the transformed man

William Shatner carved out a campy cult classic with these unique spoken word renditions of psychedelic songs, Shakespearean bombast, and Baroque romanticism.  Shatner would recount in the album's liner notes:    "The seed actually began to germinate when I met Cliff Ralke while working together on 'Star Trek'. Between shootings we would often talk about music, about Shakespeare, about poetry. I discovered that Cliff was quite a gifted young man with a lot of creative ideas. He was managing a musical group, performing, producing records, writing television scripts. He's truly a remarkable and multi-faceted person. When the subject of conversation turned to putting Shakespeare to music, an idea I had been nourishing for a long time, it was Cliff's enthusiasm that helped get the ball rolling.   Then one day Cliff brought me a song, "Elegy For The Brave," and a poem, "Transformed Man," by Frank Davenport. As I read over the material, I felt an immediate identification. I knew that was the work of a truly gifted poet, a first-rate talent, and I wanted to do something with it. I learned that Frank is also a pianist and orchestrator, besides doing literary translations. He did a beautiful job on the translations of Cyrano and Spleen from the French, which I decided would be great for the album.   Then Cliff introduced me to his father, Don Ralke. Being somewhat unfamiliar with the recording world, I didn't realise at first how fortunate I was to cross paths with this man. I found out that he has produced many hit albums and single records, besides writing for television and motion pictures. Don can do it all - he's a composer, conductor, orchestrator, pianist, you name it. He immediately saw the possibilities of the project, and we went to work. He did all the orchestrations, and composed original music for Spleen and Cyrano, the three selections from Shakespeare, and "Transformed Man," So you see, everyone made a contribution in the selection of material and in the format of the album. Between the four of us the project was set in motion."

Recorded at Gold Star Recording Studios in Hollywood during breaks from filming 'Star Trek' in 1968, 'The Transformed Man' was conceived as a serious concept album that paired poetry with modern pop songs.  Producer Don Ralke created the musical accompaniment to Shatner's dramatic readings and was assisted by recording engineer Stan Ross.   The album was considered a joke to most people and got lost in the final frontier of the used record bin.  Shatner considers his work to be:   "Entertainment. If it makes you laugh or makes you cry, or somewhere in between, it would appeal to me. I had been in a Shakespeare company for three years and done a lot of Shakespeare. That was fun. That was interesting. It was a lot of work–anything other than Shakespeare was less work...'The Transformed Man' was an attempt to illustrate that the lyrics in some modern-day songs are equally evocative as some of the literature that has been written in the English language. And so fresh music, new music, original music was written to some of the arias and literature, and different orchestrations were written to some of the lyrics, and the cuts really are juxtaposed so that you get a contrasting lesson in themes in the song and in the literate piece. What happened, then, since each cut was about six minutes long, for radio play they took one cut, which would be a song. So the audience didn't understand what I was doing. When they played it and laughed about it and had fun with it, I went along with it, because it was good fun. I understand how people would take a song that I was performing as an actor and think, 'Does he really think he's singing?' But if you play the record, the record has some serious attempts to linking, and to synthesizing, certain elements... I'm not out to convince anybody of anything. And I don't sing  ...  The songs have intrinsic meaning. I was trying to do the meaning while the music played...I see myself as an actor with a love of music. The spoken word is musical, the rhythm of the words and the musicality of the words is what makes music. The spoken word should not be any different than the extended notes of music. The fact that I don't extend the notes...my joshing line is that extending a note is highly overrated  ...  I was in the hands of relatively—I don’t want to say amateurish—but less complex musicians for 'The Transformed Man'. Basically, I was on my own. Don Ralke was very talented, but we didn’t know what we were doing essentially. I knew what I was doing, but musically, I wasn’t very adept  ...  'The Transformed Man' -- good, bad or indifferent -- didn't work because the cuts were too long. The literature and the song attached to the literature made for six-minute cuts, and I wasn't conscious of the necessity of keeping it closer to three minutes. So nobody ever played the six-minute cut, so the listening audience didn't get a sense of what it was I was trying to do...Unless they played the album in its entirety, and once they did that, a lot of people...said it had an important influence on them."







http://williamshatner.com/









interview:  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5lTlkWPsqo



"Hamlet / It Was a Very Good Year"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mj5qKOP2tc





'The Transformed Man'
full album:



1. "King Henry the Fifth / Elegy for the Brave" (Don Ralke · Frank Devenport) 6:16
2. "Theme from Cyrano / Mr. Tambourine Man" (Music by Don Ralke / Translation by Frank Devenport · Bob Dylan) 6:49
3. "Hamlet / It Was a Very Good Year" (Don Ralke · Ervin Drake) 7:45
4. "Romeo and Juliet / How Insensitive (Insensatez)" (Don Ralke · Antônio Carlos Jobim / Vinícius de Moraes / English Lyrics by Norman Gimbel) 6:46
5. "Spleen / Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" (Music by Don Ralke / Words and Translation by Frank Devenport · John Lennon / Paul McCartney) 5:54
6. "The Transformed Man" (Frank Devenport / Don Ralke) 3:38





'Rocket Man' from 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lul-Y8vSr0I