When Harry met music

Harry Connick Jr talks to VICKI ANDERSON about making music and movies and reveals his secret vices.

Harry Connick Jr has a strange affect on people. Perfectly normal women in The Press office were demanding to listen to the recording of our interview "just to hear his voice". Even the operator connecting our call, a bloke based in Hong Kong, announced with much grandeur: "Miss Anderson, I now connect you with . . . (wait for the virtual drumroll) Harry Connick Jr" - the "junior" said in the same tones with which wrestlers are heralded into the ring.

As I am mentally flailing around on how to address him (calling him Mr Junior just sounds wrong), thankfully Harry quickly invites me to call him by his first name. When we speak he's somewhere in Santa Barbara preparing to do a show. It is the day after the New Orleans Saints were confirmed to play Super Bowl, and when I bring the subject up he is pleased I have.

"I'm so excited I can't even begin to tell you. It's been 42 years and now we're finally getting a chance. I don't miss a minute of it," he said, before going on to teach me how to say "booyah" correctly.

It's a Saints thing, apparently.

Harry has more feathers in his cap than a crazed pheasant-hunting English squire. His career spans more than 35 years: he started playing the keys at three, made his first public appearance at five, appeared on his first jazz recording at 10 and released his self-titled major label debut at 19. His parents, including Connick Sr, who were both in the judiciary, also owned a record store and he recalls many happy moments there.

To his credit he has 24 albums, starred on Broadway and appeared on soundtracks to such romcom classics as When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle.

His "big break" came in 1989 with the When Harry Met Sally film score, his first multi-platinum album. Other best-sellers include double platinum It Had To Be You (1991), Blue Light Red Light, Forever Now, triple-platinum She (1994) and the ballad collection Only You (2005).

His acting career began in 1990 when he played Sergeant Clay Busby in the World War II-based film Memphis Belle, a serial killer in Copycat and he's been in everything from Independence Day to last year's New In Town, which featured his newfound bestie, Renee Zellweger. "Renee is a great talent, so smart and just a talented lady and I had a wonderful time getting to know her and she has since become one of my really good friends."

His first role as a leading man was in 1998's Hope Floats with Sandra Bullock. But some know him, he says, simply as Grace's husband Leo Markus from TV series Will & Grace.

A distinguished composer and pianist he has three Grammy Awards and an Emmy to polish and has sold over 25 million albums worldwide. You might expect someone with such talents to be a bit of a pompous ass but Harry's Mr Nice Guy.

He doesn't drink or smoke and adores his wife - former Victoria's Secret model Jill Goodacre - and their daughters Georgia Tatom, Sara Kate and Charlotte Jane. There's even a charming video of Harry singing a Christmasy duet of Winter Wonderland with 11-year-old Georgia on YouTube.

Does he have any vices? "I don't drink, I've never really been into that. I'm not perfect, I have my problems just like everybody else does. I just try to be a good guy, man. I love my wife and my kids. I just take each day as it comes."

Move over McDreamy.

But seriously, I want to know vices.

"I like chocolate and stuff like that, when it comes to that I've got a whole bunch of vices - pizza, ice-cream, chocolate, video games - oh yeah, man, I'll play those all day long if you let me. I like silly little games on my iPhone like Doodle Jump or war games like Call of Duty."

Harry's last album, Your Songs, released in September last year, was a collaborative effort with producer Clive Davis, and offered renditions of songs such as The Carpenters Close To You and Roberta Flack's First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, to name a few.

"I love these songs and it was a fun record for me because some of the songs I've never done before and it was fun to try to do something different with them."

Together with Branford Marsalis and Habitat for Humanity International he built the Musicians' Village in New Orleans, which is a neighbourhood built around a music centre for New Orleans musicians who lost their homes to Hurricane Katrina.

"That is very dear to my heart. We're trying to do what we can, we'll do whatever it takes, man, it's a really important cause."

In New Zealand, for the first time in more than 10 years to perform three shows, he is hoping to find time to see a few sights.

"I'm hoping to get to hang out and get to know New Zealand a little bit better.

"I want to see the countryside, just get in a car and drive around and experience it."

Known for his big backing band, Harry is bringing a group of five with him on this tour. "It's exciting for us because we don't get to do that a lot, we get to play and stretch out, it's going to be fun. Being on the road and travelling and playing every night, that's what it's all about right now."

Known for his comedic on-stage banter, Harry wasn't laughing last year when he appeared on the Australian variety show Hey Hey It's Saturday as a guest judge. A Red Faces skit featured singers in blackface performing a Michael Jackson tribute. Harry gave the troupe a zero score and "spoke up as an American" against the skit with the witty remark "Hey hey there's no more show".

The incident caused such a furore that he's reluctant to talk about it, understandably. "It was an uncomfortable situation for a lot of people. Nobody really expected it and I'm glad to move on from it."

While rumours of him playing Sinatra in a movie of his life abound, Harry is quick to quash them.

"That's all rumours. There's so many variables to doing a movie, whether it's playing Frank Sinatra or not, there are one million decisions you have to make, the rumours go around but I don't even know if a script exists. Movies take a long time to get off the ground . . ."

Having explored various genres in his musical career, Harry is pondering a dip into classical at some stage.

"I would like to do that, it's just going to take a long time to prepare for that, it's a slow process. It's not really pressing so I can take my time to work on that over the years."

If, for some reason, he was forced to choose between music and acting which would it be?

"I love making music, I always have, it's something I've always been attracted to. It's never been much of an effort to get me to sit behind the piano. So if I had to choose I'd say music, but I'm lucky, I don't have to choose."

With a laughing exchange of "booyah" we bid farewell.

Harry Connick Jr is at the Christchurch Town Hall for Performing Arts on March 16. Tickets from 0800 Ticketek, $149.90 or $99.90, booking fees may apply. Also shows at: Civic Theatre, Auckland, March 13; and the Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, March 14.

- © Fairfax NZ News