Actor John C. Reilly shows his musical side at two local venues

CLEARLY it's the season for restless, between-gig actors, like John C. Reilly, to hit the road and showcase their musical sides.

HBO's newly retired "Newsroom" anchor Jeff Daniels recently played World Cafe Live.

"Gossip Girl" Leighton Meester will pluck her winsome "Heartstrings" material (watch out, Zooey Deschanel) at the Trocadero Feb 19.

And next week, during a production lull for a film shooting in India, primo character actor Reilly ("and Friends") returns to showcase his musical nature twice in our time zone, polishing up traditional folk gems Wednesday at Sellersville Theater and Thursday at World Cafe Live - events he characterizes as "a really special night . . . And that's not just me bragging. People wind up having a special experience. I think it's 'cause there's a lot of love involved."

In a career spanning 60-plus films, Reilly, 49, has done a slew of dramas ("Days of Thunder," "The Thin Red Line," "Gangs of New York") that earned him "the next Gene Hackman" comparisons. Plus goofy turns with buddy Will Ferrell in "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" and "Step Brothers."

Reilly's also done a fair amount of singing on-screen, including "Chicago" and the fabulously fake bio-pic "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" (aping Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan), which then sparked a concert tour in the Cox character.

But really motivating the music in him, he said, was the singing and strumming that Reilly dared do (with Woody Harrelson) in "A Prairie Home Companion" the movie based on the popular radio show.

That "labor of love" harkened to the performer's youth in Chicago, when dad was a rabid collector of hearty Irish folk and traditional country records, mom loved to pedal-pump the player piano and Reilly's town was awash in Southside blues and Old Town folk music.

Trading licks and harmonies here with regular saddle pals Tom Brosseau and Becky Stark - plus standup bassist Sebastian Steinberg (ex-Soul Coughing) and multi-instrumentalist Andru Bemis - Reilly and Friends will peddle classic bluegrass, down-home country and ancient (sometimes creepy) folk balladry. (The show's recommended for 18 and up.)

We're talking campfire faves like "Rock Island Line," trouble shoo-ers like "Blues Stay Away from Me" and tears-in-your-beer ditties like Ray Price's "Crazy Arms."

"We come together to keep these old songs alive," Reilly tells his audience. "It's one thing to listen to them on your computer. It's another to share them in the same room."

Given his improv nature, the guy can't help but cut up some. But the ad-libs are reserved, he says, for between-songs patter, like Steve Martin's been doing while picking banjo with Steep Canyon Rangers and Edie Brickell.

So, how serious is John Reilly (he doesn't really care for the "C") about his music career?

The guy was brave enough to play the Newport Folk Festival last summer and has cut a few vinyl singles in Nashville for Jack White's Third Man Records.

"Variety is essential," he says, to keep things interesting both for himself and for his audience.

And it's always been his modest/neurotic thought that filmmaking is "a cyclical business . . . you think it might dry up. That's why I'm so open to doing this music. It's something you don't have to depend on other people for."

Well, not always.

On a promotional tour of Australia a couple of years back for the animated "Wreck-It Ralph," Reilly told a TV show host that he'd swapped out the first-class plane ticket Disney had given him for "a hair-and-makeup assistant - why would I need that?" - for seats so his bandmates could come along and play some gigs.

How did his scraggly hair look? Lousy! But he sure sounded good.