Jools Holland
Desert Island Discs
BBC
4.3 • 14.3K Ratings
🗓️ 5 October 1997
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the musician and presenter Jools Holland. He first shot into the public eye when he made what he still calls "a bit of a verbal slip", and used a four-letter word on the teenage music show The Tube. These days he hosts a late night television programme, where he plays alongside such musical greats as Eric Clapton, Oasis and Tony Bennett. His own musical performance has evolved and expanded from the days when he and a mate would tour the pubs for a few pounds, a drink and a lot of adoration. In the 1970s he found success with his punk group, Squeeze. And he now fronts his own, 12-man rhythm and blues orchestra. A long way from where he began as a small boy, playing boogie woogie on his grandmother's pianola.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: (We're Gonna) Jump For Joy by Big Joe Turner Book: Four Books of Architecture by Andrea Palladio Luxury: Piano
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. |
| 0:05.0 | For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. |
| 0:08.0 | The program was originally broadcast in 1997, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a musician, a London boy, he grew up scruffy, naughty, but happy, and by the age of 15 had left school to earn his living playing the piano in local pubs. |
| 0:42.0 | It was a life he loved and to some extent epitomizes the kind of performer he's remained. Easy going, a bit risky, close to his roots. |
| 0:50.0 | He formed a band called The Squeeze, had a couple of hits, and then became the presenter of Channel 4's The Tube. |
| 0:56.5 | It became the cult show of the 80s and made him a household name. |
| 1:00.0 | Although he still performs with his big band, it's through television that he's best known. |
| 1:05.2 | Particularly, thanks to the BBC II program now in its ninth series, |
| 1:09.2 | Later, with my castaway, Jules Holland. |
| 1:12.2 | Would you say, Jules, that you're still primarily a pianist or |
| 1:15.2 | would you now admit to being a professional television presenter? |
| 1:18.0 | I enjoy being on the television. It's given me a great opportunity to meet lots of people who have |
| 1:21.6 | been on the programs we've had and to learn a lot from them. |
| 1:24.6 | But you know we make maybe we make to spend 12 days a year making later and you know a hundred days a year |
| 1:31.6 | touring so... But you're right I but you get to play with all sorts of |
| 1:35.2 | big names like Luther Van Ross and the sting and so on it has been great and of course |
| 1:39.8 | every year |
| 1:43.0 | the who's in the who's in handy where my orchestra come and we get people |
| 1:45.6 | with it who had Dr John and Paul Weller and Eric Clapton |
| 1:48.1 | these people and it's great to put to put all this together and have this feeling of excitement and then broadcast it. |
| 1:54.8 | But to that extent, I mean it's a job made in heaven for you, isn't? |
| 1:58.7 | It is, but I have to say that most of the jobs I have had have been jobs made in heaven. |
... |
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