So Fragile, So Blue William Shatner, Ben Folds, National Symphony Orchestra, Kennedy Center, Steven Reineke

• 1Shatner, Folds: Welcome and Introduction to "Eight Days on the Water"02:25
• 2Bischoff: Eight Days on the Water04:51
• 3Shatner: William Shatner introduces "The Meaning"00:31
• 4Bischoff: The Meaning07:11
• 5Shatner: William Shatner introduces "Are You the Bayou?"01:07
• 6Miller: Are You the Bayou?04:08
• 7Shatner: William Shatner introduces "I'll Be With You"00:32
• 8Bischoff: I'll Be With You03:45
• 9Shatner: William Shatner introduces "I Want to Be a Tree"00:42
• 10Witcher: I Want to Be a Tree03:04
• 11Shatner: William Shatner introduces "So Fragile, So Blue"02:18
• 12Courage, Bischoff: So Fragile, So Blue (Live Version)08:45
• Total Runtime39:19

Info for So Fragile, So Blue

This album is about something we all have in common; this beautiful planet Earth that we all call home.

It’s also about friends.Old friends and new friends.

Ben Folds came into my life many years ago. I received a letter from a guy named Ben Folds and it says, you know, “I heard this album you had made” (It was the first one I made called The Transformed Man.) He had found it in a garage sale, played it and he liked it. He wrote to me saying he would like to work with me. Ben wrote a song for me and he put it on his album. The album was Fear of Pop. The song he wrote was called “In Love” and I performed it. Thusly began my relationship with Ben Folds. Another friend of mine is a gentleman

named Robert Sharenow. Over the years we used to meet for dinner. We established a friendship over these dinners; we were both interested in what each other had to say and became quite wonderful friends. One day, Robert brought Dan Miller. Dan Miller turned out to be a university friend of his. Dan was into music and Robert was interested in writing. They had a musical group at university.

Then, Dan went his way, Robert went his way and they remained friends, but it was quite separate. Dan was doing his music, which I think culminated in They Might be Giants, which was a very popular group. Robert went into show business. One day at dinner Robert brings Dan and the three of us are having fun, eating and talking and Dan says, “You know, we should do an album together” And we all decide it’s a great idea. And Robert said, let’s do it about Bill’s stories because I always have a story of some kind.

Then COVID hits and we couldn’t go to dinner anymore, but we could communicate by Zoom. I would tell a story and Robert would start to write it. We sent messages back and forth about the lyrics of the particular story and then finally we establish what the lyrics are. Then, we would send it to Dan who put the lyrics to a musical track. It was so beautiful for us that we continued writing songs even removed by COVID and by 3,000 miles. We wrote maybe 20–25 songs in this way.

In 2021 I went up into space. I happened to be in New York, doing some work before I went to the desert where the rocket was. I met Robert and Dan for dinner and of course began to talk about writing a song about going up into space and made some notes.

“This album is about something we all have in common; this beautiful planet Earth that we all call home.” (William Shatner)

William Shatner, vocals
Ben Folds, artistic director
National Symphony Orchestra
Steven Reineke, conductor

William Shatner
has cultivated a career spanning over 70 years as an award-winning actor, director, producer, writer, recording artist, and equestrian. He is one of Hollywood’s most recognizable figures and a major philanthropist.

His accomplishments in television, film, and stage would take a great deal of time and more space than allotted here.

In 1966, Shatner originated the role of Captain James T. Kirk in the television series Star Trek. The series spawned a feature film franchise where Shatner returned as Captain Kirk in seven of the Star Trek movies, one of which he directed.

Shatner played the title role in the hit television series T.J. Hooker before hosting television’s first reality-based series, Rescue 911.

He won Emmys and his first Golden Globe® for his portrayal of eccentric lawyer Denny Crane on both The Practice and Boston Legal. Shatner has received four more Emmy® nominations as well as other Golden Globe® and SAG Award® nods.

In April 2011, Shatner launched his hugely popular one-man show, Shatner’s World on Broadway. He toured in Australia and New Zealand, followed by tours in Canada and over 50 cities in the United States.

Shatner currently is the host and executive producer of The UnXplained on the History Channel. From the producers of Ancient Aliens and The Curse of Oak Island, the one-hour, non-fiction series explores the world’s most fascinating, strange and inexplicable mysteries.

His love of music inspired him to record the critically acclaimed album Has Been. In September 2021, Shatner released the autobiographical album titled Bill with tracks featuring Joe Jonas, Brad Paisley, and Joe Walsh to name a few. In October 2020, The Blues album quickly reached number one on Billboard’s Blues chart. Shatner previously released the country music album, Why Not Me, in August 2018 with Jeff Cook and Heartland Records. Quickly following that, Shatner experienced much success with Shatner Clause, a holiday album released in October 2018 which peaked at number two on the Billboard chart.

Off the screen and broadcast waves, Shatner has authored nearly 30 best-sellers in both the fiction and non-fiction genres. His autobiography, Up Till Now, was a New York Times best-seller and was followed by Shatner Rules which was released in October 2011. William Shatner’s book, Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man, was released in February 2016 appearing on the New York Times bestseller list. Shatner also released Live Long And... What I Might Have Learned Along the Way in September 2018 and most recently, Boldly Go, a fascinating and timely collection of essays in which Shatner reflects on key events from his 90-years of life, was released in October 2022.

Shatner has been successful in another area—horse breeding. A longtime dedicated breeder of American Quarter Horses, he has also experienced enormous success with the American Saddlebred, developing and riding world champions and has won numerous world championships in several equine events. His passions for horses and philanthropy were united when he started the Hollywood Charity Horse Show in 1990, which benefits childrens’ and veterans’ charities in Southern California.

Shatner continues to act, write, produce, and direct while still making time to work with charities and further his passion in equestrian sports. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Ben Folds
is widely regarded as one of the major music influencers of our generation.

The Emmy®-nominated singer-songwriter-composer has created an enormous body of genre-bending music that includes pop albums with Ben Folds Five, multiple solo albums, and numerous collaborative records.

For the past three decades, he’s toured as a pop artist, while also performing with some of the world’s greatest symphony orchestras. A New York Times Best Selling author and podcast host, Ben also composes for film, tv, and theatre, guest stars in films and tv, and serves as the Artistic Advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

A longtime advocate for arts and music education funding, Ben launched a music education charitable initiative in his native state of North Carolina entitled “Keys For Keys,” which provides funds and keyboards to existing nonprofits that provide free or affordable music lessons to interested school-age children. On the national level, he’s active as a member of Americans For The Arts and the Arts Action Fund.

Steven Reineke
is one of North America’s leading conductors of popular music and is in his second decade as music director of The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall. Additionally, he is Principal Pops Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Principal Pops Conductor of the Houston and Toronto Symphony Orchestras.

Reineke is a frequent guest conductor and can be seen on the podium with the Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco, and Detroit Symphony Orchestras.

On stage, Reineke creates and collaborates with a range of leading artists including Maxwell, Common, Kendrick Lamar, Nas, Ne-Yo, Barry Manilow, Cynthia Erivo, Sutton Foster, Ben Rector, Cody Fry, and Ben Folds, among others.

As the creator of hundreds of orchestral arrangements, Reineke’s work is performed worldwide and can be heard on numerous Cincinnati Pops Orchestra recordings. His wind ensemble compositions are published by the C.L. Barnhouse Company and are performed by concert bands perennially.

Booklet for So Fragile, So Blue