Jools Holland

Few musicians move as easily between the pub piano and the prime-time studio as Jools Holland. Born Julian Miles Holland in Blackheath, southeast London, in 1958, he was playing by ear at eight and performing in local pubs and the East End docks before his teens. He is an English pianist, bandleader, singer, composer and television presenter, and in 1987 he created a big band that became Jools Holland and his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, which in 2022 numbered seventeen players, among them singer Ruby Turner.

Holland's path ran through Squeeze, the London band he helped found in 1974, which he left after their first three albums, Squeeze, Cool for Cats and Argybargy, only to rejoin in 1985. He co-presented Channel 4's The Tube with Paula Yates from 1982 to 1987, and since 1992 has hosted Later... with Jools Holland on BBC Two. His 2024 album Swing Fever, made with Rod Stewart, gave him his first UK number one album, and earlier, in 2004, he had recorded a collection of traditional R&B with Tom Jones.