Jeremy David Hounsell "Jerry" Dammers^[1] (born 22 May 1955) is a British musician who is a founder, keyboard player and primary songwriter of the Coventry, England based ska revival band The Specials, The Special A.K.A. and The Spatial AKA Orchestra.

Biography[link]

Dammers was born in Ootacamund, Tamil Nadu, South India, the son of a clergyman who went on to become Dean of Bristol Cathedral, he attended King Henry VIII School, Coventry.

Dammers was a Mod in the 1960s, then became a hippie, before becoming a skinhead.^[2] He had been a member of The Cissy Stone Soul Band, and studied art at Coventry's Lanchester Polytechnic (now Coventry University), where he met Horace Panter.^[2]

He contributed to the founding of 2 Tone Records, which helped develop the 1970s/1980s ska revival. He became an anti-Apartheid campaigner, helping to create Artists Against Apartheid in the U.S., and writing the song "Free Nelson Mandela" about the jailed African National Congress leader in South Africa. In 1985, in the wake of the Band Aid single, he organized the recording and release of the "Starvation" single, a version of The Pioneers' 1969 song, in aid of famine relief in Africa, featuring members of The Special AKA, UB40, Madness, The Pioneers, and The Beat.^[3] In early 1986, he took part Red Wedge tour that also featured The Style Council, The Communards, Junior Giscombe, Lorna Gee and other special guests. He also introduced Simple Minds to producer Tony Hollingsworth and they became the first major act to agree to perform at Hollingsworth's Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert, which was broadcast worldwide from London's Wembley Stadium, on 11 June 1988. That same year, he briefly played with the re-formed Madness on their single "I Pronounce You" and its attendant album, The Madness.

In October 2000 Dammers received Q Magazine's Q Merit Award at London's Park Lane Hotel.^[4]

Dammers has fallen out of the spotlight in recent years, but he still regularly DJs in English nightclubs, as well as performing with his band, The Spatial AKA Orchestra, playing his own compositions and tributes to Sun Ra and other experimental jazz artists. The band features established jazz musicians Zoe Rahman, Larry Stabbins and Denys Baptiste. They perform in elaborate Ancient Egyptian and outer space-themed costumes, and share the stage with bizarre props such as model alien heads and mummy Sarcophagi. Rico Rodriguez has also featured in a number of shows.

In November 2006, he celebrated being awarded an honorary degree from Coventry University by DJing at the launch party of the Coventry branch of the Love Music Hate Racism organisation. In the same month, he attended a private viewing of a Harry Pye curated art exhibition in east London that featured paintings of bands and singers that had once been championed by the late BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel. Dammers read out a four page poem, in which he thanked Peel for helping his own band, and for supporting black musicians.

Carl Barât of The Libertines included a Dammers composition, "Too Much Too Young", on his personal compilation album Under The Influence. Pete Doherty, former member of The Libertines, namechecked "What I Like Most About You is Your Girlfriend" on Down in Albion, the first Babyshambles album. The song "Merry Go Round" contains the lyrics "He says, 'What I like most about you, Pete/Is your girlfriend and your shoes.'" Those who have recorded a song written by Dammers include Tricky ("Ghost Town"), The Prodigy ("Ghost Town") and Elvis Costello ("What I Like Most About You Is Your Girlfriend").

Dammers has produced singles for Robert Wyatt, The Untouchables, UB40 and Junior Delgado. He contributed "Riot City" to the soundtrack of the Julien Temple film, Absolute Beginners, and "Brightlights" to the compilation album Jamming: A New Optimism.

Dammers lives in London with his family.

Quotation[link]

This section is a candidate to be copied to Wikiquote using the Transwiki process.

The basic thing is Anglo-Jamaican music. It's trying to integrate those two.^[5]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Jerry Dammers' Spatial A.K.A. Orchestra
• Jerry Dammers discography at Discogs
• Jerry Dammers at the Internet Movie Database
• Jerry Dammers at Allmusic
• The Specials
• The Spatial AKA Orchestra at The Big Chill (music festival)

Jools Holland
Holland at the British Academy Television Awards 2009
Background information
Birth name	Julian Miles Holland
Born	(1958-01-24) 24 January 1958 (age 54) Blackheath, London, England
Genres	Boogie-woogie, jazz, blues, R&B
Occupations	Musician, composer, television presenter, bandleader
Instruments	Piano, keyboard, guitar
Years active	1974–present
Associated acts	Squeeze Rhythm & Blues Orchestra
Website	Official site

Julian Miles "Jools" Holland OBE, DL (born 24 January 1958) is an English pianist, bandleader, singer, composer, and television presenter. He was a founder of the band Squeeze (1974-1980 & 1985-1990) and his work has involved him with many artists including Sting, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, David Gilmour, Magazine and Bono.

Holland is a published author and appears on television shows besides his own and contributes to radio shows. In 2004, he collaborated with Tom Jones on an album of traditional R&B music. He currently hosts Later... with Jools Holland, a music-based show aired on BBC2, on which his annual show Hootenanny, is based.^[1]

Life and career[link]

His great grandfather came from Ireland.^[2]

Holland played as a session musician before finding fame, and his first studio session was with Wayne County & the Electric Chairs in 1976 on their track "F*ck Off."^[3]

Holland was a founding member of the British pop band Squeeze, formed in March 1974, in which he played keyboards until 1981 and helped the band to achieve millions of record sales, before pursuing his solo career.^[3]

Holland began issuing solo records in 1978, his first EP being Boogie Woogie '78. He continued his solo career through the early 1980s, releasing an album and several singles between 1981 and 1984. He branched out into TV, co-presenting the Newcastle-based TV music show The Tube with Paula Yates. Holland achieved notoriety by inadvertently using the phrase "groovy fuckers" in a live, early evening TV trailer for the show, causing it to be suspended for six weeks.^[4] He referred to this in his sitcom "The Groovy Fellers" with Rowland Rivron.

Holland at the Tsunami Relief concert in Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, 22 January 2005

In 1983 Holland played an extended piano solo on The The's re-recording of "Uncertain Smile" for the album Soul Mining. In 1985, Squeeze (which had continued in Holland's absence through to 1982) unexpectedly regrouped including Jools Holland as their keyboard player. Holland remained in the band until 1990, at which point, he again departed Squeeze on amicable terms to resume his solo career as a musician and a TV host.

In 1987, Holland formed The Jools Holland Big Band which consisted of himself and Gilson Lavis from Squeeze. This gradually became his 18-piece Rhythm & Blues Orchestra.^[3]

Between 1988 and 1990 he performed and co-hosted along with David Sanborn during the two seasons of the music performance program Sunday Night on NBC late-night television.^[5] Since 1992 he has presented the music program Later... with Jools Holland, plus an annual New Year's Eve Hootenanny.

In 1996, Holland signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records,^[3] and his records are now marketed through Rhino Records.

Holland has a touring band, The Rhythm And Blues Orchestra, which often includes singers Sam Brown and Ruby Turner. In January 2005 Holland and his band performed with Eric Clapton as the headline act of the Tsunami Relief Cardiff.

Personal[link]

Holland lives in the Westcombe Park area of Blackheath in South East London, where he had his studio, Helicon Mountain, built to his design, inspired by Portmeirion, the setting for the 1960s TV series The Prisoner.^[6] Holland owns costumes and props from the series and occasionally appears wearing the trademark brown-with-white-pipe blazer featured in the series. In 1987, Holland demonstrated his love of the series and starred in a spoof documentary, The Laughing Prisoner, with Stephen Fry, Terence Alexander and Hugh Laurie.^[6] Much of it was shot on location in Portmeirion, with archive footage of Patrick McGoohan, and featuring musical numbers from Siouxsie and the Banshees, Magnum and XTC. Holland performed a number towards the end of the program. His younger brother, Christopher, also plays organ in the Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, as well as being a singer-songwriter.