“There’s that word once more: Unique. I can’t think of a better word to explain it. I could ask you to go into a file save or log on and discover something like it. Jeff Cook, founding member and lead guitarist for Alabama, is home thinking about one of the odder tasks he’s recorded in his 50-year profession. Over the path of three days a final year in Cook’s Alabama studio, William Shatner, Cook’s friend for nearly 40 years, hopped into the vocal booth and, along with his very own inimitable spoken-word fashion rarely seen in country tune, laid down vocals for what could end up Why Not Me? His debut, you. S. Album launched the remaining 12 months.
“Things just flowed,” Cook tells Rolling Stone. “We not often had to reduce things over two times. I turned, amazed that we went through it as quickly as we did. Beginning with 1968’s The Transposed Man album, which juxtaposed William Shakespeare’s works and different poems to modern-day pop songs (“Lucy Within the Sky With Diamonds,” “Mr. Tambourine Man”), William Shatner has lengthy been a mercurial musical discern existing in his universe. There’s the 1977 Stay double album, indulgent even for a time while indulgence became contractually obligated for most organizations, that saw Shatner recite Cyrano and War of the Worlds. An oft-parodied spoken phrase model of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” arrived a year later, followed with the aid of an album of biblical readings, collaborations with absolutely everyone from his buddy Brad Paisley to Bootsy Collins to Ben Folds, and regardless of the hell that is:
