Entertainment, Music - Army Times

Connick’s new album is one for New Orleans

Harry Connick Jr. had a simple motivation for his latest album, “Oh, My NOLA.”

“My sole purpose was to raise awareness and to keep New Orleans in people’s minds,” he said during a tour stop in Albuquerque, N.M.

Connick is currently on a limited tour.

Connick, who lives in New York, said he gets “home to New Orleans every couple of months.” It was where he was born and raised, and the songs of the city have been a recurring theme in his musical career.

New Orleans has been at the forefront of Connick’s music for the past few years. After Hurricane Katrina devastated parts of Louisiana in 2005, Connick helped organize and performed in a national telethon on NBC. He also helped organize two all-star benefit CDs, and he was honorary chairman of Habitat for Humanity’s efforts there.

With his new CD, Connick brings the spirit of New Orleans to disc. There are rearrangements of songs associated with the area, including “Working in a Coal Mine,” “Jambalaya” and “Hello Dolly.”

“We spent five different sessions recording different types of music, the ones that popped into my head,” Connick said. “There’s no brass band on there, and no really straight-ahead New Orleans jazz, but we do have a lot of different styles represented.”

There also are original songs about “NOLA,” including “All These People,” a firsthand account in unflinching terms of what Connick saw in the days after the hurricane.

“I think New Orleans has come back, but there’s still a huge amount of work to be done,” he said when asked how the city is doing today. “Tourists who go there now will see that things are coming back, but in reality it still needs a lot of help and contributions from people. It will take a lot of time to get it back to where it was.”