Jools Holland

Julian Miles Holland (born 24 January 1958) is an English pianist, bandleader, singer, composer and television presenter. He was an original member of the band Squeeze and has worked with many artists including Marc Almond, Joss Stone, Jayne County, Tom Jones, José Feliciano, Sting, Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, George Harrison, David Gilmour, Ringo Starr, Bono, Rod Stewart and Ruby Turner.

From 1982 until 1987, he co-presented the Channel 4 music programme The Tube. Since 1992, he has hosted Later... with Jools Holland, a music-based show aired on BBC2, on which his annual show Hootenanny is based. Holland is a published author and appears on television shows besides his own. He regularly hosted the programme Jools Holland on BBC Radio 2. In 2004 he collaborated with Tom Jones on an album of traditional R&B music. He achieved his first UK number one album in 2024 with Swing Fever, a collaboration with Rod Stewart.

Early life and education
Holland was born on 24 January 1958 in Blackheath, South East London. At the age of eight, he could play the piano fluently by ear. By his early teens he was appearing regularly in many of the pubs in South East London and the East End Docks.

Holland was educated at Shooters Hill Grammar School in southeast London, from which he was expelled for damaging a teacher's Triumph Herald.

Career
Holland began his career as a session musician. His first studio session was with Wayne County & the Electric Chairs in 1976 on their track "Fuck Off".

Holland was a founding member of the British pop band Squeeze, formed in March 1974, in which he played keyboards until 1980, through its first three albums, the eponymous Squeeze, Cool for Cats and Argybargy, before pursuing his solo career.

Holland began issuing solo records in 1978, his first EP being 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 used the phrase, "be there, or be an ungroovy fucker" in one early evening TV trailer for the show, live across two channels, causing him to be suspended from the show for six weeks. He referred to this in his sitcom The Groovy Fellers with Rowland Rivron. Holland also appeared as a guest host on MTV.

In 1983, Holland played an extended piano solo on The The's re-recording of "Uncertain Smile" for the album Soul Mining. In 1985, Squeeze (which had continued in Holland's absence through to 1982) unexpectedly regrouped including Holland as their keyboard player. Holland remained in the band until 1990, at which point he again departed to resume his solo career as a musician and a TV host.

In 1987, Holland formed the Jools Holland Big Band, which consisted of himself and for the show Gilson Lavis from Squeeze, which gradually grew and was renamed as Jools Holland's Rhythm and Blues Orchestra. In May 2022, it was a 17-piece orchestra and included singers Louise Marshall, Ruby Turner and Holland's daughter Mabel Ray, as well as his younger brother, singer-songwriter and keyboard player, Christopher Holland.

Between 1988 and 1990 Holland performed and co-hosted along with David Sanborn during the two seasons of the music performance programme Sunday Night on NBC late-night television. Since 1992, he has presented the music programme Later... with Jools Holland, plus an annual New Year's Eve Hootenanny.

In 1996, Holland signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records, and his records are now marketed through Rhino Records. On 29 November 2002, Holland was in the ensemble of musicians who performed at the Concert for George, which celebrated the music of George Harrison. In January 2005 Holland and his band performed with Eric Clapton as the headline act of the Tsunami Relief Cardiff.

On BBC Radio 2 Holland regularly hosted the programme Jools Holland, a mix of live and recorded music and general chat, featuring studio guests, along with members of his orchestra.

In March 2023, Jimmy Barnes announced the formation of supergroup The Barnestormers, featuring Barnes, Chris Cheney, Slim Jim Phantom, Jools Holland and Kevin Shirley. A self-titled album was released on 26 May 2023.

Personal life
As a teenager, Holland lived with his grandparents, which he mentioned anecdotally in a 2020 episode of Rhod Gilbert's Growing Pains.

Holland has a son, George, and daughter, Rose, with his former partner Mary Leahy. On 30 August 2005, Holland married Christabel McEwen, his girlfriend of 15 years and daughter of artist Rory McEwen. The couple have a daughter, Mabel, and McEwen has a son, Frederick Lambton, Viscount Lambton, by her former marriage to Ned Lambton, the 7th Earl of Durham.

Holland lives in Westcombe Park, south east London, where he had his studio, Helicon Mountain, built to his design and inspired by Portmeirion, the setting for the 1960s TV series The Prisoner. He also owns a manor house near the medieval Cooling Castle in Kent.

He appeared on the cover of Railway Modeller magazine in January 2019. In the attic of his house, Holland has spent ten years building a 100 ft model railway. It is full of miniature buildings and landscapes that stretch from Berlin to London. He started with photographs and paintings from early 1960s London. According to The Daily Telegraph, "In the evenings, he builds some trains and buildings before switching on some music, pouring a glass of wine and switching on the trains to watch them move around the room."

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. In September 2006, Holland was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Kent. Holland was appointed an honorary fellow of Canterbury Christ Church University at a ceremony held at Canterbury Cathedral on 30 January 2009. On 1 February 2011 he was appointed honorary colonel of 101 (City of London) Engineer Regiment. Holland has been the President of the British Watch & Clock Makers Guild since 2018, and an honorary liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Plumbers since 2019.

In June 2006, Holland performed in Southend for HIV/AIDS charity Mildmay, and in early 2007 he performed at Wells and Rochester Cathedrals to raise money for maintaining cathedral buildings. He is also patron of Drake Music.

A fan of the 1960s TV series The Prisoner, in 1987 Holland demonstrated his love of the series and starred in a spoof documentary, The Laughing Prisoner, with Stephen Fry, Terence Alexander and Hugh Laurie. Much of it was shot on location in Portmeirion, with archive footage of Patrick McGoohan. It featured musical selections by Siouxsie and the Banshees, Magnum and XTC. Holland performed a number towards the end of the programme.

Holland was an interviewer for The Beatles Anthology TV project, and appeared in the 1997 film Spiceworld as a musical director.

In 2009, Holland commissioned TV series Bangla Bangers (Chop Shop) to create a replica of the Rover JET1 for personal use.

Writing
His 2007 autobiography, Barefaced Lies and Boogie-Woogie Boasts, was BBC Radio 4 "Book of the Week" in the week beginning 8 October 2007 and was read by Holland.

Releases
• 1978 "Boogie Woogie '78" (EP)

• 1981 Jools Holland and His Millionaires

• 1984 Jools Holland Meets Rock 'A' Boogie Billy (US release only)

• 1990 World of His Own

• 1991 The Full Complement

• 1992 "Together Again" (single with Sam Brown)

• 1992 The A–Z Geographer's Guide to the Piano

• 1994 Solo Piano

• 1994 Live Performance

• 1996 Sex & Jazz & Rock & Roll

• 1997 Lift the Lid

• 1998 Best Of

• 1999 Sunset Over London

• 2000 Hop the Wag

• 2001 Small World Big Band

• 2001 Jools Holland's Big Band Rhythm & Blues

• 2002 SWBB Volume Two: More Friends

• 2003 Jack O the Green (SWBB Friends 3)

• 2004 Tom Jones & Jools Holland

• 2005 Beatroute

• 2005 Swinging the Blues, Dancing the Ska

• 2006 Moving Out to the Country

• 2007 Best of Friends

• 2008 The Collection

• 2008 The Informer (with Ruby Turner)

• 2008 "The Informer" (single with Ruby Turner)

• 2009 "I Went By" (single with Louise Marshall)

• 2010 Rockinghorse

• 2011 Finding the Keys: The Best of Jools Holland

• 2012 The Golden Age of Song

• 2014 Sirens of Song (UK No. 25)

• 2015 Jools & Ruby (with Ruby Turner)

• 2016 Piano

• 2017 As You See Me Now (with José Feliciano)

• 2018 A Lovely Life to Live (with Marc Almond)

• 2021 Pianola. Piano & Friends

Film and television
• 1981 Otway & Barrett Live

• 1981 Urgh! A Music War

• 1982 Police: Around the World

• 1982–1987 The Tube (Host for 121 editions)

• 1983 Rebellious Jukebox: Compere

• 1984 The Young Ones: punk (episode entitled "Cash")

• 1985 Walking to New Orleans (Jools Holland in New Orleans)

• 1987 Eat the Rich: Sun Reporter

• 1987 Filthy Rich & Catflap: Strip Show Pianist (Episode No. 1.3)

• 1987 The Laughing Prisoner: No. 7

• 1987 French and Saunders (Episode 1.5)

• 1988 Sunday Night: Host (unknown episodes)

• 1989-1990 Juke Box Jury: Host (unknown episodes)

• 1989 The Groovy Fellers Himself, 6 episodes

• 1990-1992 Jools Holland's Happening (Noel Gay Productions 37 episodes (BSB 1990-1991); 12 episodes (Channel 4, 1991-1992). Entire series believed lost )

• 1991 Mr Roadrunner (Jools Holland in Memphis)

• 1994 There's No Business...: Pianist (uncredited)

• 1994–1995 Don't Forget Your Toothbrush

• 1995 The Beatles Anthology

• 1997 Spice World: Musical Director

• 1997 Name That Tune: Host and Pianist

• 1998 Beat Route: Round the World with Jools Holland: Host and Pianist

• 2001 Astley's Way: Tribute to composer Edwin Astley

• 2003 Jools' History of the Piano: Presenter

• 2007 Fairport@Forty: Interview

• 2007 Top Gear: Star in a reasonably priced car.

• 2009 Chop Shop Rover Concept: The Jet 1 Car : Customer

• 2012 Jools Holland – London Calling: Presenter

• 2014 The Life of Rock with Brian Pern as himself

• 2023 Little Trains & Big Names with Pete Waterman as himself

Current television programmes

 * 1992–present Later... with Jools Holland
 * 1993–present Hootenanny
 * 2020–present Celebrity Gogglebox with Vic Reeves

Books

 * "Rolling Stones": A Life on the Road (with Dora Loewenstein), Viking/Allen Lane (1998) (ISBN 0-670-88051-5)
 * Beat Route: Journeys Through Six Counties, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (1998) (ISBN 0-575-06700-4)
 * Ray Charles: Man and Music, (with Michael Lydon), Payback Press (1999) (ISBN 0-86241-929-8)
 * Hand That Changed Its Mind,  International Music Publications (2007) (ISBN 1-84328-645-9)
 * Barefaced Lies and Boogie-woogie Boasts, Penguin Books (2007) (ISBN 9780718149154)