The universal reaction to the idea of established actors wanting to try their hands as serious musicians is probably to cringe or to start having nightmarish flashbacks of David Hasselhoff in a tight leather jacket.

But soap star Jerry Douglas is serious about changing minds and melting hearts with a debut album he swears is far from the typical actor-turned-musician, easy–listening vanity project.

“The disillusion about being good is amazing, isn’t it?” Douglas tells andPOP, sitting in his Toronto hotel room. “If I didn’t know I could sing well, there’s no way I would be doing this.”

His CD is an eclectic collection of jazz and pop standards that are not often heard on any other crooner’s repertoire.

The 74-year-old, wise-cracking actor, best known for his role as John Abbott on the CBS soap opera The Young & the Restless, says that when it comes to credibility in the music world, actors-turned-singers should be the least of fan’s worries.

“Half of the singers out right now can’t actually sing,” he says with a laugh. “That Timberlake kid is a good entertainer, but not a good singer. Put him up [singing] by himself with a piano and he’s got nothing.”

Justin Timberlake is the first current artist subject to Douglas’s criticism but not the last. He takes on Fantasia and Hilary Duff while hailing old school blues artists like Ray Charles and Ella Fitzgerald for their soulful inhibition.

Douglas laughs, shares insights, and erratically breaks into a hilarious impression of last year’s American Idol winner, Taylor Hicks, who also “can’t sing a lick” according to the daytime star.

He believes today’s artists need to receive a lesson in how to strip a song to its bones and discover the passion hiding behind romantic sentiments.

That is how Douglas chose to interpret the timeless songs he reintroduces on his album, “The Best Is Yet To Come.” Finding inspiration in the character he played for years, Douglas tried to find the “John Abbott” in each song on the CD. Douglas holds a strong belief in the traditional values embedded in the popular standards – beliefs, he says, he developed from his character’s caring personality.

Douglas has transformed from a man known to millions as a heavy-hearted patriarch and morally-sound cosmetics mogul to a sweet-talking singer with sophisticated pop-jazz narratives that adhere to a rigid structure and bow to the masters of his time.

“Hip hop today is like what b-bop was then, but back then we’d throw in a ‘wop ba-ba loo bop’ and that swing element could turn anyone on musically,” he says.

Douglas speaks with Frank Sinatra-inspired coolness that makes everything he says charmingly convincing even when he categorizes Kelly Clarkson as “hip hop” and refers to Jennifer Hudson as “that heavy girl in Dreamgirls.”

Douglas may ooze a certain Rat Pack demeanor simply because his biggest influences growing up were entertainers like Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra. He says he’s always had aspirations of becoming “the next Sinatra.”

This is why he started out singing in clubs in Boston and Long Island hoping to make it to the bigger gigs in Manhattan where artists like Sinatra got their big break. But, instead of a record deal he was noticed by the “right people” who got him into acting. Many fans don’t know that Douglas started singing long before he stepped foot in the fictional Genoa City or that for the last 20 years he’s been touring the States performing in casinos and concert halls.

Douglas thinks that because his work as a recording artist has come relatively late in his career, he’s got the advantage of a loyal fan base and a new shift in popular music on his side. Pop music has recently seen earthy crooning soul reappear on the charts in the form of Michael Buble and Norah Jones – two artists Douglas finally approves of, but he still thinks music fans his age are not quite sure where to turn to when it comes to new music. He sees himself as carrying the torch of the great singers of his generation and wants his Y&R fans to brace themselves for a dose of blue-eyed soul from this brown-eyed crooner.

“I feel like [for] 25 years, I’ve never cheated a day, I’ve worked hard on every scene I did and fans have gotten a lot of joy over that. So now, it would be nice for them to give me back the support.”


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