It happened last year. The seasoned comic actor and entertainer was just about to take the stage with his Sacred Hearts band, to perform for the Frank Sinatra Countrywide Celebrity Invitational.

And he was sweating bullets.

“I was a wreck. I was scared to death,” he said. “A lot of the people in the crowd were singers and actors, so they have a full capability to understand what I’m doing. And they would know if I wasn’t doing well.”

Not to mention, he wasn’t sure how well his brand of raucous blues would fare with the audience.

“They’re used to real singers and crooners, but mine is a show band,” he said.

Belushi - a veteran of such films as “Return to Me,” “K-9″ and “Mr. Destiny” - sat in the dressing room, his nerves getting the best of him.

Finally, he summoned up his courage and hit the stage.

“I just live with that nervous edge,” he said. “I just step out and start. That’s what you have to do. Just let it go.”

And he did.

Belushi’s performance went so well the organizers for the event invited him for an encore this year, during the 20th anniversary of the invitational.

Jim Belushi and the Sacred Hearts will be the featured entertainment on Friday night at the Renaissance Esmeralda Resort and Spa in Indian Wells. The evening also includes a dinner of Frank Sinatra’s favorite foods and a silent auction.

The “According to Jim” actor had a chance to hang out with many of his own favorite celebrities during last year’s invitational.

“Dick Butkus is my hero. That was pretty cool meeting him,” Belushi said. “Then there’s Dick van Dyke, Joe Mantegna, Dennis Farina. There’s a whole gamut there. I love all those guys.”

Before he takes to the stage, Belushi says he has some odd requests in his contract rider.

“I ask for completely wacky stuff, like a Diet Coke and a turkey sandwich. Maybe even something wild like fat free potato chips,” he joked. “And a stripper pole. But that’s just for stretching.”

Belushi expanded his repertoire to include blues music in the mid-1990s when buddy Dan Aykroyd asked him to don a hat and sunglasses for the Blues Brothers Band. Belushi was skeptical, since his brother John is the guy who made the Blues Brothers famous.

“I said, ‘Uh, I don’t think so Danny. That was John’s thing,” Jim Belushi said. “There are a few things I can’t do in my career - I can’t eat a cheeseburger, I can’t carry a samurai sword, and I can’t play the blues.”

But Aykroyd can be convincing, and so Belushi signed on to play a few gigs.

Belushi ended up playing regularly with the Sacred Hearts, the house band at House of Blues. The sound is a mix influenced by all types of blues, from Memphis to Chicago.

It’s a fitting addition to an already impressive resume.

“I sing. I dance. I act. I do comedy. I do drama. And I pickpocket,” Belushi said. “That’s the only reason I do this [Sinatra event], so I can go out in the audience and go through purses. There are some rich people out there!”