September 8, 1966. On the surface, a day like any other, but in fact it was the day when the beloved character, Mr. Spock, first appeared in America's homes. And with that appearance, a love affair was sparked between the public and the man who portrayed him, Leonard Nimoy.

Suddenly the world was abuzz with questions and talk about Star Trek, Spock, and Leonard Nimoy. His huge base of admiring fans wanted to know all about him: what was he like at home, did he have a family, what were his hobbies, what were his favorite colors, what were his passions, who did he admire, was he anything like Spock? He appeared on magazine covers, in newspaper articles, on radio shows, on variety shows and talk shows. He was deluged with fan mail, besieged by mobs at personal appearances, and, to his own surprise, he became a sex symbol. In the midst of this Nimoy Mania, he also became a recording star.

In December of 1966, Dot record executives approached the producers of Star Trek with the idea of releasing a Star Trek themed album. There were already Star Trek toys, cereal prizes, model kits and every other kind of product that a kid would want, so why not a record? Desilu Studios exceutive, Herbert F. Solow, responded to the Dot proposal with the following memo:

"I think we should push any record company that wants to do an outer space or Vulcan or any other single record or album, be it straight dramatic music, weird music, Nichelle Nichols singing, Bill Shatner doing bird calls or even the sound of Gene Roddenberry polishing a semi-precious stone on his grinder."
For Nimoy this resulted in the release of five LPs on Dot Records, a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures, from 1967 to 1970. Since then, his music has appeared on a number of compilations and re-issues. It was a career that began largely through serendipity. In a 1968 interview for "Voices of Vista", a long running governmental radio program promoting the VISTA volunteer service organization, he explains how his recording career got started.


"Charles Grean of Dot Records had arranged with the studio to do an album of space music based on music from Star Trek, and he has a teenage daughter who's a fan of the show and a fan of Mr. Spock. She said, 'Well, if you're going to do an album of music from Star Trek, then Mr. Spock should be on the album.'

So Dot contacted me and asked me if I would be interested in either speaking or singing on the record. I said I was very interested in doing both. ... That was the first album we did, which was called ' Mr. Spock's Music from Outer Space'. It was very well-received and successful enough that Dot then approached me and asked me to sign a long-term contract."

Nimoy put himself in good company when he signed with Dot to work with Grean (pronounced Gree-AHN), a musician, composer, arranger and producer who is probably best known these days as the composer of the famous Quentin's Theme for the mid-sixties goth soap opera, "Dark Shadows". However, he had a long list of other successes during his career spanning more than 60 years. While working for RCA Victor in the late forties and early fifties, Grean produced Merv Griffin's I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts and wrote The Thing for Phil Harris, two monster chart-topping novelty hit songs. He soon went on to become head of pop artists and repertoire at RCA, where he worked with a number of country stars such as Roy Rogers, The Carter Family, The Sons of the Pioneers, and Vaughn Monroe, whose classic #2 hit, Riders in the Sky was produced by Grean. He later went on to manage country legend, Eddie Arnold, and he even arranged the strings on Nat King Cole's classic, The Christmas Song.


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