Mike + The Mechanics drummer Peter Van Hooke and songwriter and record producer Christopher Neil also appear on the album, serving in the same roles they did for the Mechanics. The album includes two of Carrack's highest charting solo hits in the US, "Don't Shed a Tear" (which became a Top 10 hit, peaking at No. 9) and "One Good Reason" (which peaked at No. 28).[3]
In addition to "Don't Shed a Tear", three additional singles charted from the album, including a cover of the Jackie DeShannon classic, "When You Walk in the Room". The album's title track, another one of these singles, also cracked the Top 30 on the US chart.
Jim Green of Trouser Press was not entirely enthusiastic about the album, writing: "Half of One Good Reason is decent-to-good, and the rest is mediocre-to-poor....it's got more radio-music slickness than Carrack's had in years but at the cost of some identity." Green notes that "It did yield a genuine not-bad pop hit ("Don't Shed a Tear")."[5]
AllMusic's Mike DeGagne retrospectively calls "Don't Shed a Tear" "the album's highlight, bolstered by its subtle, laid-back groove with a stop and start tempo which comes across as unique to a certain extent." But he castigated the rest of the record, saying that "while the songs are well-written lyrically, they're dispensed rather half-heartedly from a musical standpoint" and "It's apparent in tracks like 'Fire With Fire' and 'Give Me a Chance' that Paul Carrack has reached the point of pop pedestrianism."[2]
^Deggans, Eric (1998). "Paul Carrack/Ace". In Graff, Gary; Durchholz, Daniel (eds.). MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide. Detroit: Visible Ink Press. pp. 200–201.
