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Star Trek: The musical timeline
You've seen the film, now listen to the history...
Steve O'Brien, Fri 15 May 2009, 10:31 am BST
With JJ Abrams's reimagineering of Star Trek now beamed into cinemas the galaxywide, we've used this as an excuse to delve through the Trek archives with our MusicRadar hats set on stunning. Sorry.
Anyway, over the next few pages, we've looked at Trek's relationship with the world of music and boldly bring you the great, the not-so-great, the obscure, the cool and the downright brilliant...
And the weird.
Alexander Courage: Star Trek (1966)
Alexander Courage (1919-2008) composes the iconic Star Trek theme. Contrary to popular belief, the lady wailing the theme was in fact a real lady and not a theramin (or a ondes martenot, before you ask). The vocalist was soprano Loulie Jean Norman, with Elin Carlson re-recording said wailing for the 2006 stereo remastering of the series. Courage later cut all ties with Trek creator Gene Roddenberry over Roddenberry's claim for half the royalties, hence Jerry Goldsmith taking over composing duties for The Next Generation.
The Way To Eden (1969)
The otherwise eternally timeless Trek embraces its inner flower child in this sphincter-clenching moment from The Way To Eden. Yes, that is Rambo's pal Commander Murdock (Charles Napier, also a Good Old Boy in The Blues Brothers!) from First Blood on lead and vocals, a claim to fame only equalled by the fact that he also provided the growls for The Incredible Hulk TV series. Now that's a career.
William Shatner: Mr Tamborine Man (1968)
William Shatner tries his hand at music with this 'interesting' version of Bob Dylan's folk classic from Bringing It All Back Home (1965). The Shat went on to release The Transformed Man (1968), a cult covers album that included a bizarro take on Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. Shatner's still at it too, recently recording a version of Pulp's Common People with the help of Ben Folds. No, us neither.
Leonard Nimoy: Ballad of Bilbo Baggins (1968)
Not to be outdone by his toupeed co-star expanding his artistic repetoire, Leonard Nimoy recorded this jaunty tribute to the equally-pointy eared star of JR Tolkein's The Hobbit. The album, The Two Sides Of Leonard Nimoy, showed Nimoy to be about as vocally accomplished at Shatner. However, Nimoy has shown himself a kinder man than his co-star by swiftly retiring himself as a singer. Thank Shariel for that.
