Actor Kevin Costner has gone country.

After scaling back his movie career to about one film a year,  the Oscar-winning director of “Dances With Wolves”(1990)  is about to release his first album, building on a 20 year history of off-screen music making with a number of bands.

His first album, called “Untold Truths” is a country music collection of 12 songs all written or co-written by Costner and fellow members of the band,  Kevin Costner and Modern West.

The first track “Long Hot Night” is available for download immediately and the album will be released on November 11.

Costner, 53, was one of the hottest film actors of  the late 1980s but  has struggled in recent years to replicate the success of hits like “Field of Dreams” and “the Bodyguard”.

His latest movie, the political comedy  ”Swing Vote”, took only $16 million at U.S. box offices despite heavy promotion and fair reviews.

No word on whether Costner plans to switch careers, but the band plans to tour later this year and in 2009 to support the album before his next movie “The New Daughter” comes out in March.