Only You

1	More
2	The Very Thought of You
3	Save the Last Dance for Me
4	My Blue Heaven
5	You Don't Know Me
6	All These Things
7	For Once in My Life
8	Only You
9	My Prayer
10	Other Hours
11	I Only Have Eyes for You
12	Good Night My Love (Pleasant Dreams)

Barnes & Noble

Harry Connick Jr. was on the standards tip long before pop crooners like Rod Stewart, Boz Scaggs, Michael Bolton, and the like decided to mine the Great American Songbook for all it was worth. Only You includes a few durable tunes that have lost none of their luster over the ensuing decades: “My Blue Heaven,” “I Only Have Eyes for You,” and “The Very Thought of You.” Unsurprisingly, Connick handles these with taste and enthusiasm -- again, songs of this grand tradition have long been the foundation of his art, and he knows how to put them across. But Connick, an eclectic musician who has branched out in interesting directions over the years, uses this album to consciously expand his repertoire to include superior pop songs from the past 40-plus years, including the Platters hit “My Prayer,” the Ray Charles chestnut “You Don’t Know Me,” the Drifters's “Save the Last Dance for Me,” Stevie Wonder’s “For Once in My Life,” and the title track. (The New Orleans favorite “All These Things” is a wonderful left-field choice.) No matter the provenance, he imbues each with the Connick touch. The lineup's more contemporary feel gives the album a distinctive flavor -- this isn’t Connick jumping on any bandwagon. As his many fans will attest, he doesn’t have to. William Pearl

All Music Guide

Featuring ballads from the '50s and '60s, Only You finds vocalist/pianist Harry Connick, Jr. further developing his contemporary crooner aesthetic. Having begun his career covering popular songs from the '20s through the '40s, it's surprising that Connick never before explored tunes from the baby boomer era. In some ways, it's almost as if he skipped the period altogether, moving from the '40s to the '70s between 1992's 25, his last jazz standards album, and 1994's She, his move to funk and pop. It was a jarring creative leap that many fans found too far to make with him. It's pleasing then, that Connick has found ways to incorporate his love of the Great American Songbook and straight-ahead jazz in a style that harks back to jazz's golden era without being retro. Only You showcases this, soaring on Connick's sophisticated and classy arrangements of such popular tunes as "I Only Have Eyes for You," "Save the Last Dance for Me," and "More." From his cinematic bossa nova take of "My Blue Heaven," replete with pizzicato string backgrounds, to his inspirational gospel-inflected version of "For Once in My Life," Connick's vision for these classic songs is singular and fresh. Matt Collar