People: As a singer, it’s still baby steps

When “Dancing With the Stars” champ Julianne Hough started her debut album, Nashville’s songwriters went to work churning out songs about – what else? – dancing.

Big mistake.

“Each one that said dancing (in the title), I said ‘Nope, sorry,’ ” recalls Hough, 19.

For now at least, Hough – whose self-titled CD comes out today – wants people to forget she’s a dancer and think of her as a singer.

She’s been doing both since she was a little girl, and actually had begun pursuing a career in music before “Dancing With the Stars.”

“I didn’t want to get pigeonholed as being a dancer, and then when I start in music people think, ‘Oh, just because she got this exposure, now she thinks she can sing,’ ” says Hough.

Her sound is country-pop in the vein of her musical heroes, Faith Hill, Shania Twain and Martina McBride.

The youngest of five children, Hough comes from a family of dancers and singers in the Salt Lake City area. She was playing bongos and singing in the family’s country band at age 4.

“We’re all blond, and we were kind of known as the blond Osmonds,” she giggles.

“We were known as ‘White Lightning’ because of our hair. It’s kind of embarrassing now. But we were in these bold Spandex and black cowboy boots and black fringe vests and black cowboy hats.”

She studied dance in Utah, and then in London for five years. But by 14 she yearned for a more conventional life back home with her family, and she realized that it was singing, rather than dancing, that she truly loved.

“I thought, ‘This really isn’t my passion. I really want to sing,’ and I knew I wouldn’t be able to if I stayed there,” Hough says.

She returned to the U.S. and began pursuing music seriously – until “Dancing With the Stars” came along and was too good to pass up.

Hough joined for the show’s fourth season and won with her partner, Olympic speed skater Apolo Anton Ohno.

She repeated the next year with Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves. For her third season, she teamed with comedian Adam Carolla but was eliminated in April.

With her TV popularity, comparisons to “American Idol” alum turned country star Carrie Underwood are inevitable.

But Hough’s situation is more akin to an actor trying to become a recording star – and history shows that those transitions don’t always go well.

Luke Lewis, chairman of Universal Music Group Nashville, which includes Huff’s Mercury Records label, says he considers her dancing a bonus. But don’t look for the label to play up that angle.

“We don’t want it to be the first thing that comes into somebody’s mind,” Lewis says. “She’s got to build a career as a country artist just like everybody else.”

The birthday bunch

Actor Christopher Lee is 86. Actress Lee Meriwether is 73. Musician Ramsey Lewis is 73. Actor Louis Gossett Jr. is 72. Country singer Don Williams is 69. Actor Bruce Weitz (“Hill Street Blues”) is 65. Actor Richard Schiff (“The West Wing”) is 53. Actress Peri Gilpin (“Frasier”) is 47. Comedian Adam Carolla is 44. Actor Todd Bridges is 43. Actor Paul Bettany is 37. Rapper Andre 3000 (Outkast) is 33. Rapper Jadakiss is 33. Actor Ethan Dampf (“American Dreams”) is 14.