What she kept: Now, that’s a story

Minnie Driver is on the phone from Marin County, and she’s feeling both serene and exuberant; serene because of the calming, rolling hills with an ocean’s salty promise nearby and exuberant because she is on the verge of a tour to promote her second album, “Seastories” (Zoe/Rounder).

“Seastories” is a slice of Americana that went through an entire makeover before release. “I wrote a lot more,” she says. “There was a whole different record that I threw away, but I kept ‘Mockingbird,’ ‘Lakewater Hair’ and ‘Beloved.’ ”

The three tunes are among the strongest on the record, particularly “Beloved,” which receives support from Ryan Adams and his band, the Cardinals (“It’s my favorite,” says Driver). The Cardinals play on the half of the record recorded in New York -- the other half was recorded in L.A.

In Los Angeles, “I was playing with my friends, but in New York, I had never played with the Cardinals,” she says. “It was extremely difficult. We recorded in eight days and you had to have a lot of confidence. You have to meet Ryan in ‘that place.’ I was sort of intimidated.”

No trepidation is detectable on the record, as Driver’s rich, lower register cloaks any hint that an Englishwoman is performing manifestly American music.

But what of the stigma attached to actors dipping their feet into the musical pool?

“It’s a really strange and fairly unilateral impoverished response,” she says. “I never understand why people aren’t allowed to do more than one thing.”

To fail or succeed on their own terms?

“Exactly. . . . I meet with resistance, but it would never stop me. Look, it’s a very short life. People can smell when it’s an avaricious endeavor.”

-- Casey Dolan

Minnie Driver, Hotel Cafe, 1623 1/2 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. 8 p.m. Saturday. $10. (323) 461-2040; www.hotelcafe.com.