Let Hugh talk

I have a friend who accuses me of buying all of my music from Starbucks.  This isn't true, of course.  I have bought a few select CDs from my favourite coffee place.  I have found a great compilation of radio music from the 40s, a disc of relaxing French songs, and even a DMB compilation that could only be found at Starbucks.  My latest music purchase is from Starbucks, and I may not have found it otherwise, because I hadn't heard about it until coming in last weekend for some tasty coffee and some free WIFI. 

Hugh Laurie is one of those terribly gifted people who possess comedic and dramatic acting skills, cunning wit, and musical talent.  If you don't know who Hugh is, you aren't paying attention.  He is the British actor who plays the acerbic, but effective doctor on the TV show HOUSE.  I loved this show from the beginning, and can now only watch it through DVD marathons because I'm never home at normal times to watch TV.  Through the magic of Netflix, I was also able to watch Laurie's earlier work as part of the sketch comedy show A Bit of Fry and Laurie (very funny, with the unmatchable Stephen Fry as the Fry of Fry and Laurie) and the duo's turn as Bertie and Jeeves in the British series Jeeves and Wooster (based on another gem, the P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves" novel series).  The point is, in many of these appearances Laurie can be seen playing a piano or a guitar or singing.  Which brings me to the new music I've been listening to.  Hugh Laurie has released a blues album called Let Them Talk. 

I've listened to it several times, and though his voice, at times, doesn't really lend itself to blues singing, he does it with passion, which makes it endearing.  His piano and guitar playing is superb, though, and he has selected a good mix of blues tunes.  As I write this I'm listening to his rendition of Police Dog Blues, by Arthur Phelps.  I've heard this tune before by a Delta bottleneck guitar player, and Laurie's version lacks fire, but only in the sense that I can actually understand the lyrics.  In so many of the older recordings I listen to of blues men singing, the words sometimes get buried in the rhythm or the guitar or the singer just isn't enunciating enough.  In many ways, I prefer this.  I like some dust in my blues.  To me that seems more authentic. 

I do like many of the tracks on this disc.  I had never really had an interest in St. James Infirmary, but I do now.  Laurie's piano playing is wonderfully clean, precise, and, for lack of a better phrase, hits just the right notes.  You Don't Know My Mind really caught my ear, and the tunes Tipitina, Buddy Bolden's Blues, and They're Red Hot are great fun.  What strikes me most is Laurie's admittance that he is a "white, middle-class Englishman, openly trespassing on the music and myth of the American south," but he does it with more love and devotion than many other musicians I've heard.  He truly loves the music and has obviously taken steps to see that it is treated with the due reverence. 

He is a successful actor, releasing a blues album for no other reason than that he loves to do it.  He doesn't need the money (not that there is a lot of money anymore in blues music), nor the recognition (he's on TV every week), and the album wasn't heavily publicised.  And, if it turns on more listeners to the music of that time in American music history, I do consider the album a success.