Andrew Collins sits in

Harry Shearer joins Andrew Collins this morning to chat about his new release, 'Can't Take a Hint'. The album isn't the first long-player by the star of TV (The Simpsons), film (This Is Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind) and radio (Le Show), but it is the first to feature a world-class cast of musical collaborators.

Due out on Courgette Records on August 27, 2012, the set features giants of pop, R&B and jazz whom Shearer has gotten to know in his travels: Dr. John ("Autumn in New Orleans"), Glee's Jane Lynch ("Like a Charity"), the Fountains of Wayne ("Celebrity Booze Endorser"), Jamie Cullum ("A Few Bad Apples"), Alice Russell ("Trillion Dollar Bargain") and Judith Owen ("Your Thing"), and others. Shearer himself plays the bass on many of the songs.

Can't Take a Hint, which follows Grammy-nominated albums Songs Pointed and Pointless (2007) and Songs of the Bushmen (2008), differs from its predecessors in that it isn't limited to one topical theme. Rather Shearer, Le Show's master of satire, tackles various issues of the day - from the foibles of celebrity to the Bridge to Nowhere, from the cost of war to weather extremes in Shearer's beloved Crescent City.