It’s Shatner Claus! Star Trek actor boldly goes into another strange new world: holiday music
- William Shatner gets help on album from Iggy Pop, Judy Collins, Brad Paisley, Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson, ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and Rick Wakeman
- ‘Every song has my interpretation,’ says 87-year-old, who’s been applying his hyper-dramatic style to albums for 50 years, even though he ‘can’t sustain a note’
Who’d have guessed more than 50 years ago when actor William Shatner brought Captain James T. Kirk so vividly to life and helped turn Star Trek into a cultural touchstone that his “final frontier” might turn out to be … Christmas music?
We kid you not: the veteran actor, 87, recently released an album of Christmas classics: Shatner Claus – The Christmas Album. He’s joined on the album by a galaxy of pop, rock, country and other stars of contemporary music.
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Proto-punk rocker Iggy Pop, folk-pop queen Judy Collins, country singer-songwriter-guitarist Brad Paisley, Jethro Tull flautist Ian Anderson, prog-rock keyboard wiz Rick Wakeman and ZZ Top guitar hero Billy Gibbons are among the guest collaborators.
“Every song – good or bad – has my interpretation with the desire to bend it a little or fulfil more fully its original desire,” Shatner said.
That’s his way of pointing out that, rather than simply stepping into a studio and reciting lyrics over prepared backing tracks to seasonal favourites such as Jingle Bells, White Christmas and Winter Wonderland, Shatner worked closely with album producers Adam Hamilton and Jurgen Engler in applying his vision of how each number ought to play out.
