Jools Holland

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety seven, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My castaway this week is a musician, a London boy. He grew up scruffy, naughty, but happy, and by the age of fifteen had left school to earn his living playing the piano in local pubs. It was a life he loved, and to some extent epitomises the kind of performer he's remained. Easy going, a bit risky, close to his roots. He formed a band called The Squeeze, had a couple of hits, and then became the presenter of Channel Four's The Tube. It became the cult show of the eighties and made him a household name. Although he still performs with his big band, it's through television that he's best known, particularly thanks to the BBC Two programme now in its ninth series, Later, with my castaway, Jules Holland. Would you say, Jules, that you're still primarily a pianist, or would you now admit to being a professional television presenter?

Jools Holland1:17

I enjoy being on the television. It's given me a great opportunity to meet lots of people who have been on the programmes we've had and to learn a lot from them. But you know, we make maybe we make spend twelve days a year making later and a hundred days a year touring. So

Presenter1:33

But you're right. I mean you get to play with all sorts of big names like Luther Van Dross and the and Sting and so on.

Jools Holland1:38

It has been great, and of course every year BBC Two have a a big celebration of New Year's Eve, the Hootenani, where my orchestra come and we get people with us. We have Doctor John and Paul Weller and Eric Clapton and these people and it's great to put all this together and have this feeling of excitement and then broadcast it.

Presenter1:54

But to that extent, I mean, it's it's a job made in heaven for you, isn't it?

Jools Holland1:58

It is, but I have to say that most of the jobs I have had have been jobs made in heaven.

Presenter2:02

But which do you find more demanding, playing in the band or presenting television?

Jools Holland2:08

Well, I think presenting is harder because you have to think of things to say and I find it easier it's it's comes more naturally playing the piano and you have to concentrate more, I think, with the television or I do have to concentrate on thinking what you're going to say or what you're going to ask people or sometimes

Presenter2:21

But sometimes you don't know what you're going to say.

Jools Holland2:23

Come on.

Presenter2:23

Yeah.

Jools Holland2:24

Too right. Exactly. And that's true, of course, with the piano. You sit down, you don't know quite what's going to come up. But once you start to get it. So, is what you're doing.

Presenter2:31

So is what you're doing on the television similar sometimes to the way you play the piano? It's you're kind of improvising as you go.

Jools Holland2:37

It's improvised on a lifetime of experience. That's right. Yeah.

Presenter2:40

I see.

Presenter2:42

Tell me about your first record.

Jools Holland2:44

Uh my first record that I've chosen is in uh I have to say that it's been one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do to choose the records I'd go to a desert island with. And in the end I realized you can't it's not your eight favourite records, it's the eight records that will respond to the situation of being on a desert island, because sometimes you will want to leave your some favourite records at home because it would give you something to another reason to want to escape I suppose. But my first record um I've chosen because this would be the first thing I would play as soon as I was washed up on the shore.

Speaker 43:13

Yeah.

Speaker 43:15

Let's have some fun!

Speaker 43:17

You only live but once, and when you're dead, you're done. So let the good time roll.

Speaker 43:25

I say let the good time roll.

Speaker 43:31

I don't care if you're young or old.

Speaker 43:33

You ought to get together and let a good time roll out.

Speaker 43:40

Don't sit there mumbling.

Speaker 43:43

Talking fresh

Speaker 43:45

If you want to have a ball, you got to go out and spend some cash.

Speaker 43:49

And let the good time roll now.

Speaker 43:53

I'm talking about the good times.

Speaker 43:58

Well, it makes no difference whether you're young or old.

Speaker 44:00

All you gotta do is get together and let the good time roll.

Presenter4:11

Ray Charles and Let the Good Times Roll.

Presenter4:15

Do you remember the first time you sat in front of a piano?

Jools Holland4:19

My grandmother had a piano in her front room.

Jools Holland4:22

as did many people. And of course in London in the nineteen thirties there were more pianos than there were cars, a thing that of course is completely r the opposite now. And so I think it was quite a common thing for people to have in their front room their special in their sort of private place where people might have their video or whatever now they'd have a piano. And this was a pianola.

Speaker 14:41

Hello.

Jools Holland4:41

And I remember being quite impressed because although I couldn't pump the pedals to play it, other people did, and I would hear sort of tunes like Red Sails and the Sunset and stuff like this.

Jools Holland4:50

Um and then one afternoon my uh uncle sat down and st and played this boogie woogie piece which he knew of by heart and uh I was completely taken with it. And he taught it to me and then I kept playing it, which would have been a bit boring for the people listening, which is why I learnt to improvise around it. So really the first thing that I learnt was to improvise around uh the blues.

Presenter5:11

And did you copy records, or did you always copy your uncle?

Jools Holland5:14

Uh I tried to copy records. Uh I think it's one of the most important things in being a musician. Um in fact, r Ray Charles said this once to me, that the thing to do is to try and imitate the people that you really like and then imitate them and then maybe in four or five years' time come back and try and imitate them again and you'll hear a cou you know, you'll hear something new in in what they're doing and what you're trying to do.

Presenter5:33

And what happened to the piano, I wonder?

Jools Holland5:35

Um, we sh we still have it.

Presenter5:36

Dear?

Jools Holland5:37

Dude.

Presenter5:38

He's rather fond of them.

Jools Holland5:39

Yes, it's great. And of course when you play it, I mean it's like that's the thing with an instrument that th that is quite old. I mean it was a it was a wedding present uh for my grandparents and uh they uh in nineteen thirty six I think it's chalked on the back of it. But because uh it's it was been pounded and pounded, it plays very it's it's got a certain uh ease of playing and so it's like being reunited with an old friend when you run your hands across it.

Presenter6:00

But grandma's was home, wasn't it? Because you know, your parents were always moving around avoiding the rent collectors.

Jools Holland6:06

Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, I think, but um I mean no, I mean we moved around a lot, but I think we en we enjoyed a change of scene. Um

Jools Holland6:14

Uh and uh we didn't have a piano, so I would have to go round there to uh play it. And also I don't think we had a bath, which was marvellous.

Jools Holland6:24

Um but she did so. She had all the luxuries, bath and piano.

Presenter6:27

Tell me about your second record.

Jools Holland6:29

My second record is by Jeralee Lewis. I've always liked Hank Williams, I liked him when I was small, I loved the simplicity and the conciseness of his songwriting.

Jools Holland6:38

And I like Jerry Lee Lewis because when I was he was one of the few people that was a known pianist from rock and roll, and sort of him and Little Richard and Fat's Domino. But I like this because here is Jerry Lee doing a Hank Williams song.

Speaker 46:52

Without you, we gotta go down the bio

Speaker 46:58

Make out of ho ho ho, here you go down and by go

Speaker 47:03

My he bought feet is one amigo by you

Speaker 47:09

Son of a gun, they're gonna have big fun on the bike around.

Speaker 47:14

Cumbola and a goldfish pie and a feeling gumbo Yeah tonight am I gonna see

Presenter7:23

Jerry Lee Lewis and Jambalea. What about education in all of this, Jules? Did you have a music teacher?

Jools Holland7:29

Um it was seen that I had some uh gift in that direction, so I was sent to music lessons with a very nice uh woman called uh Miss Brown, but what she was showing me wasn't what I wanted to learn, it was the dance of the pixies by reading music, and I didn't really want to it didn't get me excited. Once I was a bit uh older though, I was quite fortunate because um when I was I think I must have been about twelve, I went to this big sort of uh secondary modern school in England, but I was the only person that did that opted to do music in the whole school, I think because people thought it was you know a waste of time.

Jools Holland8:02

And because of that, I had this rather good middle-aged teacher who was very traditional in his methods and had no interest in pop music or trying to make music fun for me. And I think that was quite good. Because of that, he showed me just the facts of the theory of music and harmony and what time signatures and key signatures were, which meant that I could then go home and pick up a Beatles songbook or a

Jools Holland8:25

Motor ensemble, whatever I was trying to play, and suddenly I could play the chords that were on these books, and it opened a whole new world to me. It also meant, like, later in my career, when I went to New York and worked on a show there with David Sambo, and we did a lot of jazz shows for NBC on the television, there would be charts that would be suddenly whisked out. I remember the first day they came out, I thought, hello, Uher, what's this? And I looked at them and I realized they were the things that were the same symbols that Mr. Pixley had shown me all those years before, and I became very grateful, which I don't think I was at the time.

Presenter8:55

But otherwise you're self-taught, are you?

Jools Holland8:58

Um

Jools Holland8:59

Yes, in the piano style, and I think most of the probably most of the people I listen to are as well.

Presenter9:04

Hmm.

Presenter9:05

Tell me about record number three.

Jools Holland9:06

Record number three.

Jools Holland9:08

Is James Booker, the great New Orleans pianist? I mean, there's Doctor John, there's Professor Longhead, there's Fats Domino, there's all these great people, but there's not room for all of them. I mean, you could have a desert island just filled. I didn't think of that, having a desert island just filled with New Orleans pianists. And that wouldn't have been such a disaster at all. But I did meet James Booker when Squeeze very first toured in America in 1978. We started off in New York and we played in the punk clubs and CBGBs, and then we drove around through the south and we eventually got to New Orleans, which was a dream for me because I'd always wanted to go there. And we went into this small club and we saw James Booker and he was kind of.

Jools Holland9:45

Really great with a percussionist, and he had a patch over one eye. It was sort of magical for me to be there and see this. And uh and he played a few things and then he had a break and I got talking to him and he said, Oh, do you play, why don't you get up and play?

Jools Holland9:57

And I played and they and then and then he said, um

Jools Holland10:00

Look, I'm leaving here next week. If you want, you can stay here and take my my job over. So I sort of looked at him, looked at this little sort of club, and looked at my my compatriots from Squeeze all laughing and drinking, unaware that I was perhaps being seduced away to this uh lovely life. But then I decided it was probably best to carry on and uh you know, I couldn't stop.

Presenter11:20

James Booker, on the sunny side of the street. You left school at fifteen, Jules Holland, once you discovered you could make a living out of the piano. Where did you play in those early days? What did you play, and how much did you make?

Jools Holland11:31

I would have liked to have played the piano like James Booker there. That was uh but that, curiously enough, was a thing that you could hear at that time. There were pianos in pubs, which there are no longer, which I think is a great sadness. And there were pianists that played stride piano, some of them not particularly well and some of them brilliantly. That has gone, that is that was a part of British culture which has disappeared. But we myself and Glen Tilbrook agree from Squeeze would go into little pubs.

Jools Holland11:56

And we would actually just bowl in a lot of the time if we knew they had a piano.

Jools Holland11:59

And Glenn would take his guitar and we just start to play, and people think, Well, that's quite nice and nine times out of ten, the landlord would say, That's good, do you want to come back next week and I'll give you some money? and that's how we used to do it and be

Presenter12:10

How much can

Jools Holland12:11

Well, um

Jools Holland12:13

I can't remember the exact figures that we negotiated at the time, but I was thinking something in excess of £7.50 per evening per man. And sometimes including cab. That was the thing, whether you got the cab for anything or not, because if you didn't get the cab, it meant that you sometimes lost on the evening. And beer or food? Oh, beer. And adoration. You know, people being nice to us and being our friend. I mean, I think that's what myself and Glenn realised together that really it was a much better job than any other job because people liked you and they wanted you know and you did that you you shared your gift with them and and people sort of

Speaker 112:28

Yeah.

Jools Holland12:44

Wanted to be your friend and uh it's not good.

Presenter12:46

So so there were the two of you, you and Glenn Tilbrook, as you say. When did you find and how did you find Christopher?

Jools Holland12:54

Well, he I think put an advert in a news agent's window which Glen responded to. And uh Glenn hooked up with him and then said to me, Hey, come and talk to this.

Jools Holland13:04

Bloke, he might be alright to be in a group with. And that's how it kind of started. And then we got.

Jools Holland13:11

Gilson Lavis, the drummer, to join us. And of course, Gilson now plays into my orchestra. We now play. Well, I mean, we've played together for ages now, to this day, you know.

Presenter13:19

So the squeeze was formed.

Jools Holland13:20

Yes, that's that was yes, that would have been about nineteen seventy five, something, seventy six.

Presenter13:24

What was your repertoire?

Jools Holland13:26

Well, we did uh the odd cover of Beatles tunes and the odd cover of sort of uh Chuck Berry stuff. There was always that side to us of we liked sort of R and B and that sort of thing. And then we did our own songs, you know, different writing, I wrote it different a bit, and so we did our own material. And because we played live a lot, I think really that that's the the only way of really learning how to play. And other you know, Doctor John, who's uh who I see a bit of, he's always said that the the reason the reason he learnt was by playing for hours on end in bars and people asking to play tricky songs. And I think there was part of that and the fact we just played all the time, you know, we just wherever we could find to play, we would play. And then the punk thing happened and we were kind of poppy and we were vaguely punky because we weren't we were a bit sort of grubby and um

Presenter14:13

Still hadn't found a bath.

Jools Holland14:15

We still hadn't found a bath, none of us, not even a group bath, for the lot of us. In fact, I remember, ironically, then years later, we did play in the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, which is a huge, grand sort of stadium. And backstage there, there was a sort of star dressing room, which Frank Sinatra had been in, sort of two weeks before. We were thrilled. We were all in there thinking, This is good, isn't it? And Christopher had opened the door, and there was this huge bath like you might get in sort of the back of a, you know, like a football team might have, which was just for Frank or whoever. And it amused us so much that there was this grand bath that we all immediately jumped into it in a London John type of way and splashed around with one another. Tell me about your next record, number four. My next record, well, our next record, it was very hard to choose. You know, I was going to have Nina Simone singing some blue singing. It's very hard, but I think.

Presenter14:51

Yeah.

Jools Holland15:00

The essence of a thing that is great is blues piano, or sort of and a lot of it comes out of the church as well, and this is a rather gospelly blues piece. I love the simplicity and the charm of it.

Presenter16:10

Ramsay Lewis and consider the source. So, Jules, you uh then took to presenting early eighties, nineteen eighty two, I think. You began presenting the tube, but apparently you turned down the job in the first place.

Jools Holland16:22

Well

Jools Holland16:24

Yes. The type of music programmes or sort of youth programmes they had on them were um

Jools Holland16:29

All were bits of flashing lights and

Jools Holland16:32

Chatting to

Jools Holland16:33

earnestly to hairdressers.

Jools Holland16:35

And there was nothing wrong with that. I wasn't against it, but it wasn't I didn't think it was for me really.

Jools Holland16:39

And so I said, Oh, no, don't fancy that very much, thanks. Um but at the time I'd just toured a lot and lost quite a bit of money and I decided I'd better do it to get some money. And then it turned out that it was in fact something that was really rather alright. It was it bec it took on a life of it its own. Exactly.

Presenter16:53

Exactly. It it it it was a seminal moment in youth television, as it were. It's strange to think that before that, you know, there wasn't a lot of television made specifically for that age group, was there?

Jools Holland17:02

Well, I think there was, but I don't think it connected quite so well, perhaps. I think one of the reasons that the tube was uh good is becau it was live and it had lots of hand held cameras running around. And of course that's done a lot now, but it it at the time it hadn't really been done before. And it was all it was largely made up as it went along, which was rather good. It might have b appeared to be a bit of a shamble sometimes, but its heart was in the right place. And it had lots of you know, as as it has it had lots of artists who were on who were kind of great, you know, and who went on to greatness, you know, through that time. You know, it's uh I remember the first show had the last performance of the jam in it. Uh and um

Speaker 117:31

Uh

Jools Holland17:39

I think the other thing is that it didn't have a journalistic view of anything. It was more here's the music and here's another bit that's happening something. It wasn't it wasn't here's the music and here's a view of the music. We didn't have a view. It was just we just sort of showed the stuff.

Presenter17:52

On the other hand, inherent in your presentation is that you know about the music, and that's important, isn't it? You can fool around and be a bit sham amateur, as it were, if you wanted, as long as you know what you're talking about, and that's what people recognise, presumably.

Jools Holland18:04

Um, I think, yes, that and uh and really, I mean, um, I suppose that there was that and the fact that it was it did cover all sorts of music. It was quite a long programme, so you gotta remember it was an hour and a half.

Jools Holland18:17

Uh and it was at a time when there was all sorts of interesting things going on in music as well.

Presenter18:20

And then of course there was the famous moment when you um used a four letter word or an extension of a four letter word and you became a household name. I mean tell me it it wasn't done that cynically.

Jools Holland18:30

Um

Jools Holland18:31

Well, no, it wasn't done that cynically. And I don't think it became a household name after that. I think it seems remember a small um bit in the paper saying.

Jools Holland18:38

uh you know, inadvertent slip of tongue off of bloke or something like that. And uh it was just an inadvertent slip of the tongue. And in fact it was near the end of the last series and it was it had kind of come to a natural uh end of the programme anyway.

Jools Holland18:53

And it was at the same time when Squeeze were just finishing a record and we were about to go on a long tour of America again. And so they I had to leave the programme for sort of six weeks or something. You were banned, yeah? A band is a word is isn't a word band here around a band but only because there'd been a lot of actually the reason but it w the reason for it was that there had been a lot of what we describe as incidents up until up until that moment, you know, where people had accidentally appeared naked or they'd made references to drugs or they'd done various things. And this was just the final and there'd been endless warnings and this was the final straw and it just happened that I lit it was literally just an inadvertent, regrettable slip of the tongue.

Jools Holland19:35

Record number five.

Jools Holland19:38

Is it record over? I I've played a few times and I've chosen it really s specifically with a desert island in mind. I think it would suddenly dawn on me that I was stuck in this place, so I would I would uh I would play this record and it would make me think, Oh, maybe I'll get up.

Speaker 419:51

Sunrise doesn't last all morning.

Speaker 419:59

Cloud burst doesn't last all day

Speaker 420:04

Seems my love has up and left you with the warning.

Speaker 420:13

It's not always gonna be this way.

Presenter20:22

Billy Preston singing All Things Must Pass written by George Harrison.

Presenter20:26

Ten years later then, Jules Holland, it became later, the B B C Two music show, now, as I said, in its ninth series. Can can you describe that show for anyone who hasn't seen it? I dare say anyone who hasn't seen it by now is not going to find it, but anyway.

Jools Holland20:39

Well, yes, i i i it's we started uh we've done nine series of it now. When we first started we had it we did it in the studio with it with no sets and sort of half a camera and one microphone. But the artists we had on were good, and basically it's a circle with me with um with uh a studio set out in a circle with a band in each corner and a grand piano against one part of the wall.

Jools Holland21:05

I will introduce music that is some of it is chart and popular music and some of it is less known music, which is but nevertheless is of the best quality available.

Presenter21:13

Of course top of the pox is set in a circle with, you know, moving around the difference is that you don't have electronic wizardry and gyrating wannabes and all that.

Jools Holland21:22

No, um no, I think that uh there aren't uh there's not so much derating or flashing of lights, um but uh and the concept's slightly different in the Top of the Pops is based on what the sales of records are each week, which um we're not. And so we can have uh artists w you know, we had for instance the other week we had Ry Kuda and a lot of uh incredible Cuban musicians that he had together and and that wouldn't have appeared on Top of the Pops.

Presenter21:48

Well, you're quite dependent on the good will, as it were, of the st the big stars, aren't you?'Cause you want them to you want this kind of cross-fertilization, you want them to jam a bit.

Jools Holland21:55

Oh, well, yeah, and it's important to you don't want to make a program that

Jools Holland22:00

It was inaccessible. So we'll have, you know, we've had our ACIS and

Jools Holland22:04

Tony Bennett. I'm trying to think of of uh you know an examples of of extremes, but yes, Oasis and Tony Bennett would be my sort of uh examples. And um

Presenter22:14

But are they willing? I mean, do you bump into egos even in your forum? Or or are they willing actually to mix it?

Jools Holland22:20

They're well, the one thing that is true is that they're all keen to be on our show because the show doesn't do anything other than try and put the music in its i to

Jools Holland22:30

show people's music in this in the best possible way that we can. That's our purpose, that's our interest. We're not sort of doing jokes on them or trying to put wet fish down their trousers or something, I don't know, whatever. So people are keen to be on the programme because it is really about music and the music that people are making.

Presenter22:48

You see fingers pointing round the cameras as well, kind of telling a camera.

Jools Holland22:51

That's fans trying to get at me probably. Um I think you're fine.

Presenter22:55

Yeah.

Jools Holland22:55

Uh

Presenter22:56

But there you are in the middle of it all with your with your five buttons. Oh no, looking like Danger Man actually. Thank you for my loss. That's very kind of you to observe that.

Jools Holland23:01

That's very kind of you to observe that, Sue.

Presenter23:03

Yeah. Merely that I know this is your ambition in life, too.

Jools Holland23:06

No, I mean I said that some years ago. I think uh yeah, I think that's probably the the uh

Jools Holland23:11

I seem to remember thinking, I had this idea when first doing the tube, I thought the most important thing would be to avoid ever looking uh fashionable, and then it would be fine, you know, if you just had the same clothes and you always wore the same clothes from nineteen eighty one through to sort of twenty twenty.

Jools Holland23:27

I mean obviously you pop them off to be pressed or maybe change the colour.

Presenter23:29

Or maybe change the colour. And well, they're usually black, yours, aren't they?

Jools Holland23:34

Oh no, I've got a I've got a range of blues and greys.

Presenter23:37

And and a lot of five button cuffs, which I gather is is is a club to which only you, Prince Charles, and is it Spike Milligan belong?

Jools Holland23:40

Which I

Jools Holland23:45

And I think Vic Reeves, yes, I sent it to show off. Uh awful five button cuff show offs. Yeah. Yes, um only because people said it couldn't be done.

Presenter23:56

Record number six.

Jools Holland23:56

Now, record number six. I have chosen this version of Black Orpheus. I think that the listeners would certainly agree that this sounds very appropriate to being on a desert island. I think they could imagine me sitting as the sun sunk over the palm trees. This is the sort of thing that I should enjoy listening to. And I like play I play this at home and I enjoy singing along with this. Here it is: Black Orpheus.

Presenter24:50

Part of Mana de Carnival from the soundtrack of Masil Camus' film Black Orpheus.

Presenter24:56

The squeeze fell apart, Jules, in the early eighties, um but now you have something much grander, the Jules Holland Big Band. How big?

Jools Holland25:05

Well, my Rhythm Blues Orchestra is there's a permanent has a permanent membership of about twelve, and as well as having Gilson, of course, who is the drummer in Squeeze. My brother plays with us. And listening to that track there, of course, Rico Rodriguez, the trombonist, who's the Jamaican trombonist, he plays that song on the trombone sometimes, that's charming. And so and we tour a lot, and then of course sometimes we swell the numbers to sort of a twenty piece orchestra and people come and join in with us.

Presenter25:35

So if the band's grown, your family's grown too, and this is a bit you don't like talking about, because ten years ago you had a wife and two children and you met and fell in love with um

Presenter25:46

Lady Christabel Durham, or is it Christabel Lady Durham? I don't know which.

Jools Holland25:49

Well, Christopher McCune.

Jools Holland25:56

And uh yes.

Presenter25:58

Now you live in Greenwich with Christabel, and you have a daughter, Mabel, and a stepson, and two children from your your first marriage. Um what kind of dad do you think you make?

Jools Holland26:10

Um well, I don't know. You'd have to ask them that.

Presenter26:12

Sure, but I just wonder if, b being a family man, which you obviously very much are, you know, whether you

Presenter26:19

How important to you is the kind of securities that that title brings, really? Psychological, emotional, financial? You have to do that.

Jools Holland26:26

Oh, I think it's very yes, I think it's very yes, I think it's love you know, I think uh it's a a great uh thing to have um children, be happy and all that sort of thing. I think that's great. And that's that's uh you know it's a good thing.

Jools Holland26:36

it's um very rewarding and enjoyable. I don't I think that's the thing that is um uh that's that's that's great. And I think it's uh because uh I suppose the other thing is that um you know you uh

Jools Holland26:50

You can try and um teach people from your mistakes, but I don't know if you if that works or not.

Presenter26:55

And do you think it's more important for you because those are the kinds of things you didn't have when you were little?

Jools Holland27:00

Um

Jools Holland27:01

Well, I wasn't aware of uh

Jools Holland27:03

The only uh uh thing that I'll give my children that I don't have is electricity.

Jools Holland27:08

And a bath? Uh no, I don't insist on any of that.

Jools Holland27:11

Record number seven. Uh well, number seven would be Big Joe Turner.

Jools Holland27:17

And uh he is the boss of the blues, the greatest blues shouter uh that there ever was.

Speaker 427:26

Girls, he lives up on the hill.

Speaker 427:32

Fall the hill.

Speaker 427:35

Where the most trying to quit the flood, but I love them still

Speaker 427:39

Got it.

Speaker 427:42

We shine like light eye gold

Speaker 427:45

Got a high leg diamond, he's high leg line, eye gold.

Speaker 427:51

Every time she knows my cheese

Presenter27:55

Big Joe Turner singing We're Gonna Jump for Joy with Pete Johnson on piano, and that was from uh the album Jumpin' With Joe.

Presenter28:01

So you you stick close to your roots, Jules, as I've said. You obviously hanker after the past, a bit apart from the five button cuffs, there's a sort of

Jools Holland28:09

No, I don't. I loathe well, I don't hanker after the past. I admire what we can learn from it. But I don't I can't stand that sort of thumb-sucking belly rubbing nostalgia. No, no, but I'm tired.

Presenter28:17

No, no, but I join I mean, you like old cast, don't you?

Jools Holland28:20

Oh yes, well made cars love an old car, yes.

Presenter28:22

So like what what what have you got at the moment?

Jools Holland28:23

Of an Austin Hereford, which will actually rather time with another next piece of music, but we'll come to that in a moment.

Presenter28:29

And and your studio, I understand, is is made to look like an old railway station?

Jools Holland28:33

Yes, uh that's uh for for um convenience because of course it's next to a railway line, so when the trains go past, instead of it being annoying, it's rather good because it blends in.

Presenter28:42

So you can obviously from w everything you say, you can afford to indulge your passions a bit, you know, collect things that you like and you keep your family and you do a couple of jobs, gigging and the telly, and and those jobs as as you've established are are tailor made for you. You do sound like the man who has kind of everything really. I mean, do you want for much?

Jools Holland29:02

No, I don't really want much, but I mean

Jools Holland29:05

Um

Jools Holland29:06

I think it's the enjoying being, isn't what is what I like.

Jools Holland29:10

Which is why I think if we could get back to the desert island, I think it would be quite tricky there.

Presenter29:16

Yeah.

Jools Holland29:17

Because I think I will get a bit bored, because I like people.

Presenter29:20

Would you go under quite quickly, do you think?

Jools Holland29:22

Well, I'm not very good at cooking, so I'd probably be dead within about three days.

Presenter29:26

Last record.

Jools Holland29:27

My last record is Elgar, a little bit of the dream of Gerontius, and I particularly like this because.

Jools Holland29:35

It was recorded in Hereford and Worcester Cathedral. I would play this on the island and it would remind it would maybe give I think when I do want to get back, because I remember there was this place that I l I lived and I loved it very much and that was nice, and so I'd like to get back there, you know. I mean, I didn't obviously live in Hereford and Worcester Cathedral, but the uh the it creates a picture of a a picture postcard of Britain for me.

Speaker 429:55

The Lord is not his all and

Presenter30:49

Part of Elgar's Dream of Garantius, performed by the Royal Choral Society with the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra, conducted by Edward Elgar. If you could only take one of those eight records, Jules.

Jools Holland30:59

Oh, it would be Big Joe Turner. We're going to jump for joy.

Jools Holland31:03

Without any question.

Presenter31:04

What about your book? You've got the Bible, and you've got Shakespeare there already.

Jools Holland31:08

Well, I'm looking forward to them. I would take Palladio's four volumes of architecture, which are particularly big of volumes. In fact, I think the original ones, and I've seen them in sort of grand libraries, are about the size of the top of this table.

Jools Holland31:22

So not only could I read them and maybe learn how to build a little building,

Speaker 131:22

Only

Jools Holland31:26

But also I could prop them up and actually sort of go inside them and perhaps even tear the pages out and maybe cut the windows out of the architectural drawings to peer out at the

Jools Holland31:36

And it would be a nice little sort of protective thing.

Presenter31:38

Can you do that? Not really, no. But I'm I'm reluctant to argue with you. It's all a bit practical this. But you'd enjoy them for themselves, the books, wouldn't you? I mean, you want to read the books. You like architecture and you're interested in it.

Jools Holland31:39

Okay.

Jools Holland31:48

Well, that's right. And that's right, then. Say no more. Yes, okay, all right.

Presenter31:49

That's right then.

Presenter31:51

Yeah.

Jools Holland31:52

But I can do what you have to do with them as I wish once I get there.

Presenter31:54

What about your luxury?

Jools Holland31:56

Well, again, if it can't be you, uh I suppose it would have to be um a grand a concert grand piano because uh

Jools Holland32:04

I could sit there quite happily practising and trying to improve my technique. And also I could shelter underneath it.

Presenter32:14

And dated.

Presenter32:15

You wouldn't do that? You promised me, you wouldn't you? No, I wouldn't.

Jools Holland32:17

No, I have assurance, that's right. The books are purely for reading and the pianos are f purely for as a luxurious object.

Presenter32:18

Yeah, I think.

Presenter32:21

That was a luck

Presenter32:23

In which case you can have them both. Julie, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Jools Holland32:24

Thank you very much.

Jools Holland32:28

Thank you very much.

Speaker 132:36

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co. uk slash radio four.