Jools Holland interview: 'If you want to understand a country, study the artists rather than the politicians'

Soul mates: Marc Almond and Jools Holland started singing together after Marc Almond’s motorbike accident in 2004

The friendship between Jools Holland and singer-songwriter Marc Almond started on an awkward note. “I barged into his dressing room,” says Holland. “There was Marc without any pants on.” But the Soft Cell frontman forgave the pianist. Now they are releasing an album together. A Lovely Life to Live includes a mix of new songs and covers of Soft Cell hit Tainted Love and Take Care, popularised by Drake but originally by US blues singer Bobby Bland.

Holland and Almond started singing together after Almond had a motorcycle accident near St Paul’s Cathedral in 2004. “He bashed his head and was in a coma, and we all thought that was going to be the end of him,” says Holland. “Candles were lit, prayers were said, that was all we could do.”

Remarkably, he recovered but he developed a stutter and “wasn’t himself”. Except for when he performed. “When he sung, he lost his stutter. By singing he came back.” He wasn’t well enough to perform whole concerts but Holland invited him on tour to do a few songs. Eventually, they built “a large canon”. “We thought we should record it.”

As Holland talks, he spreads his hands out on the table, as if it is a piano. “My hands aren’t particularly big,” he says. “But you end up stretching them to reach the keys.” He demonstrates.

Since 1992 Holland has been playing with both rising stars and established greats on his TV show Later... with Jools Holland, from Rag’n’Bone Man when he started to Jay-Z and Al Green. He’s proud of the breadth of the show and says it is stealthily political. “The whole point of music is that it’s an international language — we have African, American, French, German, Spanish artists. It feels like the United Nations. It’s not my job to express a view but we put people on who have views and let them express themselves — it’s a voice for grime artists who are concerned about issues. If you want to understand a country, you’re much better off studying the artists than the politicians.

“We get people who may go on to be big, as well as music that doesn’t have a home elsewhere on TV, like African or folk music. And we put on old music.”

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It’s a regret that they didn’t manage to get Charles Aznavour on before he died last month. “We kept trying but it never worked out. But we have archived an enormous amount of music and we should be proud as Britons that we have a show which does that, because of the ethos of the BBC, of capturing culture. We capture people on their way up, like Amy Winehouse making her first performances and then the sad part is you get people’s last performances — Johnny Cash, Chas from Chas and Dave, Eartha Kitt. I enjoy it when there is someone who is 18 then 88. It shows music has never been about age or gender.”

How does he spot talent? “With someone like Amy Winehouse as soon as she opened her mouth and sang I thought she has this thing like Edith Piaf and feels like she has lived, loved and lost. Whatever she is singing slices to the centre of your heart.” Are newer shows like The X Factor finding that talent too? “Err, I’ve seen bits of it,” he says.

Holland listens to music while doing other activities. “Driving can work but I don’t like having other people in the car. I listen while I’m sketching or making something with my hands. The last thing I built was a model of Vanbrugh House in Whitehall, from card. It was s*** but the act of doing it was enjoyable. When you’re fiddling around doing something, the music can breathe and things jump out at you.”

It’s “sad” people no longer listen to whole albums “because often it’s the lost track that can change your life, not the hit. We’ve gone back to the 1920s when people would buy a piece of sheet music. Everybody was scamming everyone.”

Holland started playing piano at eight, growing up in south London. “My gran had a piano in her front room, a wedding present from her mother. Their street was bombed in the Second World War so the outside of the piano was charred but the inside withstood the blast. It survived the Luftwaffe, it could survive anything, even me going mad.”

Holland talks nostalgically about a time when there were more pianos than cars in England. For a year he was a one-song man and unfortunately for the neighbours the only song he knew was The Boogie Woogie. He was eventually sent to a piano teacher “who was nice but out came the sheet music of The Dance of the Pixies — it was so boring I couldn’t get myself enthused to play it. I’ve realised the way people learn music is to play what they love. If you look at the Proms all the musicians can read music and if you look at Later probably 99 per cent of them can’t.”

He does add, however, that music is still important in schools. “Even if you aren’t going to be a professional musician, it is good to hear different music because it gives you a better understanding. It’s like when I sketch. I’m not good but when I look at a little Rembrandt sketch, I can see why it’s good.” He was told by his school careers adviser if he wanted to be a musician he could go into the Army and be in their band but that he would recommend doing an apprenticeship. “Thanks a lot, mate,” says Holland.

He has six pianos. “I have a man whose job it is to keep track of that, my piano auditor,” he jokes. “I have Yamahas, a Steinway, a couple of old bangers. They’re a bit like dogs, you have to master them.”

Holland and his wife, artist Christabel McEwen, live in Blackheath. Tragically, the woman who introduced them, model and photographer Lucy Birley, committed suicide in July. “I think my wife introduced her to Bryan Ferry, her husband. It has been awful for the family,” says Holland. “She had bad depression. The only thing to say about that is if you think somebody has depression get them to address it. It’s easy to think somebody is being awful or difficult but actually you can encourage them to see somebody.”

His New Year’s Eve show, Jool’s Annual Hootenanny, hasn’t been filmed yet. “Every taxi driver in London watches it before they go out to work,” he beams. “It’s nice to get people on that show to do songs they wouldn’t usually. If someone has a load of huge hits, I’ll ask what they would have sung to their mum when they were younger. Cee Lo Green did a Jackie Wilson song in the dressing room,” Holland sings it, with exuberance. “That’s it, Reet Petit. He sung it to his mum. I said he had to perform it.”

Holland can’t pick a favourite artist. “I had Joe Bonamassa on the show and he has 350 guitars — almost one for every day of the year. His favourite is the one he was playing at that moment. It’s like saying your favourite child is the most recent, your favourite song is the last one you wrote.”

A Lovely Life to Live is out on November 23. Jools Holland plays the Albert Hall, SW7 (royalalberthall.com) on Nov 30 and Dec 1

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