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This is in the new issue of Baltimore’s Gay weekly. An interesting piece but if you don’t have time to read the whole thing just scroll down to highlighted section.

HOLLYWOOD CROSSOVER
By Gregg Shapiro
The music, film and television industries have long been bedfellows. Strange or not, it’s a fact. Such a relationship has led countless film and television stars to believe that people actually want to hear them sing.

Take Jamie Foxx, for example. Ten years before his breakthrough, award-winning performance in the biopic Ray, Foxx released a CD that went virtually ignored. Fast-forward to 2005, his confidence bolstered by the acclaim he received for both his acting and singing, as well as his friendship with Kanye West, Foxx returns to recording with Unpredictable (J). The shirtless pose in the CD booklet indicates that, predictably, these songs are about getting busy, if you couldn’t glean that from song titles such as “Warm Bed” and “Can I Take U Home.” Nevertheless, Foxx rises to the occasion the original composition “Heaven.”

Daughter of Eric Roberts and niece of Julia Roberts, Emma Roberts is the star of the popular Nickelodeon TV series Unfabulous. Her character Addie Singer, a musically inclined junior high student, uses her music to express herself. Lucky for Emma (and Addie) she has acclaimed queer singer/songwriter to provide her with some material on Unfabulous and More (Columbia/Nick Records). Show originals such as “Punch Rocker,” “94 Weeks (Metal Mouth Freak),” and “New Shoes,” prove that Sobule is a perfect match for the concept. When fourteen year old Roberts sings Sobule’s classic “Mexican Wrestler,” it not only exhibits the indestructible nature of the songwriter’s material, but once again raises the question of why she’s not a bigger star.

The basis for the seventies sitcom The Partridge Family, The Cowsills were a musical family led by mother Barbara. The band’s third album, We Can Fly (Collectors’ Choice Music), from 1968, newly reissued on CD, is a true reflection of the period, even if it is by a quintet of siblings and their mom. Opening track and hit single “We Can Fly” sounds innocently uplifting, although one wonders about double meanings. The era’s musical influences can also be heard loud and clear on “A Time For Remembrance,” “Gotta Get Away From It All” (in spite of the Chipmunk-like vocals midway through), and “Beautiful Beige.” Groovy, baby!

Speaking of inspiration, the story of the Trapp Family Singers was the source material for the beloved movie musical The Sound of Music. The fortieth-anniversary reissue of The Sound of Music: Original Soundtrack (RCA/Legacy), featuring Julie Andrews in the starring role of Maria, a number of songs previously unavailable on earlier soundtracks, as well as bonus track interviews with Richard Rodgers and others. The Trapp Family Singers themselves can be heard on “At Home with the Trapp Family Singers: An Evening of Folksongs” (Deutsche Grammophon).

Rebecca Pidgeon, seen most recently alongside Steve Martin and Claire Danes in Shopgirl, is someone who appears to be interested in balancing a music career with her life as an actress. The wife of David Mamet, she is sure to be familiar to anyone who has seen any of his films since the early nineties, including The Spanish Prisoner, The Winslow Boy, State and Main, and Heist. Since 1994, Pidgeon has been recording albums, a majority of which consist of original material. Produced by Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell’s ex-husband), Tough On Crime (Hot Milk/The Lab) is Pidgeon’s latest release. Billy Preston and Walter Becker (of Steely Dan) can be heard on the title track, which is the best place to begin listening to this disc. It’s where the album hits its stride and is followed by other outstanding tracks such as the bouncy “Ordinary Blues,” “Cigarette,” “Come Back To Sorrento,” and “Army Brat.”

Although she is very much her own person and performer, it is interesting to note that Judith Owen is also married to someone famous. Harry Shearer, of Spinal Tap fame, and Owen have been husband and wife for a dozen years. She even appeared in Shearer’s 2002 film Teddy Bears’ Picnic. Shearer himself can be heard singing on “Famous Friends” and playing electric bass on “Emily,” two tracks from Owen’s Lost and Found (Century of Progress) album. Speaking of famous friends, Tom Scott (of L.A. Express fame) and pedal steel star Greg Leisz can be heard on “Sky High,” Keb’ Mo’ plays steel guitar on “Train Out of Hollywood,” Cassandra Wilson provides vocals on “Enough,” and on Cole Porter’s “Night and Day,” Owen is joined on guitar by none other than Richard Thompson. Also noteworthy is Owen’s sultry piano and vocal reading of Deep Purple’s “Smoke on The Water.”

There is a long line of actors, including Don Johnson and Bruce Willis, who have attempted to have a recording career in addition to their film and television work, and the line is just as long for those who have failed (see Johnson and Willis). You might want to add Peter Gallagher’s name to that list. The actor, who has undergone a career renaissance due to his role on the popular Fox TV series The O.C., recently released 7 Days In Memphis (Epic). A true vanity project, Gallagher’s wends his way through ten soul tunes, rendering them soulless by the end.

On competing network, The WB, teenager Jesse McCartney made adolescent girls swoon as heartthrob Bradin on the series Summerland. McCartney is also a singer in the mold of Aaron Carter or Justin Timberlake, meaning that the songs on Beautiful Soul (Hollywood) have a pre-fab blue-eyed soul sound to them and probably won’t age as well as young McCartney.

Juliette Lewis of Natural Born Killers fame was only two years old when Patti Smith’s debut album Horses was released, but if the songs on You’re Speaking My Language (Fiddler), the full-length debut by her band Juliette & The Licks are any indication, she sounds like she was reared on a steady diet of the godmother of punk. You can also hear the influence of Joan Jett and Courtney Love, making these dozen songs more of a rewarding experience than you might expect.

The TBS network, whose tagline is “very funny,” has teamed up with compilation specialists Rhino Records to present TBS Tunes: Fun Tracks · Wisecracks (Rhino). The sixteen songs by bands such as Devo, They Might Be Giants, Was (Not Was), Cake, and Barenaked Ladies, among others, have a “fun” spirit to them. But are they “funny”? You be the judge.