Hugh Laurie's music and songs: blues and beyond...

James Hugh Calum Laurie is an actor, musician, writer and comedian. He was born in Oxford in 1959. He has worked extensively on television and became famous in the role of an arrogant doctor in the cult series Dr House. For this role he won two Golden Globes, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and six Emmy nominations.

He has also appeared in numerous other films and TV series: "Sense and Sensibility" (1995). with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet, 101 Dalmatians (1996), "The Man in the Iron Mask" (1998), Bette (1998), Stuart Little ( 1999 ), Stuart Little 2 (2002), Flight of the Phoenix (2004), Street Kings (2008), Black Viper (1982), as well as in the cult series "Jeeves and Wooster." along with his friend Stephen Fry.

In addition, he wrote the bestselling The Gun Merchant (1996).

Despite successful work on television, in time Hugh begins to find himself in music. In interviews, he has often confessed how as a child he hated studying classics at music school. However, as time goes on, he begins to reveal his incredible musical side.

Laurie finds himself in the blues, with a touch of jazz. These two styles have their roots in New Orleans at the beginning of the last century.

As a kid, he was a fan of the great Professor Longair (his favourite work of "Tipitina's." he overplayed in his work). This is where the "legs" of his main musical masterpiece grow from....

And here we come to a very important moment. A moment that will give us a whole new perspective on Laurie.

Hugh Laurie - album "

Let Them Talk

" (2011)

"Let Them Talk" is Laurie's very personal journey into the heart and soul of this music. 9 May 2011 can safely be considered the day Hugh announced himself as a musician.

Inevitable, of course, is the fact that the album's protagonist is a middle-aged man. A vain hero with a cane and a holy mission to make as many "enemies" as possible, at the same time as his charm spares some lucky people from a malignant form of a mysterious kind of cancer.

In some ways the parallelism I draw between Dr House and this southern blues counterpart is rather crude and smacks of cliché, but it's no less an interesting dilemma that I encountered on my first listen to the album.

The thing is, the sound is too clean to seem true. Supporters of "old school" are not used to this. However, with each new listen to the album, it's as if you gradually become one with the man behind it all.

Obviously, Hugh Laurie's devotion to this project is also explained by the fact that he becomes the hero of the album, its saviour. It could be just another blues album, recorded by ordinary music masters, with the bright face of a TV star on the cover... But "Let Them Talk" is not just another overplayed album with covers of pre-war classics. Hugh very accurately injects his charm into the music without destroying its original magnetism.

The documentary Down by the River - also includes chronicles Laurie's day and night journeys around the city on foot, bike and car, including a visit to the legendary Euclid Records shop where he reverently inspects classic records.

Laurie calls New Orleans "the most romantic place on earth" and notes that it is "a city that doesn't fear death" because it has looked death in the eye.

"That aspect is reflected in my music," he notes. "Death is a secondary key. Life is the primary key."

He freely admits that he is following "in the footsteps of Martin Scorsese, Ken Burns and Spike Lee," all of whom have quietly blazed their own similar cinematic musical paths.

"Here I am in the French Quarter, playing with all these wonderful musicians who were born here. It can be about as good as it looks."

Laurie Jones admiringly remarks: "He must have listened to a lot of blues players, a lot of boogie-woogie players," and notes that Laurie's playing is similar to that of Jerry Lee Lewis. Thomas marvels that when she saw him at the keyboards, she "could tell he was really playing the blues."

You play with The Copper Bottom Band, a group of amazing musicians. How did you put together such a great band? How did you find them?

- I did the casting with the help of producer Joe Henry, he knows just about every musician you can name in this genre. Nothing would have been possible without his help!

What genre of music do you prefer? Or, to make it easier for you - what songs are on your current playlist?

- I was listening to Albert Ammons and Meade Lux Lewis this morning. I really like those guys. I like pianists in general.

Your profession has its pros and cons. What do you like most and what do you try to avoid?

- Both sides of the coin are related. I find an outlet in each key and have as much fun as I can, mainly because I am a sociable person and like to work with people who are close to my heart.

Your album "Let Them Talk" is filled with echoes of the blues album "Did Not It Rain" and is more about the history of American music. What can we expect from the next album? Will your own songs appear on the third album?

- I have no plans for a third album. I've been thinking a lot, and, you know, I really like playing music live. So I'm playing what I like to play at gigs for now. And, most importantly, people like it too!