For TV Superstar Regis Philbin, It's Time to Sing Again; ``Live with Regis and Kelly'' Host Returns to His Earliest Love with His First Album in 36 Years.

LOS ANGELES -- He's one of TV's most popular personalities, host of one of the most popular game shows in history, and a bestselling author, but what Regis Philbin has always wanted to do most is sing.

Now, 36 years after his 1968 bow, "It's Time for Regis!," Philbin will release his Hollywood Records debut, "When You're Smiling," on September 28.

Said Bob Cavallo, chairman of the Buena Vista Music Group, "We could not be more delighted to release Regis' album. This collection, which includes some of the greatest songs in American pop music, is not only a tribute to the artists who have influenced him, it provides a showcase for Regis' warm and inviting voice."

Regis covers some of the timeless classics he grew with as a boy, listening to Bing Crosby on WNEW in New York City. There were two half-hour programs featuring Crosby songs every day. Later, Dean Martin had a 15-minute radio show on WMCA, New York, in the evenings. These were the two favorites who became major influences in his life. His first record buy was Bing's "Swinging on a Star." The second was one of Dean's early records, "One Foot in Heaven."

Among the songs he croons on the new disc, produced by acclaimed producer/singer Steve Tyrell (A New Standard, Rod Stewart), is Bing's "Pennies From Heaven," which Regis performed live on at least two memorable, life-changing occasions. Once was for his shell-shocked parents, who had traveled through a midwestern thunderstorm to visit him at his graduation from Notre Dame. They were expecting to hear about the great life plans their son, who they'd struggled to put through school, had made. He surprised them with, "what I want to do with the rest of my life -- is to be a singer." Confronted with his parents' disappointment and respectful of their sacrifices, Regis made a fateful, responsible choice -- he would be a talker on television.

The second time was an impromptu performance for Bing Crosby during the legendary singer's appearance on "The Joey Bishop Show," where Philbin was the comic's sidekick. That performance led directly to his first album, a recording for Mercury Records. It gave him a taste of the music business and led to his developing a nightclub act, but the responsibility and demands of his family and career precluded further recordings. Both a favorite song and a lucky charm throughout Regis' life, he's included a new version of "Pennies From Heaven" on "When You're Smiling," completing the cycle.

"When You're Smiling" also features Philbin's versions of standards like "It Had to Be You," "I Can't Give You Anything But Love," live favorite "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You," "Ain't Misbehavin'," "You Made Me Love You," "They Can't Take That Away From Me," and a duet with wife Joy, "They Can't Take That Away From Me." Philbin's version of "Toora Loora Loora," originally sung by Bing Crosby in the 1944 classic "Going My Way," recalls the time Crosby sang it for Philbin at the behest of Bishop, who told the great crooner it would be the thrill of his lifetime, and it was.

"These songs tell stories in two-three minutes with their lyrics," says Regis. "If you grow up with this kind of music, it's a part of your life you never forget. Tony Bennett once said these songwriters are to this generation what the classical Greek poets were to theirs."

Regis has performed his singing and comedy nightclub act through the years, initially opening for Steve and Eydie, Tony Bennett and Don Rickles, and then becoming a headliner on his own in the big rooms.

His Emmy-winning television career spans more than four decades, beginning with local television on the West Coast and continuing through multiple national shows on network, cable and in syndication, to his blockbuster successes today: "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and "Super Millionaire," and of course his top-rated daily entertainment talk show, "Live with Regis and Kelly."

With his new Hollywood Records album, it's the start of yet another career for one of the busiest men in show business.