An Actor Makes an Album, His Way

AS an actor in films like  “Hustle & Flow,” “Crash” and “Iron Man,” Terrence Howard has played characters whose calm demeanor conceals a suppressed rage that is the result of dreams deferred, denied or realized on only barely acceptable terms. That he is African-American inevitably introduces race into his portrayals, but not because of anything he does, at least overtly. Whether it’s in the script or not, Mr. Howard not only doesn’t play the race card, he buries it in subtleties. So if, as a viewer, you find yourself searching for it ... well, that’s the point, and the problem. That complex dynamic extends into Mr. Howard’s music, or to people’s expectations of what it will be. He said his own record company assumed that he would make a hip-hop album after the song “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” which Mr. Howard performed as the pimp and aspiring rapper DJay in “Hustle & Flow,” won an Academy Award for best original song for its composers, the rap group Three 6 Mafia, in 2006.But Mr. Howard, 39, refused to perform the song at the Oscars because of its language and content, and his own musical tastes lie in a decidedly different direction.For example he is prone to rhapsodizing about the 1972 soft-pop hit “Vincent,” Don McLean’s ode to van Gogh. “Even at 12 years old, listening to it, I could hear Don McLean talking about his own disappointments,” Mr. Howard said recently in a restaurant in this Philadelphia suburb, where he lives. “I loved being able to see that. I mean, Don McLean, Jim Croce and Paul Simon  —  all of them are incredible storytellers. I wanted to tell stories.”Regardless of his intentions, Mr. Howard’s debut album, “Shine Through It,” which comes out on Sept. 2 on Columbia Records, does not sound like Mr. McLean or Croce, or, for that matter, Barry Manilow, another songwriter whom he cites admiringly. The 11 tracks tend more toward a blend of orchestral jazz and upscale R&B, with lush textures of flutes, horns, strings, female backing vocals and keyboards accompanying Mr. Howard, who plays delicate acoustic guitar. The album’s secret weapon is Mr. Howard’s voice. “I’m not a great singer,” he said, but, on songs like the title track and “Mr. Johnson’s Lawn,” his husky tenor works much the way his acting does. His delivery bristles with emotion, the elegance of the instrumentation and the smoothness of the arrangements cushioning the rawness of his expression. Like watching Mr. Howard move gracefully through his film roles, you wait for the outbursts of feeling, even during the quietest moments. It’s a tension that comes naturally to Mr. Howard, and that roughens the edges of “Shine Through It.” SOURCE:NYT.COM