Old news to some, new to others. Either way, this is news that bears repeating off and on for the next 4-6 weeks so bear with me…until September 30, anyway.

During the PBS portion of the recent Television Critics Association summer press tour, Hugh Laurie made a quick ‘house call’ to chat up his upcoming September 30 PBS special, Hugh Laurie: Let Them Talk — A Celebration of New Orleans Blues .

Laurie said: “I feel as if this project, and the whole experience, really, has been closer to who I really am than many things I’ve done. I think New Orleans is a unique city in many ways, but it’s musically unique because it sits in a unique place between so many different musical influences, whether they’re Spanish or French or English or Caribbean, and it just has its own feel. It is like nowhere else I’ve ever been, and it’s like no kind of music I’ve ever heard, and ever since I was a small boy, the sounds of that city have just thrilled me like no other.”

New Orleans legends Allen Toussaint and Irma Thomas, and an ageless Tom Jones join the star of such classic British television as Jeeves and Wooster, Bit of Fry & Laurie and Blackadder for what has become a very personal musical journey that dates back to his growing up in England listening to the likes of Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon.

He humbly discussed his lifelong dream with the television critics in the room saying: “I mean, there I was, sharing a room with my heroes, and who the hell do I think I am sharing a studio with them? But what was so extraordinary, to me was that they were, to the last man and woman, so incredibly generous. I was not made to feel, by the musicians I was playing with or the singers, for one second unqualified or unwelcome. I mean, I’m sure there were moments when they were, behind my back, rolling their eyes and going, ‘Oh, God, we’re going to be here all night.’ But if they did, they never showed it to me. All of them were incredibly generous.“