Jools Holland Quotes
-
Whenever I go on holiday, I like to time travel and imagine what it must have been like 500 years ago. I love the Tuscan landscape, which is reminiscent of a Claude Lorrain painting.
-
Music can lift the spirit; it can make you cry. Soldiers have marched into battle to music. It's a powerful thing.
-
It's very nice to be asked to anybody's wedding. Particularly if it's the Prince of Wales. I learned a lot from it, which was to end early and get away. I suppose one would have to look back historically and see who other royals had at their weddings. Were there people at Queen Elizabeth's wedding who were common like myself?
-
I love Yamaha Clavinovas. I have them at home, in the studio and on tour with me. I find them ideal for all sorts of things: silent practice with headphones at home; writing; arranging and... just playing the blues!
-
When I first set up my big band, I only had Gilson Lavis, the drummer from Squeeze, with me. He was the core element. Whenever a group hits the big time, they always get a new drummer because they really need that. You can make do with rubbish elsewhere.
-
The piano has disappeared from working-class family life, which is a shame. It's associated with the middle classes now. Everyone in my family sang and played piano, but my parents were delighted and amazed when I became the first professional performer in the family - apart from a clog-dancer way back.
-
At 11, I went to live with my maternal nan and granddad temporarily, after my parents separated, and Nan would let me have a go on her piano. My grandparents were like something out of the Noel Coward play, 'This Happy Breed,' and it was magical to hear them sing music-hall songs.
-
A good example of the modern world is the Eurotunnel. And mobile phones - I like them.
-
The first thing I learned was the 'St Louis Blues' when I was eight. Both my grandmothers, my mother and uncle played the piano. This was post-war Britain, and they played boogie woogie and blues, which was the underground music of the time.
-
I've met the Queen a couple of times, and she's been delightful. In fact, I often find myself thinking: 'What would the Queen do in this situation? Write a thank-you note? Yes, I'll do that.' She's all about courtesy.
-
I have friends who are in the posh category and some who are in the not-at-all-posh category, and some who you would find it very hard to get any sort of handle on. But I am lucky to have any friends, of course.
-
I have realised how exciting and easy it is to be a time traveller by looking at paintings and films and architecture and playing music or listening to it. I don't think you necessarily have to live in the present all the time.
-
I meet people from really grand backgrounds who had horrible parents who took no interest in them, whereas I'm a working-class boy from Deptford who was worshipped by all my rellies. Everybody in my extended family helped to raise me, and I realise now how lucky I was to grow up among kind folk.
-
I am a keen medievalist and like going around museums and ruins and finding out about the people and local culture. I'm not one for sitting by a pool or lying on a beach. I also like to sketch while I'm on holiday, if I have time.
-
Without the piano, my life would be a disaster - nobody would hold me in any regard. It's the thing that saved me.
-
Some acts are tricky. Eartha Kitt was tricky in a wonderful, old-style way. She did yoga on the piano and put her hands over her ears when the other acts were on.
-
Early on with Squeeze, we played the Hope & Anchor with U2. Three people turned up. Then two left. Then the last person left. That's the least-attended show I've ever done.
-
There is always someone in the world who is better or worse off than yourself, and I've never seen that - in either direction - as a barrier to becoming friends with somebody.
-
Amy Winehouse and Paul Weller are examples of poets, I think.
-
The one thing I've learnt is that you don't want to be nasty about anybody, unless they've dropped dead. And the annoying thing is that most of the people that I know who've dropped dead are really great.
-
I love the Queen. I've had a crush on her since I was eight.
-
'The Tube' was the first time the plebs had gone on the television. The lunatics taking over the asylum.
-
'The X Factor' seems to be more about building up personalities and people in tears. And it's not a new idea. The pre-Beatles pop world was full of manufactured pop stars. The thing is that you can't imagine any of the artists you look back at and admire ever going on 'The X Factor.'
-
I learned to play by ear before I learned music theory. For me, that makes sense. After all, children learn to speak before they read and write. The more you understand of music - how harmony and time signatures work, and what chords and inversions are - the more you'll enjoy it.