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We're on the Yardle High Noon, Central, on the Civic Media Radio Network.
Thank you for being here.
I'm your host, Lou Virgani, and let's get through the next couple of hours and make a few memories that'll last throughout the week, the month, and well.
long long ago saying our soul I recall that I saw your smile
dreams come true a few kisses ago
I love you too.
I do.
is through
and the angels I
music of the stars music unites us I'll give you one example I can eat one remember we are the world
41 years ago, every station in America was said to have played that.
It's kind of a rare sight to see so many iconic music artists in one place at the same time, except for award ceremonies.
See Dan Akroyd?
Willie Nelson, Dionne Warwick, Quincy Jones, he put it all together.
Kenny Rogers, Diana Ross.
The idea was to help benefit African famine relief.
They only had one night to get it right, but all those people there
And that song, 1985, raised over 60 million dollars against famine.
Here's a little bit on We Are The
World, just briefly.
A few days before the actual historic session, another musical meeting took place.
This time at Lion's Share Studios with Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie and Stevie Wonder all
present.
By the end of the session, it was clear that the song not only had shape and substance,
but also had enough heart and soul to inspire the kind of affinity necessary to bind together so many diverse singers.
In fact, there was a spirit of cooperation, amiability, and exhilaration born at this session that would eventually carry over to the entire USA for Africa project.
Michael Jackson bypassed the American Music Awards to come in by himself and record one final guide vocal that Quincy could use as a map for the song's chorus parts.
Then, a little after 9 p.m., the other singers and their guests began arriving.
Many, like Cindy Lauper and Tina Turner and Lionel Richie, were coming straight from the American Music Awards, where Tina and Cindy had performed and Lionel had hosted.
People who had been competitors only a few hours before were now meeting as partners in deliverance.
Others like Daryl Hall, John Oates, Paul Simon, Billy Joel, and Bruce Springsteen had flown in that same day.
When
I saw those faces come in the studio that night after the American Music Awards and they just were checking in one by one Ray Charles and just on and on and I started to feel that everybody was on the case and they weren't involved and the e-goals and that's one of the key words we had that night was check your ego at the door
This guest is a young man who has made quite a stir with his appearances at the Algonquin Hotel here in New York City.
This is his brand new record album.
Right there.
It's called 20.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Harry Connick Jr.
Oh, Harry.
This is one of my favorite parts of the 1980s.
Harry did a movie in Lake Geneva.
Contact.
The picture.
1989.
loving you.
some New Orleans piano.
Harry Connick Jr.
February 2nd 89 And then Harry put together his big band
And finally found the somebody who Could make me be true Could make me be blue Or even be glad Just to be sad Thinking of you Some of those I've seen Might never be mean
Might never be cross or try to be boss, but they wouldn't do For nobody else gave me a thrill with all your faults.
I love you still it had to be you Wonderful you it had to be you
It's a very impressive piece of work.
Thank you.
You sounded great.
Oh, thanks.
Are you currently at the Algonquin or is that over?
No, I'm there till Saturday night.
Is that a good place to work?
It's
wonderful.
It's a little bit different than what I normally do.
It's a cabaret room,
so
I have to sort of play a little bit more Irving Berlin than I would normally do.
But it sounds great that you're down there at the Algonquin.
Oh, it's a
great thing.
All kinds of people have been coming in to hear me, and it's been fabulous.
Where are you from?
New Orleans.
Started playing, I guess, as a kid.
You have to, don't you?
Well, you're still a kid, aren't you?
Yeah, I guess.
How old are you?
21.
Yikes.
And what was your earliest professional job as a piano player?
Well, my dad is the district attorney of New Orleans.
So when he was inaugurated in 1973, I was five, and I played the Star Spangled Banner at his inauguration.
Yeah, that's great.
Now, did you, uh, being New Orleans is full of places for great music.
Did you work in, like, the French Quarter and stuff?
I surely
did.
I would go and sit in with different Dixieland bands and such from the time I was maybe six.
When I got to be about 13, I got my first real job at a club called The Famous Door, and I played there from, like, 11 to 3 in the morning.
That was kind of scary.
What is The Famous Door?
I've heard of that.
That rings a bell.
It's a... It's just a club in New Orleans.
It's a famous Dixieland club on Bourbon Street.
Did your dad ever sweep through there, cleaning up the crime and vice while you
were... He did, as a matter of fact, you know?
In fact, one time, I was playing and the drummer, God rest his soul, Duke Barker, who's a wonderful drummer, was playing so loud that I had to put a piece of cotton in my ear.
And my dad and his people out in the French Quarter, I guess, dealing with all the prostitution and the drug things on the legal side.
They weren't, like, out there trying to pick up some prostitutes.
At least I don't think so.
That's the way dad tells it, of course.
Right.
But anyway, the cotton got stuck so far in my ear that every time Duke hit the drum, this riveting pain would go down the right side of my body.
And my dad came in from off the street with some tweezers and pulled it out
of my ear in
the club.
And you're how old then?
I was about 13.
Yeah,
that's great.
Great.
The music is terrific.
Oh, thank you.
This is a wonderful picture of you here on the album.
Thank you.
Harry Connick, Jr.
Ladies
and gentlemen, thanks for being there.
Nice to meet you.
Even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious.
If you're saying it loud enough, you'll always sound precocious.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
I've traveled all around the world.
Everywhere I went, I'd use my word and all would say, there goes a clever gen.
But when Duke's in my heart, I just pass the time of day with me.
I say my special-
Something quite atrocious.
If you say a lot enough, you'll always sound precocious.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
19 on Broadway
that's right
so what's it like when you revisit something do you get right back into it is there a learning curve to to do it or
there's a little bit of a learning curve only because there's so much material because it's pretty much just me with the exception of a few amazingly talented people I share the stage with but it's a lot of.
There's a lot of dancing.
There's a lot of piano playing, a lot of singing.
So I had to go back and remember a lot of things, a lot of tap dancing.
Get the
muscles
working again.
Exactly.
But I'm excited to do it.
And it's going to be at the Met, which is something I've never done before.
So I'm excited.
You're the writer.
You're the director.
You're the star of the show as well.
How do you approach staying true to Cole Porter, but also putting some of your own spin on it?
Well, the great thing about Cole Porter's music,
great songwriter.
I think of it like great architecture.
The building sort of has the great bones, and you can kind of do whatever you want with the interior design, and the structure stays the same.
So you can interpret these songs however you want.
You're always going to recognize them as a great co-porter song, and you can't really mess them up.
They're so, so great.
They're timeless, and I love singing them.
I've got you under my skin I've got you deep in the heart of me So deep in my heart that you're really a part of me I've got you under my skin
I tried so not to give in I said to myself this affair never will go so well But why should I try to resist when baby I know so well I've got you under my skin
sacrifice anything come what might for the sake of having you near in spite of a warning voice that comes in the night and repeats repeats in my ear don't you know little fool you never can win use your mentality wake up to reality
This time that I do, just the thought of you Makes me stop before I begin, cause I've got you.
from what might for the sake of having you near in spite of a warning voice that comes in the night and repeats how it yells in my ear
Nelson Riddle.
That's his best arrangement I think and is most noted and he got a whole hundred fifty bucks
to write that.
Hi I'm Harry Connick Jr.
and we're talking about a celebration of Cole Porter at the Niederlander Theater.
The theme of the show is really Cole Porter's allowing me to get inside his head and let me take over the controls for a while.
It's more of a Broadway show than a
concert.
There's 24 musicians in there on stage.
Yes, there's a big string section, a lot of horns.
It's not like a jukebox musical where the songs are literally advancing plot points.
It's really more of these sort of vignettes that kind of flow into one another.
I love the craftsmanship.
I mean, we know how
witty he was as a lyricist and as as a composer and he was also a very deeply rooted musician too he understood a lot about orchestrations and all that but it was the craftsmanship it's how the songs were built which is why they last so long which is also why you can sing them in 2019 and people who are 18 years old can hear the lyrics and think that they were written for them I mean that's an amazing thing I mean you look at some of these songs that were written in 1935 and
There's really no references or very few references that sort of take the listener out of the moment.
If you're a Cold Porter fan, you're going to get pretty good feel of Cold Porter music.
But if you've seen me perform before, it's something that I've never done quite like this.
There's a lot of surprises.
And you get to see an expression of my artistic vision that goes beyond singing, playing, and orchestrating.
It's much more visual, much more theatrical.
So that was something that...
that I was looking forward to show to
everyone.
Anything goes.
The world is gone mad today.
And good's bad today.
And black's white today.
And day's night today.
We're most guys today.
The lemon fries today are just silly jiggles.
And though I'm not a great romance-er, I know that I'm bound to answer when you propose.
Anything goes.
When mother's packed and leave for father Because they decide they'd rather be tennis pros Anything goes Just think of those shocks you've got in those knocks You've got from those blues You've got from those blues You've got in those pains You've got a fenty brains You've got from those little radies
The set that smart is intruding and nudist parties in studio
Harry Connick Jr.
is back on the boards.
The two-time Tony nominee is starring in his solo show, Harry Connick Jr., a celebration of Cole Porter.
Featuring a vibrant 25-piece orchestra, Connick delights audiences with his signature style while celebrating Porter's peerless contributions to the great American songbook.
Expect Connick to offer his golden vocals to songs like Anything Goes, You Do Something To Me, and many more.
For tickets and more information, visit Broadway.com.
Music playing
This is George Shearing and 14-year-old Harry Connick.
1981.
Mr. Cheng, how have you found the audiences to be in your first gig here?
Very good.
Very good indeed.
They're very appreciative and yeah, it's great.
How have audiences changed?
I mean, a good mainstream player like yourself, do you find that they are getting younger these days, the jazz audience?
Well, I think we have a very, you know, Catholic kind of audience, some young and some older people.
I mean, there are still people who want to hear...
You know, September in the Rain and Roses of Piccadilly and there are still performers like myself who really don't really want to give it to them because, you know, I got tired of that noise, really.
I built it and I'm glad so many people enjoyed it, but I find that I'm freer now as a pianist to play with just piano and bass.
I remember your group you had many years ago as a Denzel Best and a guitar
and the
Viper
Harpens.
That's what I was talking about.
But you find that it's featuring you more, is that what you enjoy about it?
Well, it's less restricting.
You know, I mean, when the quintet plays roses of picketing, I have to play this and nothing else.
I can't play, you know.
You know, I can't do this because it wouldn't fit with the...
with the quintet sound.
So I have to lock myself into those.
It's been
very valuable.
Mr. Shearing is an authority in the Jazz Idiom and really has shown me a lot of stuff.
He shows
me some secrets and techniques and just things that he knows that I don't know and just helps me
learn.
Definitely music.
I'm still deciding on how much I'm going to lean to jazz or to classical, but it's definitely music.
Youngfield of your age, is it tough, I assume, to put in the hours of practice that is necessary?
I don't practice as much as I should.
I try when I can't like when, as Mr. Shearing said, when some sort of performance comes up, I put in a little bit, but I don't, all you people out there don't use me as an example, because I don't practice as much as I should.
Harry Connick Jr.
at 14 doesn't practice.
Here we go today.
Music at the start.
I love Paris in the springtime.
I love Paris in the fall.
I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles.
in the summer when it sizzles.
saluting the 80s here when video was the star MTV puffy shoulders big hair yuppies VHS beta music television
and big bands like Harry Connor, Cherry Pop and Daddy.
who has done it all in his career as a musician.
He is a three-time Grammy Award winner.
He's also shown off his acting ability as well.
Blockbuster films like Independence Day.
Did the small screen too.
Hit sitcom Will and Grace.
Now Harry's expanding into new territory and he's here to share some very special projects he has been working on.
Good morning, Harry.
So glad
to see you.
Good morning.
It's good to be with you all.
Well, many congratulations are in order, but can we start with the announcement today of a new book?
Tell us all about it.
So I'm really excited to talk about this.
This is something that I've thought about my entire life.
This whole year is going to be a celebration of my mother's 100th birthday.
She died many years ago when I was 13, but I wanted to do something special for her.
So I wrote a book and it's called Babe a Laboratio.
Babe was her nickname.
She was the youngest of six kids and a laboratio is the name of a musical piece that I wrote.
for her and this book sort of chronicles it's sort of an elaboration of what I thought her life was like because I wasn't with her for very long but it's also an accompaniment to this music that I wrote for her which I'll be performing soon.
I love this so much and this the next week as an honor to your mom.
You are appearing at Carnegie Hall for the first time with a special orchestral piece.
Yeah, so my mother used to say she could die happy knowing that I played at Carnegie Hall.
So when I was 10, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
And I was in New Orleans and I called Carnegie Hall.
And they said, I said, my name's Harry Connick.
I'm a piano player.
I wanted to know if I could play there.
And they said, well, this is the box office.
There's not much we can do.
So I told my mom, I said, look, I
I tried, but they told me no.
So she died three years later, and I kept in the back of my mind that I wanted to play there.
But I didn't want to go to Carnegie Hall unless it was a special occasion.
So to this day, I've never been in that concert hall.
So about seven years ago, my manager called Carnegie Hall and asked if I could play on May the 22nd, 2026, would have been a hundredth birthday.
So I'm not gonna go in the building until about 7.30 that night.
And I've written a, it's essentially a symphony for her.
It's this big 50 minute long composition, three movements.
The first movement was when she was in New York.
Second movement was in North Africa where she met my dad.
Third movement is New Orleans where I was born.
And so I get to the building around 7.30 at night and I've never been on that stage and then I'll perform this piece for her.
So the book,
is about the process of writing the music.
And then we have the album coming out on Warner Classics in September.
The book comes out in September.
And then next year, there's a documentary about the making of all of this, which is being directed by my daughter, George.
We have a great school called NOCA, the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts.
And your mother wanted you to attend.
And so you auditioned with Ellis Marcellus and Dr. Bert Brough and some other great people.
This is Harry.
Father.
How old are you?
Are you about 14?
Yeah, 12 or 13, I think.
The people on the school board didn't want to take anyone from a private school or from any other school except public schools.
And I felt that that should be for everybody.
And regardless of what school you go to or who you are, and so we had a battle over that.
And they converted to the idea of letting you in.
It was so
close to
you.
It must have been a really huge blow at the time.
It
appears it was the worst thing probably to this day that's ever happened to me.
And there were years and years and years where I...
I didn't want to talk about it when I was in my twenties and I started to accumulate some some I was more in the public eye people started to know who I was I would never talk about it I'd get angry with journalists if they would even bring it up it was just off limits you know and it took me a long time to finally realize that it's okay to talk about it and you know she she was my mom I had it for 13 years before I was born she started a diary to me
and a separate one for my sister and she didn't know what sector we're gonna be because we hadn't been born yet so she said dear baby you know you're my tummy right now and from that moment till I was 13 man I have every birthday party every gift that was given to me every piano recital everything was documented and I look at that now and I thank God I had it for 13 years that's all I
had
Happy to be near you when you need someone to cheer you.
All the way.
Taller than the tallest trees.
That's how it's gotta feel.
Deeper than the deep blue seas.
That's how it goes.
If it's real When somebody needs you It's no good unless he needs you
She
came home from the hospital.
Everyone knew that she was going to die and I'm sure she wanted to die at home.
And I remember her sitting in this little recliner chair and I would go into the other room and
We have this, she had given me a seven foot Yamaha grand piano.
And you mentioned Mozart.
It was a Mozart concerto that she loved for me to play.
So I would play that and I'd go and run in it, what'd you think?
You know, and I'd go run in place of more, what'd you think?
And then the day she died, my Aunt Jesse, my dad had sent us out.
I think everybody knew that was going to be the day.
I was still oblivious to it.
And I was at a piano recital and it was in the intermission with my Aunt Jesse.
came and said, your mother just died and brought me home.
And it was then I kind of realized for the first time, you know, she's not there
anymore.
This is the Music of the Stars.
I'm Lou Vagani, your host.
Still an hour to go.
Stand by for NBC News.
You can't talk about the 1980s without bringing up the topic of the music of Harry Connick Jr.
What a guy.
And I'll be right back, NBC News Next.
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