Acting like musicians: Screen stars add albums to their resumes

ACTORS WHO decide to make albums? Yuck! Unless you're a precocious teen talent on the Disney Channel or a theatrically schooled rapper, that actor-turned-singer thing is just not supposed to happen.

"You don't buy fish from a dentist, or ask a plumber for financial advice, so why listen to an actor's music?" ruminates Hugh Laurie, the British emoter who disguises his accent well on the hit Fox TV series "House." Now he's doing likewise on an aptly titled album of New Orleans blues classics, "Let Them Talk," to be unleashed on American ears Sept. 6.

True to form, Laurie was mercilessly raked over the coals by British critics when the album was issued on his home turf a couple of months ago. He was chastised for being a "cultural interloper," a joke, for straying far out of his comfort zone, for making a "vanity project" and for not sounding one whit like a true bluesman.

To head off a similar barrage from the Yanks, Laurie's gone on the offense, issuing a "confessional" that shows some knowledge of the music he "loves" as well as a sense of humor meant to disarm.

"I was not born in Alabama in the 1890s. You may as well know this now. I've never eaten grits, cropped a share or ridden a boxcar. No gypsy woman said anything to my mother when I was born, and there's no hellhound on my trail, as far as I can judge. Let this record show that I am a white, middle-class Englishman openly trespassing on the music and myth of the American South."

In truth, the sprightly Bluesiana, minstrel ragtime, country-gospel and moanin'-low tunes he's selected ("St. James Infirmary," "Tipitina," "Winin' Boy Blues," "John Henry") work pretty well with Laurie's Leon Redbone-like, megaphoned-in vocal tones. Plus he's surrounded himself with some stellar talents, including producer Joe Henry, New Orleans notables Irma Thomas and Dr. John, and fellow Brit Tom Jones, with horn charts by Allen Toussaint. Listeners will be entertained and educated, at the least, if not enthralled.

Laurie's got company on this side of the pond: a like-minded crop of well-known actors who've also newly decided to unleash the songs a-brewing in their hearts.

Jeff Bridges got a serious buzz going last week for his self-titled album (actually his second) of cheeky-attitude rockabilly and pining country tunes, pumping up the release with TV performances on "Today" and "The Colbert Report" and online at RollingStone.com.

In chats, Bridges makes a point of connecting the music and his grumbling, barely there vocalizing to his 2009, Academy Award-winning performance as country singer Otis "Bad" Blake in "Crazy Heart." "Some of the songs on this album [written by John Goodwin and the late, great Stephen Bruton] were originally supposed to be in the film," he told "Today" host Matt Lauer.

But underscoring that he's not ready to quit his day job, the Dude also made a fuss last week over the well-synchronized Blu-ray disc release of "The Big Lebowski," which also featured, as did "Crazy Heart" and his new album, musical supervision by producer T-Bone Burnett.

Those "ringing" aftertones in Bridges' voice are the clue that Burnett's gone deep with Auto-Tune vocal correction. Also note ever-present backing singers such as (former Mrs. T-Bone) Sam Phillips and Roseanne Cash, likewise holding up the Bridges.

Seasoned screen actor Tim Robbins also has been making the rounds with his band, including a stop last month at the Sellersville Theater, to tout his 51-years-in-the-making debut album, "Tim Robbins & the Rogues Gallery Band." Tim calls the brew "raggle-taggle and rousing gypsy Americana." His vocals are even raspier than Bridges', if such were possible, though the tone fits his darkly dramatic, self-penned prophesies and the eerie swampadelic aura laid down by Philly-spawned producer Hal Willner.

Robbins admits that recording this set was partly sparked by his 2009 split from longtime mate Susan Sarandon. In the aftermath, as he worked through other big regrets, he realized he wanted to record the songs he'd been writing "all my life."

Robbins reminds us that his dad played in the Highwaymen, one of those "hearty" harmonizing groups of the folk-revival era of the 1960s.

This miniboom of actors making albums isn't just a variation on the older man's midlife crisis, otherwise resolved by a trophy bride or flashy convertible.

Winsome actress Zooey Deschanel has been earning decent grades for her musical efforts as the cooing female half of She & Him. Hasn't hurt that she's aligned with the much-esteemed alt folkster M. Ward.

Jamie Foxx, Minnie Driver and Robert Downey Jr. have enjoyed meaningful moments at the microphone, too.

And earlier the same night Bridges was croaking away on "Colbert," we caught and were impressed by the rock-solid singing, keyboards and songwriting of actress Alicia Witt, serving sharply personal, boldly melodic pop originals in the Carole King/Billy Joel vein.

You know this redheaded beauty best for TV stints on "Friday Night Lights," "Law and Order: Criminal Intent" and "Cybil." Witt's also done big-screen time, from her 1984 debut (at age 8) in "Dune" to her 2009 "88 Minutes" on the run with Al Pacino. Witt has four indie films "in the can awaiting release," she shared.

So you gotta wonder, what's a reasonably well-known and well-paid actress doing as the opening act on a midweek bill (she booked the gig herself) in the smaller Upstairs room at World Cafe Live? Singing her heart out for 40 people (at $10 a head), she's clearly not in it for the money. Clearly not to promote albums, either. Witt has only one 2009 indie EP to sell and no label affiliation, though her cover-girl treatment in September's Sound & Vision magazine might change that.

Witt's answers, shared after the show, would probably be what you'd hear from Robbins, Bridges, Laurie or Deschanel, too, if they were as open to baring their souls as Witt was with us. In essence, she's doing this music thing not just because she can, but because she must - because it makes her feel "complete."

"Acting is often a solitary, disjointed and lonely job," she shared. "You're sitting in a trailer waiting for your scene a lot more of the time than you're actually working. And truthfully, you only put a part of yourself into the role.

"With music, it's a full-in thing. If you're being honest, you're bare naked, totally exposed. And the feedback from listeners when you perform is immediate and real. Do they get it? Are they listening? I can't begin to tell you how it feels when someone comes up and says, 'One of your songs helped get me through a bad patch.' "

Witt's childhood in Worchester, Mass., was set to the tunes her parents loved - Nat King Cole, Benny Goodman, Broadway musicals. "So I was always a bit of a freak in that way," she said. "And I played classical piano. Truthfully, my career could have gone in either direction. The same year I made my movie-acting debut, I was competing in international piano competitions. Then when I first moved to Hollywood, while I was waiting for the acting opportunities, I made my living playing piano standards in a hotel bar."

Witt put her musical expertise to big-screen advantage in "Mr. Holland's Opus," mastering clarinet to please on-screen teacher Richard Dreyfuss. But it wasn't until four years ago, after the breakup of a long-term romantic relationship, that she started writing songs in earnest, the repertoire of snappy, resilient, emancipated-woman anthems and touching lost-and-found love ballads that now make up the set she "sells" quite well in concert.

Witt has found that pursuing music has helped with her acting gigs, too. "I feel more natural and honest now, more in the moment, whatever the character I'm playing."

So if push came to shove, if all were equal in pay and prestige, and she had her druthers, which career path would Witt pursue?

"Hmmm. Do I really have to choose?"

Uh, she didn't.