From 1982 until 1987, Holland 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 Welsh singer 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, southeast 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 southeast London and the East End Docks.[2]
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.[5]
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.[6] He referred to this in his sitcom The Groovy Fellers with Rowland Rivron.[7]
In 1983, Holland played an extended piano solo on The The's re-recording of "Uncertain Smile" for their album Soul Mining.[8] 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.[5]
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.[9] 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.[9]
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.[10] Since 1992, he has presented the music programme Later... with Jools Holland, plus an annual New Year's Eve Hootenanny.[11]
In 2004 he collaborated with Welsh singer Tom Jones on an album of traditional R&B music.[15]
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.[16] Holland currently hosts the music magazine programme Earlier with Jools Holland on BBC Radio 3 at 12.00 - 13.00 on Saturdays.[17]
He achieved his first UK number one album in 2024 with Swing Fever, a collaboration with Rod Stewart.[19]
Personal life
As a teenager, Holland lived with his grandparents,[20] 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.[21][22] On 30 August 2005, Holland married Christabel McEwen, his girlfriend of 15 years and daughter of artist Rory McEwen.[21][23] 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.[22][24]
Holland lives in Westcombe Park, southeast 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.[25] He also owns a manor house near the medieval Cooling Castle in Kent.[26][27]
He appeared on the cover of Railway Modeller magazine in January 2019.[28] In the attic of his house, Holland has spent ten years building a 100-foot (30 m) 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."[29]
In June 2006, Holland performed in Southend for HIV/AIDS charity Mildmay,[36] and in early 2007 he performed at Wells and Rochester Cathedrals to raise money for maintaining cathedral buildings.[37] He is also patron of Drake Music.[38]
Jools Holland's Rhythm and Blues Orchestra at Guilfest 2012
A fan of the 1960s TV series The Prisoner,[25] 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.[25] 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's "Book of the Week" in the week beginning 8 October 2007 and was read by Holland.[39]
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