Queen (‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, almost completely recited between sighs and cries) and Pink Floyd (‘Learning to Fly’). Fearless? Well, he is Shatner, someone who started his recording career in 1968 with ‘The Transformed Man’, mixing Shakespeare, Cyrano de Bergerac with versions of Dylan, McCartney and Lennon’s famous songs, and continued in 2004 with ‘Has Been’, a collaboration with Ben Folds, recording this killing take on Pulp’s ‘Common People’.
‘Seeking Major Tom’ features many famous musicians (Sheryl Crow, Ian Paice, Patrick Moraz, Ritchie Blackmore, Alan Parsons, Peter Frampton, Nick Valensi, Zakk Wylde, Mike Inez, Chris Adler, Steve Howe, Michael Schenker, Dave Davies, Brad Paisley, Bootsy Collins, and Toots) on the 20 tracks of the album, and my favorite had to be the cover of Black Sabbath’s ‘Iron Man, almost as scary as that of the Prince of darkness and actually pretty good!
The album is eclectic as hell and absolutely terrible when you think about it, who can legitimately retouch these iconic classics? But Shatner is well aware of this as he declared to Canadian Press: ‘It's such a departure and it's such a reinterpretation of some classics that I knew that I was on dangerous ground. For the longest time I didn't know whether it was going to be accepted or not. It seems to be taking (off).’
This is why Shatner is hip, not cheesy, just plain hip, funny, but taking music seriously. ‘Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young’ may have said Captain Kirk, but Shatner is forever young.
Here is the tracklist of ‘Seeking Major Tom’
1. Major Tom (Coming Home) (Peter Schilling)
2. Space Oddity (David Bowie)
3. In a Little While (U2)
4. Space Cowboy (Steve Miller Band)
5. Space Truckin' (Deep Purple)
6. Rocket Man (Elton John) (previously performed by Shatner in 1978)
7. She Blinded Me with Science (Thomas Dolby)
8. Walking on the Moon (The Police)
9. Spirit in the Sky (Norman Greenbaum)
10. Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)
11. Silver Machine (Hawkwind)
12. Mrs. Major Tom (K.I.A.)
13. Empty Glass (The Tea Party)
14. Lost in the Stars (Frank Sinatra)
15. Learning to Fly (Pink Floyd)
16. Mr. Spaceman (The Byrds)
17. Twilight Zone (Golden Earring)
18. Struggle
19. Iron Man (Black Sabbath)
20. Planet Earth (Duran Duran)