JRR Tolkien's own commentary track is coming...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/noble-smith/jrr-tolkien-reveals-the-t_b_5373529.html

This should be interesting...

 

One reel to rule them all!

Sounds interesting if it's true. And I totally want to have a Hobbit dinner now,

 

Wow, that's pretty cool. I look forward to listening to it.

 

As awesome as this is, after that many decades in storage I'm not sure how great the audio will be. But here's hoping for a good restoration effort.

 

Reading this, I think Tolkien would have had a blast on the sci-fi convention circuit.

 

He really got tired of his fans later on iirc. He was still okay with them during the 50s.

 

There used to be a record on vinyl with Tolkien reading selections from the LOTR books. It was pretty cool.

 

^ He also sang the songs!

 

Did he ever sang the Nimoy one, the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins? Does anyone even know what his thoughts were on that work? I haven't been able to locate any source detailing Tolkien's personal feelings about it.

 

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKyIVZJAAXg[/yt]


...and the songs on the other album are sung by a man named William Elvin, not JRRT himself. He does recite 'Namarie' though...

 

I saw this for the very first time, recently and I was ... aghast! Nimoy did say that he'd turned to alcoholism for some time, after TOS. Perhaps this is the result ... tasteless and unfortunate.

 

"The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" isn't tasteless and unfortunate. It's weird, silly, and dare I say it, iconic.

 

Certainly makes for an amusing moment in the Audi commercial he did with Quinto a few years ago.

 

Just for context - not as an endorsement, mind:

Here's "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins," as only Leonard Nimoy can bring it to you:

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGF5ROpjRAU[/yt]

 

^Classic!

 

What was Tolkien's opinion of it? I know he was still alive when it came out.