(Cover) - EN Showbiz - Hugh Laurie says the songs that feature on his new album were as alive as animals when he recorded them.

The British star - who is the highest paid actor on US television for his lead role in hit medical drama House has turned his attentions to music and recorded his debut album Let Them Talk. The record features a host of his favourite New Orleans blues tracks and was put together at Ocean Way studios in Los Angeles last September. Hugh has raised eyebrows by professing his love for blues music, but he insists he is so passionate about the tunes they come to life when he hears them.

I dont want to be artificially coy about it, and Im not holding a gun to anybodys head. I am just saying, Yes this is my thing and I am proud of it. We were rehearsing and I felt these songs were as alive as animals, sort of moving around the room, he revealed in an interview with GQ. You know, the song would go up and lick the drummers face and prop himself against the guitarist, and I completely felt those songs like actual living things.

If people buy this record because of House then it will obviously be successful, but I can really only count it a success if I encourage people to rediscover the likes of Lead Belly, Allen Toussaint and Willie Dixon. Then the whole thing will have been worth it.

Hugh has spent a great deal of time in New Orleans and has submerged himself in the lifestyle. He was initially nervous about visiting the US city, but was relieved to discover it offered everything he had dreamed of. He feels at home in New Orleans and was surprised by how quickly he settled in.

I dreaded coming here in the way that you might dread meeting Sean Connery, just in case he may not be like Sean Connery, he confessed. But when I came here, it exceeded all my expectations. It smelled right. It smelled sweet, with a slight overtone of decay. Sound and music on an astonishing level, and life almost bursting out of every building... It was just so intoxicating. And I am still that way, I am still intoxicated.

I am a tourist in the sense that I dont live here, but musically I have lived here most of my life. (C) Cover Media