Jools Holland: My Life in Music

-Jools.

-Jools.

-Jools Holland.

-Jools Holland.

This programme contains some strong language.

-Twat, obviously.

-LAUGHTER

Wham, bam, thank you, ma'am.

Squeeze.

Cue. Michael Jackson's willy.

-They wanted him sacked.

-The late Jools Holland.

-Jools has charm.

-Hootenanny!

It is a big band.

-That's the secret of Jools Holland.

-Grr!

PIANO MUSIC

I stepped into the world on 24 January 1958.

It was a very thundery and rainy evening.

THUNDER CRASHES London hospital.

And either side of my mother, the hospital beds,

were two Jamaican women who were screaming and wailing,

and they also gave birth at the same time.

So somewhere out there, there are two people with Jamaican mums

that have the same birthday as me.

Happy birthday, if you're watching.

I was taken home to the small bedsit in Wembley that my parents lived in,

and thank goodness I'd been given rather nice patents.

My mother and father were quite Bohemian.

My mother used to paint a little bit. They were 21 or 22 when I was born.

They were young people and they lived with their friends and so

there was like a lot of young people and a child living in the house.

It was quite, I wouldn't say disorderly, but it was quite chaotic.

At one point I remember they forgot to pay the electricity bill

so it was cut off and that was great fun,

we had oil lamps and one of them fell over and burnt a hole in the floor.

All that sort of fun thing that you go through.

We didn't have a television, but my dad read to me.

From Winnie the Pooh to the Iliad, I had the lot.

I would be taken round to art galleries or plays that they'd be interested in, that sort of thing.

They liked classical music, but they loved jazz and blues music, like,

they had Bessie Smith records, which they loved.

And to this day I think Bessie Smith is probably my favourite,

maybe my favourite singer of all time, maybe.

BESSIE SMITH SINGS

So I'd been an only child till the age of eight

which was really marvellous, being smothered in attention.

But then all that was ruined when my twin brothers were born in 1966.

And they were the most delightful little things you'd ever seen.

My oldest memory, I'm trying to remember, was about three or four,

I remember he was on a stilt,

he was on some stilts and I was just a little baby really,

he was walking around the room and then this stilt

kind of came crashing down on my head.

And he'd obviously fallen off.

But since then, he's obviously been extra nice,

trying to make up for that, I think.

So he's always been really lovely and kind, you know.

As we didn't have a bath,

I was made to go to the next street where my grandmother had a bath.

She still had an outside loo, but she had a bath.

And that was all right, but the best thing about it was she had

something much better than a bath in her house, and that was a piano.

This is the piano that I learned on.

Everybody has to learn on some instrument to be a musician,

and I'm delighted to say this was it.

And this is my dear mother playing away.

And it's a very special piano, because it's a pianola,

which means you don't even need your hands to play it.

You can just pedal away. Isn't that a lovely sound?

My mother, I think in a house we'd rented, used to play,

that's when I first heard the blues,

which would be Careless Love, I heard her playing that. But then

when it really came to life was when I heard my uncle playing boogie-woogie piano.

In a charming and simple and naive way,

which is often the best thing, how the best things are.

PLAYS PIANO And when I heard him playing that,

all of the chaos of the universe became ordered.

Everything made sense.

I wanted to jump up and down with joy hearing this music.

I couldn't believe this beautiful thing that I'd heard.

And it sort of alerted me not just to that music,

which was boogie-woogie and blues, but also all the other things

that it led to, so I'd be hearing on the radio...

MUSIC: Uptight (Everything's Alright) by Stevie Wonder

Like the Tamla Motown and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones

and all the stuff that I was hearing at the time.

# Baby

# Everything is alright, uptight... #

It was all part of the same thing. It touched the same button for me.

And for me the way I learned was by ear first.

I didn't learn to read music.

I got sent, it seemed to slow me down,

because I could listen to things and I can play...

PLAYS BOOGIE-WOOGIE

So this is great, being able to do this.

And then you go to the music lesson and it's "Well, can we play...?"

PLAYS SIMPLE TUNE

That's very agreeable, there's nothing wrong with that,

but it wasn't getting me going. And the thing for me was,

to learn something you had to love it.

And so I sort of thought to myself then,

I'm not interested in playing any music unless I love it.

MUSIC: "Lady Madonna" by the Beatles

The summer of love, the '60s drew to a close,

and I went to my next school, which was Shooters Hill school.

And there was a wonderful music teacher called Mr Pixley.

I was the only person in the whole school

who picked to do music as a subject.

So he showed me the theory of music -

what chords were called, what time signatures were called,

what key signatures were.

All of these essential bits of information.

And I would then take them away and put them together

and I'd have a Beatles songbook or Motown songbook

and all the songs I couldn't play, I suddenly found I could play.

Also it meant when I got together with Squeeze,

I could sort of understand what we were playing,

what the chords were called. And to this day it means that sometimes

when I come up against a chord, I can sort of more or less name it.

I put an advert in a sweet shop window and Glenn...

answered the advert.

And about two months later he told me that he'd been to school with a guy called Jools Holland.

The first time that we met I think we impressed each other,

and we decided to meet up again and start playing together,

which is what we did.

We used to, we used to regularly get locked into pubs

till three in the morning, just because Jools could play the piano.

It was brilliant, actually.

And when Gilson joined the band, it was just,

it just sort of all fell into place.

DRUM SOLO

Ah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah!

Ah, he makes Buddy Rich look fucking poor!

I contributed

mainly a bit of arrangement, a drum kit

and a driving licence.

When you look back at the Silver Jubilee in 1977,

you can see how young and happy we all were,

and if you said "London, Deptford, Greenwich, 1977 Silver Jubilee,"

people probably all imagine everybody dressed in Mohican hair

and kilty and punky sort of looking,

but of course it hadn't really caught on down in Greenwich like that.

It was still, everybody looked like

a rather tired episode of The Sweeney with a very low budget.

# I'm always on my own

# I'm fed up with the posters

# That hang up on my wall

# It might as well be prison

# Except I think I've got a hall

# Landlord or lady... #

Well, I had a friend, who actually was a friend of my brother Stuart,

they went to school together, he came to see me

and he says "I've got this amazing young band," you know?

"It's the next Beatles."

So off I went to Deptford and met Squeeze, signed them up.

Our first hit single was Take Me I'm Yours.

# Take me I'm yours

# Because dreams are made of this... #

Pretty quickly, our dreams came true, because we were having hits

and we were on Top Of The Pops.

A lot of people have a group and they think this is going to happen,

but before we knew it, what we imagined happened.

# I never thought it would happen with me and the girl from Clapham

# Out on the windy Common That night I ain't forgotten... #

We annoyed the record company quite a lot.

Because we didn't have an image. We didn't even want an image, really.

We were just five blokes, you know?

Jools, when he went to Jools he had the bow tie,

inappropriately chequered.

He was the one putting out a personality.

# The Indians send signals From the rocks above the pass

# The cowboys take position In the bushes and the grass

# The squaw is with the Corporal She is tied against the tree

# She doesn't mind the language It's the beating she don't need

# She lets loose all the horses When the Corporal is asleep

# And he wakes to find the fire's dead

# And arrows in his hats And Davy Crockett rides around

# And says it's cool for cats It's cool for cats

# Cool for cats... #

Cool For Cats had come out and been a great hit here,

and then Miles said we'd better go and tour in America.

At that time, nobody really had done that.

MUSIC: "Pulling Mussels" by Squeeze

They actually fit in America quite better because America was not

so committed to sort of the hard punk rock element that England was.

# Two fat ladies window-shop Something for the mantelpiece... #

It was a great experience for us to be bundled in the back of a van

and getting arrested, that sort of thing.

It was around this time that, I suppose because we were

touring all the time, I never seemed to have a moment to myself,

and I was kind of missing playing music, my own music, I suppose.

I was in charge of the direction.

And when it worked for Jools, it was great,

and there were sometimes I know he was horrified with what's going on.

It wasn't musical differences. I love the music of Squeeze.

But if Squeeze became really successful,

I'm going to become comfortable, and not want to change my situation.

So I thought it's better to get out now before I get too comfortable.

# Trying to be good by not being round... #

And Jools said to me, "Hey, if I left the band, would you manage me?"

And I said, "Yeah, I think I would, actually. That sounds great!"

# On the turn of a card The spin of a wheel

# Flip of the coin Won't you shovel up and deal

# Back it up to the hilt Jack on red

# Cold as ice Take another bet... #

Frankly the type of material that the Millionaires was doing

was fun for Jools, and was great for a live show,

but wasn't particularly album material at that time.

# Everyone get hip

# Wanna take another trip

# Take a little sip

# For the midnight jib

# Wanna do the boogie

# All night long

# Gonna have a ball

# Why don't you come along?

# But I love you

# And I don't know what to do

# I'm afraid I've done gone crazy over you

# I'm afraid I've done gone crazy over you

# I'm afraid I've done gone crazy over you

# I'm afraid I've plumb gone crazy over you. #

WOLF-WHISTLES

We made one record and it didn't really work out,

and then the record company dropped us.

At that point, I couldn't really afford to keep the group going.

And really I was at a bit of a low ebb, and I was thinking to myself,

"Well, I left Squeeze, did I do the right thing?

"Would I have been better off staying in my comfort zone,

"not taking this risk? Because now I'm kind of stuck.

"Am I just going to have to do solo piano shows?

"What am I going to have to do?"

And then the phone rang.

PHONE RINGS

Hello. This is Malcolm Gerrie. Could I speak to Jools Holland, please?

It was Tyne Tees Television in Newcastle, and they say

they're doing a brand-new, completely brand-new type of music programme,

and would I and Paula Yates like to go up and audition for it?

I'd recorded a show, a BBC documentary,

about The Police in Montserrat, a little island in the Caribbean

where they were recording their new album.

And when I put the tape on to watch it, I got an absolute shock.

Because the presenter of the show

did something which I'd never seen before. He was fresh.

-Welcome to Montserrat.

-He was passionate.

-And the radio station, Radio Antilles!

-He was irreverent.

Her Majesty's prison. For bad Montserrat people.

The thing which really caught my attention was he did an interview

in the studio with the guitarist from The Police, one Andy Summers.

-How about funk stuff, are you into funk?

-Yeah.

I think all three of us enjoy playing,

we don't actually do much on record, in funk.

And Andy started to demonstrate this.

And it went on a little bit too long,

and it was a little bit dull,

and to my absolute amazement, Jools just leant over

and pulled out the cord of Andy Summers's guitar.

I think actually that's probably best left to James Brown, isn't it?

'And I thought, you know what, this is our man.'

'This is now time for The Tube.'

You're going to see live bands, so remember, turn it up.

These people are going to go in there

and they're going to have an absolutely insane time.

From now on, you'll be watching the fantastic Tube.

# Relax! Don't do it! When you want to suck it, do it

# Relax! Don't do it! When you wanna come... #

# I am an Antichrist

# I am an anarchist... #

# I will be with you again... #

GUITAR SOLO

# A house in New Orleans

# They call the Rising Sun... #

# My hope has gone Till then I turn it on... #

# I love you baby, baby

# Baby! #

We had them all on. You name them... BOTH: We had them.

It was exciting. That was the one you wanted to watch.

Friday night, whatever was going to happen, that was a gig.

For the next five months

you're going to be able to see live music, interviews,

my stomach getting bigger week by week.

Just before the first show, Paula suddenly announced she was pregnant.

And she thought "That's it," you know. "I really want to do this,"

and she thought she was going to blow it.

And Andrea Wonfor who was the sort of presiding genius of the thing,

she thought, "So what?"

And what can I say?

One small step for pop music, one large step for fat girls.

Paula looked devastatingly beautiful

and like nothing you'd ever seen on TV before.

She was very witty and charming.

We now move on to Jools looking hunky, and stylish.

'And was kind of dizzy at all at the same time.'

And it was an extraordinary mix of all of these elements.

It's Friday, it's 5.30,

and that means spotty herberts coming through the door.

I think they just absolutely smashed through the screen.

The birthday of the world's greatest pianist,

and the world's biggest as well.

She loved him.

Loved him.

People always assumed as well

that Paula, because she was like my television wife,

they assumed she was my real wife.

My mother even, for a long time, on top of her piano at home

had a photograph of me and Paula

instead of me and my actual sort of...

-Proper wife.

-Yes, exactly.

In reality, of course, Paula wasn't my actual wife.

I had a wonderful partner called Mary

and we had two delightful children, George and Rosie.

The Tube did give us a lot of stability,

because I was becoming a household name and at last had some money

so I could sort of buy a car and things like this and the house.

It was also during this period I met my current wife Christabel,

and in 1990, we had a daughter, Mabel.

Anyway, let's get back now to the Tube.

# She was there in the heat My black beauty in the shade... #

'Part of The Tube's format was we used to send Jools'

to the far-flung corners of the world,

where there was something interesting happening musically.

And one of my favourite films was Jools in Jamaica.

# Sittin' pretty Standin' out

# Not exactly one of the crowd

# My black beauty

# What sweet sounds you make... #

When we went to Jamaica, we did a song in the street, you know,

the Black Beauty, which me and Chris Difford had written.

And the effect on me and the people was just great.

It was a magical moment.

Caught on film, that was something spontaneous caught on film.

Which I'll never forget. Great joy.

All right, what's the toaster doing on top of the fence there?

-It means that I am a toaster.

-Right.

-And I am not a boaster,

but a positive toaster.

On one of the many spin-offs that we did with Jools

in the run of The Tube over the years,

was a film called Walking To New Orleans.

# This time I'm walkin' to New Orleans

# I'm walkin' to New Orleans... #

This man Quint Davis, who's great, who ran a jazz festival,

he said "I can introduce you to Fats Domino."

Oh, that's it!

He went "Hey, that's my music! You love my music."

He could see by the way I played his music that I loved his music,

and so he said he'd be in the film, and he was in it.

It was just a very special moment.

You got it! You got it!

-Thank you very much indeed.

-Oh, baby, all right. Don't forget.

-Remember me, yeah?

-OK.

-Cos I love you.

How could we forget him? Brilliant man. Fats Domino.

'To be invited into Fats Domino's home and meet him

'and do things that were just sort of unbelievable,'

and still, to this day, are some of my most treasured memories.

MUSIC: "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Through all the chaos and the anarchy,

there was absolutely something magical.

# When two tribes go to war A point is all you can score... #

And it was kind of like freefall television.

And now we go to Jools Holland and his rhythm stick.

And nobody ever told you kind of what to do.

The show went out at 5:15 on a Friday night.

You animal, you bloody animal!

It is true that we had incidents.

'I announced Michael Jackson had a pet hamster called Willy.'

The competition is, guess the size of Michael Jackson's Willy.

Body parts were revealed.

Let's burst in on them! Bursting in!

Oh dear. Completely bursting out again all in a hurry.

Even worse, they used to do these earlier trailers

at like 3pm and 4pm that went out. They would grab them

in the middle of rehearsals and have them say something.

The camera was on me, I wasn't really thinking and I said,

"Join me! Be there, or be..." And I didn't want to say "be square,"

so instead, rather unfortunately,

I said "be a completely ungroovy fucker."

The director and I looked at each other and said, "What did he say?"

And that was a bit of a mistake

because it was really too early in the day.

The phones were white-hot.

The producers went off to be sort of hauled before the authorities.

-And they wanted him sacked.

-They had to be seen to take some action.

"It's unprofessional, you've got to get shot of him now."

It really was a bit slip of the tongue and I was rather tired.

And we managed to change his sentence

to a plea bargain of a six-week suspension.

I think as well maybe The Tube

was something that had lived on the edge so much,

that it kind of had to come to an end.

It's been a wonderful five years

but you're going to miss us when we're gone.

Because you don't appreciate us until next Friday you switch on the telly and it's some old poo,

that you don't want to see at all.

The reason that the programme finished

was that myself and Andrea Wonfor and the whole team, basically,

wanted to end on a high.

Still, tomorrow is another day. Saturday, I think.

So chill out and...bye.

Sadly, this is all now that remains of Tyne Tees Television.

This is the floor of studio five where all the bands were,

and all the music and all the joy and laughter was.

All rubble now.

It's so sad to see a creative place flattened, isn't it, really?

I suppose it's like a metaphor for everything in life.

It all ends up as dust.

We had gone to do a charity show one evening.

We had rented a car, a Vauxhall Cavalier estate.

Gilson and John were in the front.

And Christabel and Jools were in the back.

And one of them says, "'ere, what's that?"

And it was a car driving towards us, coming down the motorway.

-At that point there was a bit of, like, swearing.

-"Oh, shit!"

-Not road rage, mind you, just sort of disappointment.

-"Oh, shit!"

I braced myself because I saw what was going to happen.

I looked around. Christabel had broken her leg,

Gilson had broken his arm, smashed his face.

Ribs were broken, and I was in quite a bad way.

And John Lay, it had been awful, because he didn't have an airbag,

had hit the steering wheel.

And was really badly mashed up.

And they were pulling Gilson out of the car,

who had been in the front, and he said,

"You need to pull my mate out."

And a woman who was helping said, "Oh, no, he's dead."

At which point John Lay must have just heard this and went...

MUMBLES LOUDLY

I pulled myself up from the steering wheel and said, "I'm fucking not!"

So I thought I'd better get out of the car...

I was wincing with pain, and as I was wincing I looked up to my right

and Julian was leaning on the crash barrier doing an interview.

Jools Holland, star of stage and screen.

I woke up suddenly in my hospital bed,

like sat up with my arms out like at the steering wheel,

and looked across and in the bed opposite me was Jools.

And he's all plumped up on cushions and all the nurses,

because he was pretty well known by this stage,

all the nurses are hovering round him and pumping up his pillows

and mopping his brown and bringing him grapes and feeding him

and all that sort of stuff going on.

One of them says, "Well, the thing is,

"we've had local press interest,

"and we wondered, we got the local Exeter Times or whatever,"

"and we wondered if they could come and have a picture."

Not now, mate, you know?

The nurses came rushing in first thing in the morning with a paper

and held this newspaper up for him to read,

and I saw him nodding sagely,

and she turned it round so I could see it

and it said "Jools Holland in motorway miracle escape!"

And both John and me

laughed painfully in unison at the irony of the situation.

HE LAUGHS

All along, I suppose my big band had been going from slightly earlier,

and it really dates back to when I made the film in New Orleans

and Gilson came with me, and was sort of helping in the film.

And we did a concert in a little club in New Orleans called Snug Harbor.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage

the Jools Holland Big Band. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And then the idea is, just one man walks on,

and that's amusing, you see.

Here he is.

I've got to say, I knew it was going to happen.

In those early days of being "the big band",

when I walked out - to groans, usually -

I knew that it wouldn't be long

before there were other people walking behind me.

And probably in front of me, I should think.

You got to be careful what you wish for.

I started off saying it as a joke,

"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome my big band" and it's one bloke,

before you know it, it is a big band!

BAND PLAYS

Very nice interviewer said to me the other day, "what's your dream band?"

I said, "You don't understand. I've got it. My dream band is it."

I wouldn't want anybody else different,

I wouldn't want to sound different.

The sound that comes out of us is unique.

Please welcome the one and only, the sensational Ruby Turner!

'Different fantastic singers come and sing with us,

'but the singer who really is just part of our orchestra,

'she doesn't guest with us, she is us, is Ruby Turner.'

# No-one's ever made me feel

# That I could ever make it... #

It's not about the sound, it's about the feeling.

And then you hear this sound

and this is coming from a completely different place to the modern world.

But touching a thing that's live and vital now.

It's all those things of the church, the blues, of everything,

all mashed up into this thing that hits you like a nuclear reactor.

# Nobody but you

# Nobody but you

# I said no, nobody but you No, no, no, no

# Said nobody

# Nobody

# Nobody but you. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

We've had an amazing life, our orchestra,

and had incredible people work with us.

Sam Brown, of course, was one of the first, really.

She became our vocalist. And Sam, I wrote with a great deal.

And one of the ones we wrote, Valentine Moon,

about a little pub in Deptford.

# The streets and the markets and the old Dog and Bell

# We've gone through the changes We've lived our lives well

# But the old town... #

And when she sings that song, you're with that elderly

couple in that pub in Deptford and the mundane becomes romantic

and beautiful and I think that's probably the great thing

about any sort of paintings or music or something,

is when just nothing becomes everything.

# We danced together as old lovers do

# Valentine moon

# Valentine moon

# We always remember our

# Valentine moon. #

APPLAUSE

Thank you.

BAND PLAYS

I love it. I would go five nights a week if I could.

What am I going to do the other two nights?

I haven't worked it out.

I just said five to hint that I have some mysterious other life - I don't.

I'll go seven nights a week.

It's just a marvellous thing because you know how much more money

he could make if he just had a trio and people would still want to come and see it.

But he likes, you know, he has a big payroll and, you know,

that's typical of him.

It's hard enough doing it with...

If you were just, like, two of you, that would be tricky,

but when you don't even know how many people there are -

oh, my word - how everybody organises it for us, I don't know.

But I'm so pleased that they do.

When the Rhythm And Blues Orchestra is not on tour,

you'll find us here at my studios - rehearsing, recording,

making radio shows and eating sandwiches.

This is the entrance to my studio, the great portal. St Cecilia Place.

St Cecilia, of course, being the patron saint of music.

Music is, I'm delighted to say, has been my life but, I suppose,

as a hobby, I suppose, architecture has been my hobby

and I've enjoyed building.

Let's take a break and look at some of my dirty pictures.

Here is a rather grubby hard-core picture that

I made myself of this building here.

If you love these buildings, you sketch them.

The other thing you do is measure them.

In measuring these buildings one of the things I have understood is

that they are all on a rather small scale, which adds to their charm.

So, the question that a lot of you are probably asking

yourselves is, "Hey, what does he know about architecture?

"He is a pianist." Well, the answer is very little until I came here.

This place, Portmeirion, designed by the architectural magician

Clough Williams-Ellis.

Going there, I realised that you could really start to build your own

things so I started to build Helicon and I could never stop, really.

It was like it was a nervous habit that I had.

A classical arch topped off by a couple of lions and a unicorn.

Now, this herb garden is the beginning of my real

Portmeirion style.

As you can see in the background here, Fred the builder,

who's built all of this station, is building a little,

what's going to be a cylindrical temple with a dome on top of it.

Canary Dwarf.

This building is based on lovely doll's house proportions.

It's a nice small scale.

A lovely lion up there and a Venetian window here.

The details of his buildings, which he has got a few,

are taken from just travelling the country and seeing things

and photographing it and then reproducing a window.

Quatrefoil window.

Or a mullion.

That's a rather nice 3-D hobby and it means that you do a sketch

and it becomes three-dimensional.

I suppose it's a bit like music - you do a sketch on the piano

then becomes three-dimensional with a band.

A Victorian railway station complete with its canopy and ogee windows.

We built this in about 1988 to house my recording studios.

After it was finished, a lovely little old lady came down here

and said to me, "Oh, it's so lovely.

"I remember when this was an old station in the 1960s

"and we used to get trains to Waterloo from here."

That made me so happy because it never, ever had been a station.

Fortunately, I have planning permission to use this facade on

the front of these buildings here

when we extend the studio within there.

Instead of just a boring breezeblock sort of lump,

we'll have this charming doll's house facade on the exterior.

The main facade of Helicon - our studios.

You can see here the coin stones, seven arches, a balcony

from which you can make speeches and a lovely unicorn up on the top here.

This is the door where all the musicians and artists come in and go out.

So, as you can see, I've had a lot of fun building

and I hope that I've brightened up the world around me

with my bits of fun that I've built,

but the buildings are only a frame and an enclosure.

And they enclose the most important thing and that's the people

and the music that we make.

# You got me in between the devil and the deep blue sea. #

# I'm the one

# Yes, I'm the one

# I'm the one, I'm the one

# The one they call the seventh son. #

At the turn of the century, all these different experiences

we've had led us to making these records of collaborations,

which were phenomenally successful, I have to say.

They sold more records than I'd ever dreamed of before.

# I'm the one

# Yes, I'm the one. #

One of the first people, which I thought was very touching,

to agree to be on this first Friends record that we did was

George Harrison and Sting was the other one.

George I had met because we'd been filming The Beatles

and we had sort of become friends

when we were filming the film about their anthology.

And he had been great and he was very, you know,

he is a very funny, kind, gentle and agreeable fellow.

One of the nicest people you could meet, really.

And he said, "I'll do your record." And when it got to doing the record,

actually, he was quite ill and I said,

"If you're not well, you don't want to do this,"

and he said, "No, no, I said I'd do it so I want to do it."

And he started to do it and the most interesting thing was this -

by carrying out the act of music, it, for those moments when he was

playing and singing, it kind of made him better and enabled him to

be well, which I think is one of the extraordinary things about music.

It does do that. It gets people out of where they are for the moment.

But I think that was the last record he made, the one with us.

# You can take a horse to the water but you can't make it drink

# Oh no, oh no

# Oh no. #

With Jools, you know, we are in tune with one another.

And so when he said, "Do you fancy doing an album together,"

I said, "Yeah."

And that was a very enjoyable year, the year we did that record.

# Well, if you hear somebody knocking on your door

# If you see something crawling across the floor

# Baby, it'll be me

# And I'll be looking for you. #

And he is, of course, a great boogie-ist and always has been.

When he first started he was a boogie-ist and he is one to this day.

Also, he knows when to take it right back down to nothing.

We did an Elvis Presley song called Mess Of Blues

and it's just Jools and I.

# I just got your letter, baby

# Too bad you can't come home. #

So, that's what I feel with Jools will only record, you know,

that we are both doing something that we both love.

The attitude in music is, I think, one of the main things I've learnt is you learn from the masters,

the people you admire. I always admired Ray Charles.

Not just cos of the beautiful way he played and sang.

Whether it was a song he had written or someone else's song,

he just kind of brought it to life, for me.

But his attitude as well.

And I met him earlier on when we had been doing The Tube

and he said something to me that had stuck with me.

It would be good if, if, if,

if the people would just remember my music as being sincere.

I was talking to Sam and we said, "We've got to write a song."

So we wrote the song and we thought, "We've got to get this to Ray."

So we got it to Ray and he thought it was great

but it was when he was, unfortunately,

near the end of his life and he was very ill so he wasn't able to do it.

But Paul Rodgers heard this song, who has got an amazing voice,

and said, "That song has been written for me, I feel it."

And that was, I think, probably the greatest compliment you could

have from an artist about a song when he says, "It's written for me."

And then when he sang it, it's his song now, not ours.

It's become his.

# The world has listened to my every sound

# I've drowned in my tears and I've messed around

# But whatever I've done

# Whatever I do

# I've told the truth

# Now, let me say... #

My music career was going in directions that I always dreamed of.

But where was my television career?

Ding-dong - the phone rang once again.

A guy called me and his name was John Head

and he was producer of a thing called Sunday Night.

A lot of the top New York session musicians, jazzers, were

going to be the house band and would you come and do the show as well?

And it was with a huge American producer -

the guy that did Saturday Night Live. So this was like,

"Oh, my God, we've really scored this time."

-APPLAUSE

-Good evening.

I'm thinking, "This is fantastic.

We've got America going now and we've got England going now and that's fantastic."

I know Jools and me played something together on that show.

So when we finally did hook up - it was special.

It's not about just Jools as my partner or my friend,

it's the fact that he plays his ass off.

That is the key to the kingdom.

I think that was probably, for me, one of the best,

one of my most enjoyable moments when out in New York.

APPLAUSE

It was a great experience to be working in America,

playing the music I loved.

This meant commuting once a week on Concorde.

This started out as fun but after a while became rather wearing.

There was no time for anything else, even my own family.

On top of all this, I was turning down offers of live gigs

and television work back at home.

It had been an amazing experience making a network show for NBC

and Lorne Michaels in New York but, ultimately, I had to resign.

MUSIC: "The Prisoner Theme" by Ron Grainer

So, we're making a music show and they...

it's advised that people have protective earplugs.

Must be the only music show where you're given earplugs on the way in.

We're off Neil Sedaka round the piano, please, Eric,

and we're wrapping.

He's the bloke that will be filming me.

Eric and I, we're like hand in glove.

It's called prompt boards in some worlds.

I think here they are called idiot boards.

-Sam's being me now, you see.

-Just like you.

She's being me so I don't have to really bother, really.

I don't know if I'll turn up.

Will you give me something down the line and let's see what looks like?

No pressure, we're live. Tense up, everybody. Let's get in the studio.

That is the complete extent of rehearsal.

25th of September, 10 o'clock, that would make it

approximately 20 years

since we've been doing this show.

20 years. You don't get that for armed robbery.

But there we are, it has been 20 fantastic years.

We are a family. We have been a family for years.

Most of the people working on this show have worked on it

since it started, you know, and that's a triumph, really.

Thank you very much. Good evening, welcome, ladies and gentlemen,

to the first show of these shows

Later... with me the late Jools Holland.

Well, certainly I didn't know that much about television

when we started or all the golden rules of television

so one of the good things about Later was

we have sort of developed it from the ground up.

Later is... It's hardly a format.

It's a bunch of bands, some good, some bad,

but it only works because you've got a ringmaster.

The fit that we did have, that Janet and myself and Mark

worked out, was for me to be in the middle of the room

and everything work around me - that was the real key to it.

We wanted the people at home to be the people experiencing

the show and not to see it third hand through the veil of an audience

so when we did get an audience, we put them behind the band.

It's a great feeling on there - you don't feel like,

"Oh, I'm on a TV show now."

# And now I've found you Yes, I've found you. #

It's more of a relaxed feel.

The musicians know that it is about them and I think that's important.

And they know that Jools brings them all together and makes the room work.

It's just his natural way, which is unbounded enthusiasm for everything.

Welcome to another beautifully-packed Later.

He hasn't really moved on from The Tube cos there is no moving on,

that's who he is.

Was that too alarming for you over there?

No, they liked it. You see, that's exactly the sort of thing they like.

So, the idea of just introducing people, I wasn't so mad about

that because there were people who could do that loads better than me.

But the idea of interacting with them,

that I thought was interesting to me.

-# You make me feel

-You make me feel

# You make me fee-ee-eel

# And you make me feel like a natural woman

# Yea-a-a-ah! #

And Liza Minnelli came on.

She was the one person that could smoke around the BBC

and everyone was too frightened to tell her to put it out.

# Mama may have and Papa may have

# But God bless a child that's got his own... #

She was such an incredible nervous energy and full of talent.

# Oh, yea-a-a-ah! #

We have lots of famous artists, lots of legends,

lots of very current ones, but hopefully we use that power to introduce new people,

that's a part of the calling card of the show, I think.

# We need to take it back in time When music made us all unite

# And it wasn't low blows and video ho's

# Am I the only one getting tired? #

I think if you're asked to perform on Later with Jools,

you definitely know that there's something that you're doing right.

You know, it feels like you've just got a sticker at school.

Give us a bit of this, would you?

HE PLAYS PIANO

-That's like a gauntlet you've thrown down.

-I have.

He is so unruffled and so cheerful about whatever he's doing that

things like rehearsal seem, well, fleeting at best.

I think I went to his dressing room for about four minutes

and he said, "What shall we do?" So that's one minute gone

while we are talking about what we are going to do.

And then, "What key shall we do it in?" That's the second minute gone.

"Shall we try it?" Then he kind of went, "No, it'll be fine."

So, they're sitting where I should be sitting for the light.

That's for the lighting.

Later on, that'll be me...

and Lisa Marie Presley sitting over there having a chat.

Were you aware of music from your dad or sort of music that was around the house?

Was that something that inspired you when you were small?

I've always had, you know, a tiny, little record player.

Music was always such a big part of my life since before, I think,

before I was aware of what was going on.

I have never really made any great claims to be a great

inquisitor or questioner.

What got you into poetry?

Well, I don't know, I thought that was the way to, kind of,

win women's hearts.

The man's a past master with gibberish so he can waffle

and speak pants to anybody and make it sound incredibly interesting.

That's interesting though - left-hand instruments.

Do you find that you're always seeking out

a left-handed this or left-handed that?

Really, yeah, cos I don't play right-handed ones.

LAUGHTER

-Right-handed piano.

-OK, you got me there.

We would quite often like the interviews to be more

journalistic but I think we are probably slightly missing the point

because essentially Later is a show,

and what Jools' job in the interview is to do

is to make those people feel welcome and at home

and tease out some comfort and sense of personality out of them.

-Now I'm used to your sense of humour.

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

What sort of adjustments do you have to make?

Well, really, I discovered that all you have to do is be a little more

sarcastic and you fit right in.

Paul McCartney came on and he did Lady Madonna and, as a child,

I'd learned that piece on the piano.

I said, "Wow, I used to play that on the piano when I was kid."

And he said, "Play it to me." I played it. He said, "It doesn't go quite like that."

He showed me this little way the notes slid and I thought,

"I can't believe this is like, I've got the best job on earth."

# Lady Madonna, baby at your breast

# Wonder how you manage to feed the rest. #

So, Later had been running for a couple of years

and obviously with the Big Band we are still doing lots of shows

and we were doing a show in Aberdeen.

So, we were driving up in the car.

It was when the first car telephones had happened and I was

so excited to have this big sort of phone with a coily wire

and you'd answer it like that. I loved it.

And if anybody rang me it just made my day as I could pick up

the phone, "Ah, yes." The phone rings - Mark Cooper.

He said he thinks we should do a New Year's Eve show

and he thinks we should call it the Hootenanny.

He said, "I'm not sure what a hootenanny is."

But we both knew what he meant somehow. I think a big knees-up on a New Year's Eve.

I said, "Great idea. We could do that. That would be great.

"Have a band there, good idea."

Then I put the phone down and Steve the tour manager leans over

and says, "Traffic's on." Traffic news comes on

and says that they were having a memorial service of Andy Stewart.

Andy Stewart was a lovely man who had, of course,

made the White Heather Club which was the New Year's Eve special

from Scotland that they had every year when I was growing up. I remember it.

# Should auld acquaintance be forgot

# and auld lang syne. #

And he had sadly died but they were having his memorial

service in Arbroath and it said, "Avoid Arbroath, plenty of traffic."

I said, "No, we're not avoiding it. Go straight in there.

"We're laying some flowers for him and then we'll pick up the baton,

"spiritually, so to speak, of doing a New Year's Eve show."

Happy New Year! Happy New Year!

The Hootenanny.

Hootenanny!

AUDIENCE: Hootenanny!

The biggest party a studio's ever seen.

It's the best New Year's Eve -

and I'm working - that you can ever possibly have.

Happy New Year.

PIPERS PLAY AULD LANG SYNE

Jools has become the new Andy Stewart, hasn't he, on New Year's Eve?

And the traditional sound of the Big Band and

the Rhythm And Blues Orchestra really, I think, suits the occasion.

# Give my baby a 99 degree

# She jumped up and throw the pistol down on me

# Stop breakin' down

# Please, stop breakin' down. #

Eric Clapton came on and was just amazing.

Playing the blues on that show with the Big Band on New Year's Eve

is really where you want to be more than anywhere on earth.

And you are there.

On one of them, Amy Winehouse, I remember,

she did Teach Me Tonight where you see a completely different Amy.

# One thing isn't very clear, my love

# Should a teacher stand so near, my love?

# Graduation's almost here, my love

# Mmm, teach me tonight. #

On another show she came on with Paul Weller

and it was his idea to do Don't Go To Strangers

and he was singing it great and when her voice comes in you think,

"This is like, she's like Dinah Washington."

# Oh, don't go to strangers

# My darling, come to me. #

If you see it back, watch it back,

apart from her being fantastic on it,

there is also a point where me

and Jools, who were both playing keyboards, were just smiling,

just beaming just to hear her voice, you know.

# ..So make your mark

# For your friends to see

# Baby, but when you need

# When you need when you need company

# No, don't go to strangers

# My darling, come to me-e-e-e

# Whoo, come to me. #

Mr Paul Weller!

There is also, because it's New Year's Eve,

a feeling of camaraderie.

So you can have the biggest stars and, as on one show,

we had Ruby singing the song at the end and, you know,

"Shall we get people singing verses?"

Paul McCartney said, "No, no.

"We'll all sing the backing vocals and Ruby sings the lead."

-# Up above my head

-Up above my head

-# I hear music in the air

-I hear music in the air

-# Up above my head

-Up above my head

-# I say, I hear music in the air

-I hear music in the air

-# Up above my head, Lord

-Up above my head

-# I say, I hear music in the air

-I hear music in the air

# I really do believe there is a heaven somewhere

# Heaven somewhere. #

It's an incredible month.

You wouldn't see those stars being backing vocalists and singing

so sweetly anywhere else on earth.

-# Up above my head, Lord

-Up above my head

-# I hear music in the air

-I hear music in the air

-# Up above my head, Lord

-Up above my head

-# I say, I hear rockin' in the air

-I hear rockin' in the air

-# Up above my head

-Up above my head

-# I hear jumpin'

-I hear jumpin'

# I really do believe it There is a heaven somewhere

# Heaven somewhere

# Oh, yeah. #

Happy New Year.

So, you know, is Jools, professionally,

is he a broadcaster or a musician? He's a musician. That's what he is.

You know, I bet you could throw the lot away, give him a piano,

a stage and a bunch of guys to play with - that'll do me.

Jools - he's the real McGillicuddy.

You have the respect level as a musician but as a human you go,

"I like this guy." That's the secret of Jools Holland.

Unpredictable, very wise, astute,

desperately single-minded,

unbelievably so, almost shameless as well, which is a wonderful trait.

I have not found a flaw in Jools Holland.

He's not as tall as he looks on television.

That is a flaw.

I think if one were to choose an exemplar of Britain,

you really couldn't get much better than Jools.

He is a national treasure. I can't think of anybody else who actually encapsulates

all of those different ingredients.

If he was a drink, I think that would be my favourite cocktail.

This is my life, it's what I've done now, I'm not doing it, you know...

I'm going to make music and build buildings, that's what I've done.

I'm not going to change now and then be, have a job as the head

of the National Gallery or open a cafe in Pontypridd.

I'm going to stick with what I'm doing, you know. That's my life, man.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd