Jools Holland | Official Web Site | About Jools | Biography Music Player Jools Holland OBE DL was born Julian Miles Holland on 24th January 1958 in Blackheath, South East London. At the age of eight, he could play the piano fluently by ear, and by the time he reached his early teens he was proficient and confident enough to be appearing regularly in many of the pubs in South East London and the East End Docks. At the age of 15, Jools was introduced to Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford ; together they formed Squeeze, and shortly afterwards they were joined by Gilson Lavis (who had already played with, among others, B.B. King, Chuck Berry, and Max Wall)  who still drums with Jools. Up The Junction and Cool For Cats gave Squeeze meteoric success and their popularity rapidly extended to America, where their tour included performances at New York's Madison Square Garden. In 1987, Jools formed The Jools Holland Big Band  comprising himself and Gilson Lavis.

This has gradually metamorphosed into the current 19-piece Jools Holland and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, which consists of pianist, organist, drummer, three female vocals, guitar, bass guitar, two tenor saxophones, two alto saxophones, baritone saxophone, three trumpets, and three trombones. Jools and the Rhythm & Blues Orchestra play to audiences in excess of 300,000 each year. As well as formidable live performances, Jools has maintained a prolific recording career since signing to Warner Music in 1996, which includes the multimillion selling Jools Holland and Friends series. Notable 'friends' have included Sting, Chrissie Hynde, George Harrison, Norah Jones, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, Bono, Joe Strummer, KT Tunstall, Robert Plant, Smokey Robinson, Sugababes, Ringo Starr, Peter Gabriel, Solomon Burke, and many more.

A big fan of the cult 1960's show The Prisoner, Jools' inspiration for Helicon Mountain  the studio complex he designed and built  was Portmeirion, the setting for the TV series. Jools demonstrated his love of the series by starring in a spoof documentary, The Laughing Prisoner, with Stephen Fry, Terence Alexander, and Hugh Laurie, in 1993. Jools' career as a television presenter has run parallel to his musical career. He started in the early 1980s when he interviewed The Police for a documentary that was made while they were recording at George Martin's Montserrat studio. Jools then auditioned to become co-presenter (with Paula Yates) of The Tube, which achieved almost immediate cult status and discovered a whole new generation of musicians and comedians between 1981 and 1986. Jools also managed to secure a rare interview with Miles Davis, which was broadcast on 14th November 1986.

In two subsequent documentaries  Walking to New Orleans in 1985 and Mr Roadrunner in 1991  Jools unearthed some of the roots of American music, which led him to talk to (and play with) many of his heroes, including Fats Domino, Dr. John, and Lee Dorsey. In 1988, Jools wrote a six-part series with Roland Rivron, The Groovy Fellas, about a Martian visiting Earth. Between 1988 and 1990, Jools performed in and co-hosted (with David Sanborn) two seasons of an acclaimed music performance programme, Night Music, on NBC. After presenting two series of Juke Box Jury in 1989 and then 26 shows of The Happening in 1990, Jools was asked in 1992 to host a new music programme for BBC2, which combined his talent and experience as a musician with his skills as a TV presenter. This was Later... with Jools Holland . The show has reawakened the innovative spirit of The Tube, and concluded its 49th series in November 2016.

Other television programmes include: Name That Tune; Don't Forget Your Toothbrush; Beat Route; Jools Meets The Saint; and, in 2002, Jools' History Of The Piano. Jools also conducted the interviews for the definitive Beatles Anthology and the Rolling Stones Biography. He also appeared in the 1997 film Spice World as a 'Musical Director' and, on 31st December 1999, performed at the New Year's Eve Millennium Dome opening ceremony in the presence of Her Majesty The Queen, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, and various luminaries. Jools' achievements were formally recognized in June 2003, when he was awarded the OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List. The 2004 UK tour kicked off with a star-studded concert at the historic Royal Albert Hall, donating all proceeds to the Teenage Cancer Trust . Later that year, he collaborated with Tom Jones on an album of traditional R&B music. The album, which was recorded at Jools' Helicon Mountain studio with Laurie Latham, entered the UK Album Charts at Number 5.

In January 2005, Jools and his band performed with Eric Clapton as the headline act of the Tsunami Relief Concert in Cardiff. Jools married Christabel McEwen in August 2005 and, the following month, he was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Kent. In March 2007, Jools played two very special charity concerts, at Wells Cathedral and Rochester Cathedral, to raise funds for the upkeep of cathedrals throughout the British Isles and highlight the beauty of these historic buildings and the music within them. At the heart of these charity concerts was a new setting of the Mass, composed by Jools and commissioned by the Bishop of Bath and Wells. The new Mass was performed exclusively in the two cathedrals. Jools' colourful autobiography, Barefaced Lies & Boogie-Woogie Boasts, hit the shelves on 4th October 2007 (published by Michael Joseph Ltd.); the paperback was published in the summer of 2008.

2009 saw the collaboration between Jools & his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra with Eddi Reader on tracks for (and a cameo role in) the movie Me & Orson Welles, starring Claire Danes (Romeo & Juliet, Homeland) and Zac Efron (High School Musical, The Lucky One). Available on DVD, it was directed by Richard Linklater (School of Rock, Dazed & Confused). Jools and the Orchestra with Eddi Reader perform Let's Pretend There's A Moon, I Surrender Dear, and You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want To Do It) on the Soundtrack album (Decca/Universal Records). One of Jools' personal 2010 highlights was the Sony Radio Academy Silver Award for 'Best Specialist Music Programme' presented to his highly-acclaimed and eclectic BBC Radio 2 show. That year saw an even more prestigious achievement: the Sony Gold award for 'Music Broadcaster Of The Year'. The show has been running for 15 years; the latest series concluded in December 2016.

He also took on the very challenging role of Music Curator for Prince Charles' September 2010 green initiative START, a festival in the heart of London to raise awareness on all environmental issues. Jools graced the event with a special performance. Jools had the privilege of being part of the stellar line-up at the Queen's Diamond Jubilee concert, set against the spectacular backdrop of Buckingham Palace, on Monday 4th June 2012. As always, Jools continues to dazzle audiences across the UK with his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra and their exuberant live performances. Jools' new album Piano, which explores different piano styles and is performed on a variety of pianos, was released on Friday 2nd December 2016. You can order Piano here . Cheap Jools Holland Tickets Details of Jools Holland and the Ticket Luck value Jools Holland Julian Miles Jools Holland (born 24 January 1958), OBE, DL, is an English pianist, bandleader and television presenter. His work has involved him with most of the biggest names in the rock music industry.

Born in Blackheath, London, Holland was a founding member of the band Squeeze which formed in March 1974. Holland played the keyboard with the group. In 1980, Holland left to forge a solo career, until the band produced its third album. Holland had begun issuing solo records in 1978; his first EP was called Boogie Woogie '78. He continued his solo career through the early 1980s, releasing an album and several singles between 1981 and 1984. He branched out into TV, co-presenting the Newcastle-based TV music show The Tube with Paula Yates. Holland achieved disrepute by using the phrase groovy fuckers on live TV causing the show to be lifted for 3 performances, and was fired as a result - although he did capitalise on this by starring in a sitcom called The Groovy Fellers with Rowland Rivron. In 1985, Squeeze unexpectedly re-grouped although it had continued producing music in Holland's absence since 1982. Holland was once again the keyboard player for the band through 1990.

At that point, he once again departed Squeeze forever on amicable terms to resume his solo career as both a musician and a TV host. In 1987, Holland formed The Jools Holland Big Band which consisted of himself and Gilson Lavis from Squeeze. This gradually became his 18-piece Rhythm & Blues Orchestra. Between 1988 and 1990 he performed and co-hosted along with David Sanborn during the two seasons of the acclaimed music performance program Sunday Night on NBC late-night television. Holland is a fan of the cult 1960s TV series The Prisoner owning some of the costumes and props from the series and occasionally appears wearing the trademark brown-with-white-pipe blazer featured in the series. Holland has had his studio built to his own design, heavily inspired by Portmeirion: the setting for The Prisoner. Jools plays a sit-in session called Uncertain Smile. Since 1992 he has presented the eclectic music programme Later with Jools Holland, plus an annual New Year's Eve Hootenanny, and has shaken off his bad boy image to become a respected musician.

In 1996 Holland signed a record deal with Warners. In 1993 Jools Holland demonstrated his love of the series and starred in a spoof documentary, The Laughing Prisoner, with Stephen Fry, Terrence Alexander and Hugh Laurie. Much of it was shot on location in Portmeirion, with archive footage of Patrick McGoohan, and featuring musical numbers from Siouxsie & the Banshees, Magnum and XTC. Holland himself also performed a number towards the end of the programme with the appearance of the late Stanley Unwin. He was also one of the interviewers for The Beatles Anthology TV project. Although he wasn't meant to be seen or heard during the program, yet his presence on many occasions is detectable. Later Holland appeared in the 1997 film SpiceWorld as a musical director. He received an OBE in 2003 in the Queen's Birthday Honours list, for services to the British music industry as a television presenter and musician. He is also a published author and appears regularly on television shows besides his own and contributes to radio shows. In 2004, he collaborated with Tom Jones on an album of traditional R&B music.

In January 2005 Jools and his band performed with Eric Clapton as the headline act of the Tsunami relief concert in Cardiff's Millennium Stadium. In September 2006 he was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Kent. But his successful journeys kept on embarking most notably when in December 2006; Jools appeared at Capital Gold Legends Live, a series of up-close-and-personal gigs hosted by the national radio station Capital Gold. Holland is also a Hammond organ player, and was seen demonstrating his skills to Jo Brand in the BBC documentary series Play It Again. He is celebrated for his charity work and will always be in the hearts of the people for his contributions not only towards the field of music and singing rather in TV show presentation and charitable works for the welfare of the humanity and love for his people. View All Jools Holland Tickets Newsletter Signup Get up to 5% immediate discount PLUS free news and updates for all your hot shows and games!

Enter valid email Interview: Jools Holland -The Latest Interview: Jools Holland — June 26, 2012 Pianist and television presenter Jools Holland loves nothing more than playing good-time music with his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, as he tells Jeff Hemmings You probably won’t recall this but Holland’s first work as a ‘session’ musician involved working on a track by the legendary Wayne County & The Electric Chairs in 1976 on a track called ‘F*** Off’. Wayne County was a transgender woman who subsequently changed her name to Jayne… Fast forward to Monday 4 June and there is Julian ‘Jools’ Holland OBE performing the rather more gentle ‘You Are So Beautiful’ with singer Ruby Turner in front of Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s Jubilee, and broadcast around the world. It’s been a remarkable journey for this pianist and television presenter.

First as founding member of Squeeze with whom he enjoyed many hits such as ‘Cool for Cats’ and ‘Up the Junction’, then as television presenter for the cult Channel 4 programme The Tube, and then founder of his very own Big Band/Orchestra and long time presenter of Later… Holland is a pianist par excellence – he named his first solo outing, the Boogie Woogie ’78 EP – and has subsequently become the most famous boogie-woogie pianist in the world. But he’s also a superb jazz and blues player, and a combination of his keyboard skills and television work has seen him become royalty amongst musicians, a musician who has played with some of the greatest names on the planet: Sting, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Fats Domino, Eric Clapton, Solomon Burke, Dave Gilmour, Robert Plant, Bono, Smokey Robinson… Although he enjoyed much commercial success with Squeeze his career – once he left the band in 1981 – could have been that of a session musician/journeyman. But in the early ‘80s he interviewed The Police for a documentary that was made while they were recording in Montserrat with The Beatles’ producer George Martin.

He then auditioned to become a presenter (along with Paula Yates) for The Tube, which became an immediate cult success on the fledgling Channel 4, discovering a new generation of musicians from 1981–1986. But it was when he fronted the Walking to New Orleans documentary in 1985 that he became fully acquainted with his love of American roots music; boogie-woogie, jazz, blues, soul and classic ‘American song’. This inspired him to form The Jools Holland Big Band, with original Squeeze drummer Gilson Lavis, eventually metamorphosing into the current 20-piece Jools Holland and His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra. “The extraordinary thing – to have a big band for as long as I have had – it’s all the same people. Once in a while a person will have a cold or something or something they can’t get out of, but you always get me, my brother (Chris) on the organ, Gilson Lavis – the drummer with Squeeze – on drums, Rico Rodriguez, the great ska legend, and Michael Rose his friend from Jamaica, and Louis Marshall and Rosie May (the singers) and so on.

And we always have a guest singer or two (at Borde Hill, Marc Almond will be a special guest). The point is that we are very unusual or unique to be the only Big Band to be going on this long, I think, to have the same people play and so we are hopefully thinking together as well as playing together; thinking as one, rather than reading the music.” This sounds like a major headache – aligning all those diaries!? “The only way we can make it work is by being a big family. We have our ups and downs, but we look after one another. Ultimately, what’s most important, is that we have a laugh!” Concurrently he has been presenting Later…with Jools Holland for the last 20 years, hosting and performing with many stars of rock’n’roll plus a constant stream of newer artists. Later… has proved to be an enduring and much needed bastion of live music on TV, and has enabled Holland to continually meet (and often play) with his idols, forming new musical bonds which have helped him in developing his music over the years.

“The key is being able to play together all the time…but it doesn’t matter if I’m at home, on the stage, or on the television, or in the dressing room or wherever I am playing the piano; you are just plugging into the music. By plugging into it all the time you have much more chance of it working.” “What’s fantastic is when you look out at the people responding in the same way to what you are feeling” An accomplished player as a child, his enthusiasm remains intact. “What’s fantastic is when you look out at the people responding in the same way to what you are feeling, so that you can communicate your feelings without using words – you can see people physically moving around. “We have to introduce new material to keep ourselves stimulated and the audience stimulated; we’re always changing things and honing things as we go along. I suppose it’s always in the vein of what we have always done; some of it is songs that I have written, some of it is really ancient songs. One song I wrote I put to the words of a song written in the 17th century.

“George Harrison did this song once, which I played on (you can find a video of this on YouTube): ‘Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’, so we did that one. We do a ska song which suits Rico…a lot of them are vehicles for different members of the orchestra to play solos on.” So how does Holland find new material? Is he an internet convert? “As Van Morrison once said to me, ‘You are constantly at the song face’, looking through old records to find a song, so I’m constantly looking for something new, constantly trying to write something new, and finding something old that you didn’t know about.

The other day I found something on a record that I had forgotten I had that isn’t on the internet or on a CD, so I still use old fashioned ways to find material… I could be flicking through the radio in my car; I just keep my senses alert and aware.” “The other thing I have learnt is, as the great jazz pianist Mary-Lou Williams once said to me, ‘You got to love the music you play and play what you love, and play what you mean and mean what you play… and love the people you play it to!” Jools Holland & His Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, Borde Hill Gardens, Saturday 30 June, 5pm gates (6.30pm show), £32–15.

Share this Post: Going underground on “The Tube”: Jools Holland’s and Paula Yates’s memorable 80s UK music show – Night Flight Home > Television > Going underground on “The Tube”: Jools Holland’s and Paula Yates’s memorable 80s UK music show Going underground on “The Tube”: Jools Holland’s and Paula Yates’s memorable 80s UK music show By Bryan Thomas on January 13, 2016 If you were a music fan in the 1980s, and you lived in the UK, you likely need no introduction to the BBC1’s “The Tube” as you no doubt remember it fondly as the music television show — hosted by Jools Holland and Paula Yates, mainly, and airing on Channel 4 on Friday nights, 5:30 to 7pm, between November 5, 1982 and April 26, 1987 — that regularly featured up-and-coming and established bands, intermingled with star interviews and reports.

Here’s just one example of the caliber of performance you were likely to see in 1985: the Cocteau Twins, seen here performing a delicious dream-pop reverie, “Pink Orange Red,” a delicate fusion of fuzzed-out guitars and Elizabeth Fraser’s inimitable, otherworldly voice. The show — certainly by far the most exciting British music show since “Top Of The Pops” — was notable for mixing current musical genres and styles (mostly they were contemporary pop bands, many of which would be fall into the new wave sub-category, but occasionally an artist like B.B. King or Leon Russell might make an appearance), and for providing an outlet for edgier artists who weren’t likely to be seen anywhere else on TV at the time, presented through live performances (there were occasionally audio issues with a poor sound mix, often times sounding like it was being “phased”, drawing occasional complaints from the viewers at home, and we’re not positive they were all 100% live, but at a time when many shows were still relying on staged lip-synched mime performances, this is a pretty amazing factoid).

1986 interview with Brian Eno after performance clips by Roxy Music and Eno “The Tube,” however, would being each episode with a 45-minute magazine section, consisting of interviews, fashion items and comedy appearances. There were on-location segments (including interviews with Robert Plant, who had just left Led Zeppelin, and Grace Jones in Birmingham Botanical Gardens), filmed videos, and a lot of weird and often cringe-worthy comedic bits throughout the rest of the show (stay to the end of this Cocteau Twins clip and you’ll see what we mean), often including comedian Rik Mayall , who was either likely very drunk or pretending to be so (memorably he decided to throw up at the beginning of one show after drinking a whole tin of chicken soup, vomiting all over the camera and co-host Jools Holland too, prompting angry complaints — again — from viewers watching at home).

One of the possible (likely probable) reasons that the artists, bands and special musical guests — four to five per episode — appeared relaxed on the show was likely due to the the fact that many (er, likely most) of them had loosened up their tongues before their on-camera appearances by drinking heavily in one of Newcastle’s oldest pubs, The Egypt Cottage. The pub was located right across from Tyne Tees studios, in a studio complex on City Road in Newcastle Quayside, in Newcastle upon Tyne. The very same pub had sat above the banks of the Tyne since the early 1700s, and was previously known as the Egypt Tavern and the Egypt Inn, situated as it was in an area which had been called Little Egypt, named after the many grain stores there, reminding locals of the land of the pharaohs, and sailors dealing in spices.

The Youtube description says: “In this episode Jools Holland did a spoof of the 60s programme ‘The Prisoner.’ The Egypt Cottage thus acted as a “green room” for stars who would stumble out of the pub and enter the long, semicircular tube-like covering at the entrance to the studio (hence the name for the name, “The Tube”), where previous music shows “Alright Now” and a musical-oriented show aimed at young people, called “Check it Out,” for ITV had also been taped.

“The Tube” is credited with having helped to launch the careers of so many contemporary 80s artists that it would be nearly impossible to list them all, but you can go here to see a full list of the episodes : For those of you who might be averse to clicking on links, here’s a partial list of just some of artists who played on, or appeared on, “The Tube,” reading like a veritable Who’s Who of 80s music: Alison Moyet (Alf), The Art of Noise, The Assembly, The Associates, Aztec Camera, BB King, Big Country, Bon Jovi, The Boomtown Rats, Brian Eno, Cardiacs, Cliff Richard, Cocteau Twins, The Cramps, Culture Club, Curiosity Killed the Cat, Cyndi Lauper, The Damned, Dennis Brown with Sly & Robbie, Depeche Mode, Dexys Midnightfe Runners, Die Ärzte, Dire Straits, Divine, Stephen Duffy, Duran Duran, Echo & the Bunnymen, Vow Wow, Elvis Costello, The Fall, Fatal Charm, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Charged G.B.H., Gregory Isaacs & The Roots Radics, Gun

 Club, Hanoi Rocks, Heaven 17, Howard Jones, The Human League, Icicle Works, Iggy Pop, INXS, Judas Priest, Killing Joke, Level 42, Lloyd Cole & the Commotions, Madness, Madonna, Magnum, Meat Loaf, Motörhead, New Model Army, Ofra Haza, Paul Young, Pet Shop Boys, The Pretenders, The Proclaimers, Propaganda, The Psychedelic Furs, The Rainmakers, Robert Palmer, R.E.M., Roxy Music, Scraping Foetus off the Wheel, Silent Running, Simple Minds, Simply Red, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Soft Cell, Spear of Destiny, SPK, Squeeze, The Style Council, Tears for Fears, Terence Trent D’Arby, Terry & Gerry, The Smiths, The Cult, The Cure, The Dream Academy, The Jam, The Mission, The Pogues, The Pretenders, The Stranglers, The Toy Dolls, Then Jericho, Thin Lizzy, Thomas Dolby, Tina Turner, Twisted Sister, U2, Ultravox, Voice of the Beehive, Tom Waits, Wall of Voodoo,

 Wham!, Whitney Houston, XTC, Yazoo, ZZ Top.

Jools Holland visits Liverpool to see Echo and the Bunnymen perform at St. George’s Hall in Lime Street The shows producers perhaps also take credit for helping to further popularize those who made it a stopover for them while they were busy promoting their newest releases. On January 27, 1984, a then relatively-unknown Madonna made her first appearance in the UK when she appeared on “The Tube,” performing her new single “Holiday.” The show was broadcast live from the Hacienda Club in Manchester. The Bangles — then known as The Bangs — were interviewed in Los Angeles for “The Tube” by Jools Holland, in 1982: There were also occasional times when “The Tube” was able to present unique material that “scooped” traditional music news outlets; an example of this was U2 performing live under a blood-red sky at Red Rocks Ampitheatre in Colorado, and Ringo Starr chatting about working with Marc Bolan while sitting in John Lennon’s former house, Tittenhurst Park.

Highlights from “The Tube,” including David Bowie’s “Absolute Beginners” special in 1986 You’ll also note that there were many bands and artists appearing at various other odd points in their careers, some even close to the end; the very first episode, in fact, in 1982, featured The Jam doing their song “Beat Surrender” shortly before they were to break up, making “The Tube” their last TV appearance. Frankie Goes to Hollywood were featured in 1983 when they were an unsigned band, doing their song “Relax” live from Liverpool State Ballroom, which led to producer Trevor Horn, watching at home, to signing the band shortly thereafter and turning the song into a smash-hit number one. In addition to Holland and Yates, there were other TV personalities — Muriel Gray, Gary James, Michel Cremona, Nick Laird-Clowes and Mike Everitt — were were chosen following a nationally-advertised competition. Leslie Ash would replace Paula Yates for one season, memorably traveling to the U.S.

with Holland to host the show and visiting New York’s most happening night spots, including Paradise Garage, Danceteria, The Roxy and even a brief, passing glimpse of CBGBs. The show’s two main hosts, however, were the main focus and soon became well-known celebrities in the UK for adding a kind of jocular, amiably amateurish and occasionally provocative and sexy vibe to the proceedings, acting as if they were well-aware that many of the artists they were presenting were probably drunk, and quite possibly many of those watching at home or in pubs were in the same inebriated state or attempting to getting there. Kim Wilde and Paula Yates Jools Holland was already well-known as a bandleader and boogie-woogie style piano player, a singer and composer, and an original member of the UK band Squeeze (they’d formed in 1974), appearing on “Top of the Pops” in 1978 with a piano keyboard painted on his face and smoking a big cigar. Yates had attended the show with her husband Bob Geldof, then a member of the Boomtown Rats, and she says that she and Holland made eye-contact during the show, both remembering it later.

He was also well-known in music circles for his session work Sting, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, George Harrison, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, Magazine, and U2’s Bono. He’d done most of this before taking on the job as co-host of “The Tube” at age 24, and got the job after an audition for producers in which he pretended to introduce artists and musicians who were dead — and then hilariously mimed dragging them across the floor of the studio. Jools Holland interviews David Bowie, circa March/April 1987 The show’s other main co-host, the peroxide-blonde haired Paula Yates — the daughter of “Opportunity Knocks” TV presenter Hugh Green — was a former music journalist. She’d also penned a number of music-related books, had a popular column called “Natural Blonde” in the Record Mirror, and she’d also posed for Penthouse Magazine in 1978.

Yates had originally met Holland when she interviewed him for Rockstars In Their Underpants, taking three Polaroids of Holland while his mother gave her a biscuit, which Holland remembered led to Yates vomiting (“I can’t remember if I took my clothes off and then she threw up, which I can imagine,” he once said about the experience, “or whether she vomited with the excitement of knowing she was about to photograph me”). During her own audition to become the show’s co-host — she and Holland auditioned for “The Tube” together in 1982 — she ended up slapping a student, who she was pretending to interview. Producers also noted that she was vivaciously sexy and seemed a bit unhinged, and indeed, Yates became known for her often flirtatious interview segments. In one one those she even managed to talk Sting into taking off his trousers during one of the shows.

This might have been the same episode in which she quizzed the Police frontman about the fact that he’d said he liked fucking on his kitchen table at home, which she’d seen herself, remarking to him that it “it didn’t look that much bigger than you could have got a couple bowls of rice on it,” to which Sting laughed about the “spunky atmosphere” he found when visiting Newcastle. Yates was also then well-known in the early 80s as Geldof’s girlfriend and then wife, and they together had three children (Trixibelle, Peaches, and Pixie), although it was widely understood that during the 1980s her marriage with the Live Aid organiser was problematic and in a state of constant crisis.

The aforementioned Egypt Cottage pub was famously the location where Yates is said to have met INXS singer Michael Hutchence, and was asked by the band’s road manager to leave him alone, but she is said to have walked up to Hutchence in the pub and said to those around who could hear her, “I’m going to have that boy.” For “The Tube,” it all came to a head in January 1987, when Jools Hollard caused a national scandal during a live broadcast by encouraging Channel 4 viewers to tune in and “be there or be ungroovy fuckers.” The BBC’s Channel 4 went ballistic over what Holland later referred to as his “regrettable, inadvertent slip of the tongue,” during a trailer for the show, apparently while impressionable children were said to be at home were watching the popular program for fear that, had they not been watching, they were perhaps in danger of becoming ungroovy fuckers. Holland says that only one person had complained and as a result, “The Tube” was taken off air for three weeks as a result of Holland’s on-camera swearing.

This wasn’t the first time that Holland had to be reprimanded for saying something he shouldn’t have during a live broadcast, but it was much more serious this time, however, leading to the show’s producer and Tyen Tees’ director of programming handing in their resignations, citing problems with the show’s production and relationship with Tyne Tees and the BBC, bowing to both political pressure and what was deemed a “stifling bureaucracy and heavy handed moralism.” After the show was cancelled, Holland continued to host shows, and since 1992 has hosted “Later… with Jools Holland,” another music-based show airing on BBC2, on which his annual show “Hootenanny” also derives. He’s become a published author and regular TV and radio show guest, and continues to remain one of the UK’s more popular music television personalities. He also continues to record and perform music, having signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1996 (his albums are marketed in the U.S. via Rhino Entertainment, Warner Music’s reissue label).

Meanwhile, Yates wrote six best-sellers and became an interviewer on Channel 4’s “Big Breakfast,” continuing to live in Kent and London with Geldof, and their three daughters. She continued to stalk “her boy” Michael Hutchence after “The Tube”‘s demise, apparently going to all of the INXS shows she could manage to attend, and they maintained contact over a period of years, well after the end of “The Tube,” and their public pairing and private coupling eventually led to the birth of their daughter, lovingly named Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily. She eventually Yates left Geldoff (in 1995) for Hutchence, leading to an acrimonious divorce and custody battle that was bolded headline tabloid fodder and red meat for music journos well into the 90s. A little after their daughter’s second birthday, Hutchence found hanged by a belt in his Sydney hotel room in November 1997, and quite infamously Yates had claimed that Hutchence’s death may have resulted from autoerotic asphyxiation.

Yates died at her London home in 2000, age 41, of a reported accidental heroin overdose, due to what the coroner called “foolish and incautious” behavior. Earlier that same year “The Tube” was brought back briefly for a one-off live special on Sky1 to usher in the new millennium, entitled “The Apocalypse Tube.” Hosted by BBC Radio 1’s Chris Moyles and Donna Air, the show came live once again from Studio 5 at Tyne Tees (the studios have since moved to a new location) and the bar of the Egypt Cottage next door. The legendary pub has since been torn down.

Jools Holland: why I'm happy just to play the blues | Television & radio | The Guardian Jools Holland: why I'm happy just to play the blues I don't want to be a BBC boss, reveals the Later host and boogie-woogie aficionado Jools Holland Jools Holland Photograph: David Levene Saturday 2 July 2011 19.06 EDT First published on Saturday 2 July 2011 19.06 EDT Share on Messenger Close Jools Holland never did make a wholly convincing bad boy. Even when he toured with Squeeze, the essential London song-writing band of the 1980s, and went on to present the genre-busting youth show The Tube alongside Paula Yates live on Channel 4, Holland always seemed sardonic and quirky rather than dangerous or louche. And this despite the fact he was banned from appearing on screen for a while for uttering a profanity on air. This month the proper status of the cheery, quick-witted presenter of the longest-running music programme on television has been confirmed. Holland is now officially a pillar of the musical establishment.

It was announced on Tuesday that he is to be the 20th recipient of the Music Industry Trusts' Award, an honour previously received by Sir Tom Jones and Lord Lloyd-Webber. The citation notes his "outstanding contribution to music and music broadcasting", but for Holland it is simply a welcome gift: recognition, as he puts it, "for being 53 and not dead". Still a popular touring musician, performing around 100 gigs a year with his 19-strong Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, the pianist with a penchant for the nostalgic sound of boogie woogie has almost accidentally also become national gatekeeper to a world of new music on TV. With instinctive modesty, Holland plays down his role as a great transmitter of enthusiasm for a dizzying array of music styles. "I take much more of a Zen view," he says, speaking the day after a big band date near Conwy in Wales. "I only know about a few things, but I am quite good at bluffing.

There are a whole range of subjects, including the Renaissance, which I am prepared to sound expert on." His success on screen, he thinks, is due to a love of music in general and a feeling for the people who play it. "With the TV show we are trying to achieve a balance of different things. It is not always my taste. You are trying to get a music legend on, as well an important person of today, and a new performer too, and then perhaps someone who is mainly known in their own particular world." The truth for Holland is that all music should try "to really move the human spirit" and that different sounds will work for different people. "For some it might be the wind in the trees and that is fine. On the whole, though, attitudes to music have changed and people are much more accepting of different genres. In the past, people used to actually hate people who liked different music to them, whether it was mods and rockers in the 60s, or heavy metal fans not liking Motown, or reggae fans not understanding English folk, or whatever.

And I suppose it was rather sweet in some ways, but I would like to think I had something to do with the fact fans aren't so blinkered any more." In 30 years of presenting, Holland has interviewed and played with some of the biggest names in the industry and he has watched the downside of fame spool out at first hand. "Some people manage to stay focused and some don't. It is not just people who are well-known who have these problems though. It is the same for publicans, or greengrocers, or people in your own family. You can sometimes see the signs; obviously, if people take too many drugs and drink. Or if they don't listen to enough music." Holland concedes that talented musicians can find it hard to cope, but he argues the problem is at least as old as the blues. "I was recently given a Fats Waller autograph by Charlie Watts, who collects jazz and blues memorabilia like me. It was written on an IOU for one hundred dollars, which was quite a lot of money back then.

Charlie said to me: 'You know, Fats went straight out to drink that money.' " Great talent, Holland believes, is "very rare" and the idea that there was ever a golden age for music is flawed. "In any era there is never a lot of great talent around. More people are taking up music now because of these talent shows, but you have to to be a poet in your work. Amy Winehouse and Paul Weller are examples of poets, I think." The phenomenon of The X Factor and its ilk have largely passed Holland by, but he does worry about the impact on musicianship and the aspirations of the young. "I don't mean to sound superior when I say I haven't seen these shows. From what I gather, a lot of it is about bursting into tears. You can't really knock people for going on these shows, but what you don't really get is instrumentalists. They are for singers." While TV talent shows date back beyond Opportunity Knocks, the 70s show presented by Yates's father, Hughie Green, Holland feels they underplay the skills involved. The key to the success of a band for him is the noise they make together.

"When I first set up my big band I only had Gilson Lavis, the drummer from Squeeze, with me. He was the core element. Whenever a group hits the big time, they always get a new drummer because they really need that. You can make do with rubbish elsewhere." But where do drummers and their bands learn their trade now? The youthful Holland gleaned his boogie technique from his uncle and from playing in pubs. "You can't do that now because the pubs have gone. It's sad, but they are all coffee bars or flats." Asked, as he often is, to advise young musicians, Holland tells them to buy his book, do what it says and then write a book about it. "It says you have got to play what you love and love what you play. And then, when you are grown up, you have got to play what you mean and mean what you play. And you should realise you are probably going to make no money and be completely ripped off by people, but that to go on playing might be so enjoyable that it doesn't matter." Solid advice, no doubt, but it has not been the whole story for Julian Miles Holland of Deptford, south London, now OBE and deputy lieutenant of Kent.

His working-class credentials have for some time now been stamped with an "access all areas" pass that has seen him staying at Highgrove with Camilla and Charles and has earned him a label as the best-connected man in the country. "Coming from Deptford, it was very hard to go down," Holland jokes. "Up was the only possible way." But he is bullish about his close association with the Prince's Trust. "The reason I have done a lot of work for that is that it is very effective. Because it is big it has helped more young people than any other charity. I have seen the difference it makes for people with no self-esteem. There are thousands more that it has tried to help, too. And in those failed cases, at least it tried." On a personal level, he says, he aims to take people as they come. "I have friends who are in the posh category and some who are in the not-at-all-posh category, and some who you would find it very hard to get any sort of handle on.

But I am lucky to have any friends, of course." For Holland, before he receives his new honour this November in front of 1,000 guests at the annual event staged in aid of Nordoff Robbins and the BRIT Trust, the immediate future holds more big band gigs. "It does seem to be the only way of existing," he explains. "There is no other touring band like it. We are a unique thing and it only works if we are playing all the time. Chary of the term "national treasure" ("it implies I am like the Tower of London, which was a place of great cruelty"), Holland says he always likes people who run a cafe and want to run a cafe, or run a shop and want to run that shop. "They are not manoeuvring for the next thing. I do want to keep playing now. I don't want to run a television channel." Jools Holland on breaking TV taboos and why he didn't fall in love with Paula Yates | Daily Mail Online comments Never mind Big Ben - it wouldn't be New Year's Eve without Jools Holland's annual Hootenanny. So how has this self-confessed 'shambolic' presenter gone from punk rebel to national treasure?

'The Tube was the first time the plebs had gone on the television. The lunatics taking over the asylum. It opened the floodgates to endless swear words and amateurism,' said Jools Holland Jools Holland is grinning because we both know he’s telling a fib. ‘I’ll be at the Hootenanny,’ he says when asked what he’ll be doing this New Year’s Eve. But that’s a big fat porky. His hugely popular annual television show is actually recorded more than a week in advance. How else could he get superstars like Kylie and Tom Jones to sing Auld Lang Syne with his big band and a sozzled studio audience, on that night of all nights? ‘I wish people wouldn’t say this. You’re like that bloke who’s always going around saying there’s no God and no Father Christmas. We don’t want to know about all that, thank you very much. The Hootenanny is on and we’re all going to enjoy it. ‘Once the show begins, everybody in that room lives for the moment as if it were New Year’s Eve. That is why a lot of people seem to inadvertently get over-served with drinks.

Perhaps they do what they do on New Year’s Eve, which is to overdo it a bit. I hope the people watching at home are going to overdo it as well.’ For millions of us, Holland is as much a part of New Year’s Eve as Big Ben. He knows why. ‘You can’t drink and drive, cabs charge a lot of money, pubs aren’t what they were, so it’s got harder and harder to go out on New Year’s Eve. So people stay in and they’ll have us on the TV, not glued to every moment but as something that enhances the party. Some people are on their own, and we cheer them up, which is great.’ On his guests: 'I'm not trying to trick them into a confession of a crime, I'm trying to celebrate their beauty. When somebody performs on the show they are revealing more about themselves' Sometimes the Hootenanny accidentally offers a unique double pleasure. You leap up to kiss the one you love when the big clock behind Holland and his band strikes midnight – then get to do it all again a few minutes later, when the people next door cheer because the New Year has arrived in the real world. How come that clock is so often wrong?

‘The big clock is always out. It’s never in. It is a real show, and it is happening on New Year’s Eve in my mind, but I can reveal that it is not a real clock.’ What? ‘There is someone round the back moving the hands. They are set at five to 12 all night and then just for the last five seconds they are pushed up by the bloke standing behind. One year we did it and the clock hands fell on the poor prop bloke. They do a marvellous job, for the money.’ He laughs at that, knowing it’s the sort of thing Eric Morecambe might have said. ‘The hands fell off and nearly hit Gilson Lavis, the drummer, on the back of the head. He was nearly maimed, the saintly fellow.’ Gilson’s spare drums are a few feet away as we speak, at Holland’s studio in Blackheath, south London. It’s a very strange place. The front gates swing open to reveal a fake street with cafés, a white Italianate tower and an old-fashioned clapboard railway station bearing the name Helicon Mountain, the place where the ancient Greek poets went for inspiration.

It is all a tribute to Portmeirion, the village of illusions in Wales that was the setting for the cult television show The Prisoner. When Holland comes out in his black suit and shirt, a Crombie overcoat and scuffed suede shoes looking like Patrick McGoohan’s undertaker brother, it is suddenly obvious where he gets his dress sense. ‘I have realised how exciting and easy it is to be a time traveller, by looking at paintings and films and architecture and playing music or listening to it. I don’t think you necessarily have to live in the present all the time.’ On Paula Yates: 'She wasn't for me to fall in love with... She was the first person I knew who made me realise that girls could be very funny too, and that you could have them as very good friends' If Holland is a man out of time, it’s not clear which one – his clothes are from the Sixties, his manner of speaking is often from the Forties, but his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra – which is currently on tour – plays music that goes all the way back to the Twenties. Controversially so, in one case.

The newly released album Rockinghorse features a song from 1927 by Bessie Smith, on which the guest vocalist Sam Brown sings: ‘I would rather my man hit me than just jump right up and quit me. I swear I won’t call no copper if I’m beat up by my poppa… tain’t nobody’s business if I do.’ Holland was warned not to perform it. ‘A few people said that we shouldn’t be playing it because of the words. But actually, this is a song that is more for now than any other time. You know, when endless governments or some other authorities are trying to poke their hooters into what you’re doing? Even if you’re having a horrible time of it, that’s nothing to do with them.’ He’s a surprisingly conservative chap, for someone who started out with his band Squeeze in the punk era then became famous as the cool, sarcastic host of The Tube in the Eighties. His co-host Paula Yates got most of the attention but it was Holland who broke one of the great taboos in 1986, by telling the viewers – live at tea-time – to tune in or be ‘ungroovy f******’.

There was uproar and he was suspended. Times change. A few years ago a poll of broadcasters named it among the 50 Most Gripping Moments In British Television History. You might expect Holland to be proud of that, but he is not. ‘I would just like to apologise to Britain,’ he says, not joking. ‘Mary Whitehouse wrote to me, saying, “If you do this, standards will drop.” I wrote back saying: “I absolutely agree with you. It was an inadvertent slip of the tongue on my part but actually, you’ve got a point.” She was quite right. It has all gone downhill.’ Holland tells me how he got the job of hosting The Tube, at the age of 24. ‘Paula and I were really appalling at the audition. We were supposed to introduce a band we liked and do a fake interview with a student who was there. Paula ended up calling the student work-shy and slapping him. And I pretended to introduce some dead people, and mimed dragging them across the floor of the studio. 'It was a shambles, it wasn’t funny, it was rubbish.

What we didn’t understand was that in the control room was a woman called Andrea Wonfor, whose idea The Tube mainly was, who said to her fellow executives from Channel 4 and Tyne Tees: “I agree they’re not very professional, but none of us could stop looking at them, could we? Why don’t we try that? We’ve had all the other people who know what they’re doing and can remember the words and it hasn’t worked.” ‘So we thought we were being hired because of our talent and professionalism, whereas in fact it was because we were completely shambolic amateurs. The Tube was the first time the plebs had gone on the television. The lunatics taking over the asylum. It opened the floodgates to endless swear words and amateurism.’ Jools at his studio in Blackheath, which has a fake street that is a tribute to cult TV show The Prisoner The thin anarchist of old has become a prosperous looking man of 52. He can hardly be called an amateur now. His show Later… has been running since 1992, and has featured most of the greats of modern music as well as breaking many new bands. But he still sees himself as a musician above all.

And there is still something a bit shambolic about the way he introduces acts or tries to interview them. There’s still mischief on his face. Chris Evans, who knows about these things, describes Holland as: ‘My absolute TV hero bar none. There has been no other presenter like Jools, before or since.’ We have just passed the tenth anniversary of the day Paula Yates died, in early December 2000, from a heroin overdose. She’s on his mind. ‘When you see some people on television, it exaggerates what they are like and makes them seem much more exciting than in real life. With Paula it worked the other way. When she was at her sharpest and wittiest and prettiest, the viewers were only getting about 30 per cent of what she really was. She was much better than what you saw on television, even though people said that was wonderful.’ Rock stars fell in love with Paula very easily, so why didn’t he? ‘She wasn’t for me to fall in love with. But I did learn something very important from her.

I didn’t have any sisters and I went to an all-boys school, and she was the first person I knew who made me realise that girls could be very funny too, and that you could have them as very good friends.’ Holland went to school not far from his studio, but he didn’t stay long. He was expelled at the age of 15, but really didn’t mind because he was already earning good money from playing piano in the pubs around south London. His uncle Dave had taught him boogie-woogie at the age of eight, and by the time he left school he was with the musicians who would become Squeeze. ‘We were getting free cabs, free drinks; all the girls wanted to snog us and at the end of it we’d get a Chinese takeaway and not have to get up in the morning,’ he once said. ‘Who needs school when you’ve got all that?’ He also called himself Jools. ‘Not Julian. No. Ugh. I don’t think anybody ever likes the name they are given. Except that there’s a boy at school with my son who is called Lee Justice.

I’d have been happy with that.’ Holland still has close ties with the part of London where his studio is. ‘I am fortunate that I made good friends early on that I still want to see. There are family people working for me. I still see people I went to school with and have a drink with them, once a week. Well, not last night. They chucked me, said it was too cold. But I have only done what’s comfortable for me. That’s the world I like.’ That’s a bit disingenuous, actually, because Holland also inhabits far grander worlds. Written in gold letters at Helicon are the names of the stars who have come there to record with him, from the Sugababes to Paul Weller and Bono and on to three of the four Beatles: Paul, George and Ringo. Then there’s the social climbing. His first marriage was to a hairdresser called Mary, with whom he had two children; but his second was to the sculptor Christabel McEwen, the former Lady Durham. The studio may be in his old manor, but the couple live near Buckingham Palace – unless they’re at the country house in Kent.

There was a bit of a wobble early on, when jewellery of hers worth £35,000 was stolen by Holland’s father. ‘We were not angry, just disappointed,’ he said in his autobiography, Bare-Faced Lies And Boogie Woogie. ‘My father had clearly been in a precarious state of mind.’ The Hollands had two children and 15 years together before they were married in 2005 – the year they were also guests at the wedding blessing of Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. What were they doing there? ‘There is always someone in the world who is better or worse off than yourself and I’ve never seen that – in either direction – as a barrier to becoming friends with somebody. I got to know Charles by doing a few things with the Prince’s Trust, which must have helped half a million young people. 'I agreed with a lot of the ideas he was trying to get across to people, about sustainability and buildings and how small is beautiful.

The sort of things your grandmother would have said to you: “Why are you buying a silly modern fashion coat when your nan’s coat will fit you perfectly well?” I identified with that, we talked about it and I thought, “There’s nobody else who is saying these things and being listened to.”’ Since then Holland has been made a Deputy Lieutenant of Kent, and his charity work includes trying to preserve cathedrals. The wedding guests were said to be part of a new Establishment forming around the future monarch. ‘To me, the Establishment means the kind of pub where you get locked in and they keep serving. It’s very nice to be asked to anybody’s wedding. Particularly if it’s the Prince of Wales. I learned a lot from it, which was to end early and get away. I suppose one would have to look back historically and see who other royals had at their weddings. Were there people at Queen Elizabeth’s wedding who were common like myself? Did Chaucer go to Richard II’s wedding? Not that I’m comparing myself to Chaucer…’ JOOLS PICKS HIS OWN HOGMANAY HITS 1.

IN THE EVENING (WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN) by Ray Charles 'I'd start with this to set the mood. It gets you in the mood for an evening party. When that evening sun goes down, you just don't know what's going to happen...' 2. CHICKEN SHACK BOOGIE by Amos Milburn 'This always makes me dance. People don't realise I'm a dancer but when this thing hits me, it gets me going.' 3. BECAUSE HE WAS A BONNY LAD by the Unthanks 'I'd have anything by them. They're new and they're young. They are real sisters singing Northumbrian folk music and it sounds very seasonal, like the snow.' 4. AIN'T IT GRAND TO BE BLOOMING WELL DEAD? by Lesley Saronie 'I'd want to have a sing-song and we could all sing the chorus together. "Look at the flowers, bloomin' great orchids, ain't it grand to be bloomin' well dead?" Lovely.' 5.

AIN'T NO PLEASING YOU by Chas and Dave 'We'd need to carry on the sing-song, so I'd have something by these two.' 6. PULLING THE RUG by Imelda May 'She can sing anything, but if you start with rockabilly and mix it with a bit of Irish country dance music, that's her.' 7. WHAT CHRISTMAS MEANS TO ME by Stevie Wonder 'I know Christmas has gone, but only just, and I'd still want this. It's not actually about what he says, it's the way the song is played by all those Motown people.' 8. AUTUMN LEAVES by Eric Clapton 'I'd want a little moment's thought so I'd have this, from his new record. When you think the song has ended there is a whole guitar part on the end that's great.' 9. THE BEAUTY OF THE DAYS GONE BY by Van Morrison 'You can't look forward unless you take a moment to look back. Mirror, signal, manoeuvre. I always like a bit of Van.' 10.

UP ABOVE MY HEAD by Ruby Turner 'The pianists in the sporting houses in New Orleans used to say you have to finish with either the blues or a hymn. I had a 78 of this by Sister Rosetta Tharpe - it was one of the first records I had. A lovely way to end the night.' Does he expect to be invited when William and Kate get married? ‘I don’t know. I haven’t been yet. I was delighted to go to his father’s wedding and I wish them well. I hope they are going to be very happy together. If somebody asked me to play, I would – but nobody has. Whatever they do, I hope they have a lovely time of it. If somebody asked me what I fink – what I think – they should do, my recommendation would be to get an English ceilidh band. That’s what I like.’ When Holland corrects his own pronunciation like that, in mid-sentence, you can hear him falling between two worlds. But they come together when you consider that he grew up living closely with older relatives who had survived the war in south London and had a fierce loyalty to the Queen.

There’s a melancholy track on the new album that celebrates those days, called London Belongs To Me. It’s full of clichés about laughing policemen and the sound of Bow Bells but works because it is sung so beautifully… by Chas and Dave, of all people. The song starts with the Ceremony of the Queen’s Keys at the Tower of London. ‘One of the great things about having a monarch is that they can take a long-term view, which governments never can. The other reason I like them is that they always write thank you letters and set a good example. I don’t think people know what to do half the time, about taking their hat off in the presence of a lady and so on. 'But I tell you what, Norman from the docks knows how to behave perfectly well. It’s just good manners. So I think it’s good that somebody – the Royal Family – is doing all that, and being shown on the television doing it. Well done.’ His critics say he often sounds like he is telling a joke, but seldom is. They also call his interviews lame, which hurts. ‘I would say that often the simplest questions get the most revealing answers. Van Morrison asked me what sort of music I liked.

It was surprising, I had to think really hard.’ I tell him that when he sat at the piano with Carla Bruni, a singer-songwriter as well as First Lady of France, he was like a little lovestruck puppy offering his tummy to be tickled. ‘Well, I think that’s probably what I want to do to all of the guests. I’m not trying to trick them into a confession of a crime, I’m trying to celebrate their beauty. When somebody performs on the show they are revealing more about themselves. 'In the interview I said, “Who do you like?” She said, “Bessie Smith.” And – ha, it’s all coming back to me now – she actually did a bit of the Bessie Smith song, Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out. So there you are. The interview was the least important thing. I felt we got the thrust of her when she sang.’ Not everybody gets to sit at the piano and jam with the host. ‘There are some artists who are great successes but they’re not particularly musical.’ Does he realise the viewers think we can tell which bands Holland doesn’t like, by the way he introduces them?

‘I have been told that by some twitch of the eyebrow or the way I might put my hand in my pockets I am indicating pleasure or displeasure. But I would never knowingly want to appear to disapprove of anybody on the show.’ That, of course, would be bad manners. By watching his Ps and Qs, the post-punk enfant terrible with the foul mouth has slowly become an institution almost as well loved as the Queen. ‘Thank you for coming,’ he says, putting on a flat cap, for a quick trip to the newsagent. ‘It was a pleasure.’ And he’s right. It was. ‘Jools’ Annual Hootenanny’, New Year’s Eve, 11pm, BBC2 Jools Holland portrait - Telegraph National Treasures Jools Holland portrait Blues pianist Jools Holland has presented some of television’s most influential music programmes and has presided over the BBC’s New Year celebrations for 15 years.

Photo: Geoff Pugh 10:27AM BST 26 Jun 2008 His band, Jools Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, has performed on his late night show, Later With Jools Holland, since 1992, and the band has collaborated with the world’s most influential musicians. Born Julian Holland in Blackheath in 1958, he was a brilliant pianist by the age of eight, confident enough to play on the pub piano circuit by the age of 15. Influenced by BB King, Chuck Berry and Max WallHolland, Holland started his first jazz band, Squeeze, as a teenager with fellow band members Glenn Tilbrook, Chris Difford and Gilson Lavis. The group toured Britain and the US on the strength of their records Up the Junction and Cool for Cats. After leaving the band, Holland pursued a solo career for many years, while also the presenter of cult music TV shows, The Tube, with Paula Yates, and Sunday Night on America’s NBC network. He gained notoriety after inadvertently swearing on live television, causing The Tube to be taken off the air for three weeks.

However, in recent years, he has shaken off his image as the bad boy of jazz to become a highly respected soloist and accompanist. By 1987, Holland had formed his own big band, which gradually became the 18-piece Rhythm and Blues Orchestra. The band has regular slots on television, radio and live music events, and often performs for Holland’s favourite charity, The Drake Music Project. The musician married his long-term girlfriend, Christabel McEwen in 2005. He was awarded an OBE in 2003.

Question: Which group did Jools Holland leave to become a TV presenter
Answer: Squeeze