Hugh Laurie's Let Them Talk

I've been immersing myself in Hugh Laurie's jazz album, "Let Them Talk."  That's right, *that* Hugh Laurie.  The one that I first "met" via the Wooster and Jeeves television series.  It's always been odd seeing him as the serious and cynical (and American) Dr. House.  I always associate him with barmy, wealthy Bertie Wooster:



He sings on this album with an American accent.  He mostly pulls it off.  There's a song where he pronounces the word "red" very strangely.  There's a track with Sir Tom Jones singing.  The first time I heard it, it was such a pleasant surprise.  Like having an old friend for dinner.

If the music weren't enough, the liner notes are worth the price of the album alone. 

He writes:

Let this record show that I am a white, middle-class Englishman, openly trespassing on the music and myth of the American south...But at the same time, I could never bear to see this music confined to a glass cabinet, under the heading Culture: Only to Be Handle By Elderly Black Men. That way lies the grave, for the blues and just about everything else: Shakespeare only performed at The Globe, Bach only played by Germans in tights. It's formaldehyde, and I pray that Leadbelly will never be dead enough to warrant that.

So that's my only credential - my one dog-eared ID card that I hope will get me through the velvet ropes.  I love this music, as authentically as I know how, and I want you to love it too.  If you get a thousandth of the pleasure from it that I've had, we're ahead of the game.

Joe Henry, the producer, is not to be outdone.  Here is a sample of his writing:

[Our studio engineer] is like someone taking minutes at a seance. He knows how to bottle every bit of weather in the room.

And finally, just as I was asking The Serene One who Leadbelly was, I saw this in the notes:

Among the many legends that are attached to Lead Belly, there's this: that he was twice released from separate life sentences, one in Texas and one in Louisiana, by singing for the respective state governors. Even now, you hear his voice, his mind, his poetry, and you'd set him free.