I’VE LOST 14 QUESTIONED
THE world has been turned upside down since the last time we spoke to Harry Connick Jr.
It was in December 2019 at the Broadway opening of his new show A Celebration Of Cole Porter, with plans to take the show on the road throughout 2020 and then abroad.
Within a few months the musician and actor was, like much of the world, in lockdown with wife Jill and daughters Georgia Tatum, Sarah Kate and Charlotte, splitting time between their Connecticut base and Cape Cod beach house.
Harry’s Porter project was driven by a need to understand the artist as much as the art. This time he has turned the lens on himself. Recorded at home, his new album Alone With My Faith includes six of his own compositions alongside secular and spiritual favourites, inspired by this new global reality.
“This is the first time in history that everyone on the entire planet has gone through something similar,” he says.
“I thought this moment of looking into myself and my faith could resonate with others. A friend said, ‘I can’t believe you created a whole album, all I’ve done is create more flesh’. But the music was perfectly in tandem with what I was feeling.”
Like everyone, Harry has wrestled with his
‘I question what I am
doing all the time’
own situation while watching a world in turmoil, particularly an America more divided than ever by politics, race and creed. Is it tough to find faith at such times?
“I think this pandemic has been a wake-up call,” he says. “We have all had time to question who we are, how the world works, and what we believe.
“There is so much goodness in humanity but a lot of people are really scared and sometimes they react because they are afraid or have been told things they think are true.
“The greatest sense of peace for me comes from trying to understand things I am not familiar with, rather than running from them.”
A devout Catholic raised in New Orleans with a Jewish mother (former Louisiana Supreme Court justice Anita), Harry’s sense of faith has always been a broad church, but he admits it has been tested in the past year.
He explains: “I never doubted God’s existence but I did question some pieces of faith.
“I lost 14 family members and friends – Jill’s mother and then Ellis Marsalis (jazz legend and Harry’s childhood mentor) and the family priest who married me and Jill.
“Those days were rough, especially when you can’t even go to the funeral. There were times the grief was so strong that the last thing I wanted to do was look inside myself and dig up some art. I wasn’t bounding out of bed every morning into the studio to create joyous moments with my faith. There were weeks when I couldn’t do anything.
“But so far in my life I have made it through every moment, however painful or traumatic, so I have faith I will again.”
There is a bold, raw line in the self-penned track Benevolent Man: “Am I an irrelevant man? Am I a benevolent man?” Few of us, let alone major artists, ever publicly acknowledge that inner fear or privately confront the buried question of what our lives are worth.
“I question what the hell am I doing, all the time,” Harry says. “For all the confidence and bravado I have in certain situations, I have equal or more doubts and insecurity. People in their totality are incredibly complex. This song is a way of asking those questions.”
And was there any answer?
“Not really! But I get the most security from talking to people who aren’t afraid to admit they don’t have the answers.
“My dad just said, ‘I’m going to be 95 this month and I need to go and think about what that means’. I love that. Whether it’s insecurity or mortality, you will always gain some