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Jools Holland, piano player, big band leader, TV presenter, former punk pop-star, deputy Lieutenant of Kent, OBE and undoubted national treasure, was honoured this evening with the prestigious Music Industry Trusts Award sponsored by PPL, Ingenious and Spotify. The Award, presented to Jools Holland by close friend Jennifer Saunders, was made in recognition of his outstanding contribution to music and music broadcasting over three decades.
Jools Holland:
“30 years of television, 25 of big band and probably 40 years since first playing the pubs...that’s why I’m delighted to receive this, with all of those in mind. But I think this Award also helps to celebrate and draw people’s attention to Nordoff Robbins and the BRIT School, so it’s more about them than it is about me.”
Jools’ memories of his first-ever recording session demand to be documented here, even if you are reading this pre-watershed.
“It was at Marquee Studios, when the punk thing was happening, so it was quite exciting. Wayne County, who after the sex change became Jayne, said ‘Can you play some burlesque piano?’ so I did, and it sounded alright.
“I said “I’ve never been on a record before, could you make sure you send it to me?’ That meant more to me than the £19.50 session fee, plus bus fare home.
“Anyway, they were good to their word and sent me a record, I was really pleased. I saw I had a credit on the back, great! I remember my mother and my aunts being there, I put it on, it starts off with a piano introduction and everyone’s beaming and going ‘Well done.’
“Then the opening line is ‘If you don’t want to fuck me baby, fuck off’ and then at the end, there's a little false stop and then a good punk tradition, ‘1-2-3-4’ and it doubles the tempo, and he screams ‘fuckofffuckofffuckoff!’
“That finished, then you can hear the guitar being smashed up, the record comes off and my aunts and my mother all looked at one another and said ‘Absolutely brilliant, isn’t he clever?’ and went back to their knitting.”
CLICK HERE for more information on Jools’ award
It is with great regret that we announce that Tony Edwards (1932 - 2010) passed away 11-11-2010. John Craig's partner and co-founder of both Safari Records and First Night Records.
Congratulations to our MD, John Craig, Chairman of the British Record Company Industry Trust on being awarded an OBE in the 2010 New Year's Honours for services to Music and Charity.
We've been busy in the archives tracking down the master tapes of the Safari Records catalogue, and are delighted to announce that we will be making available for digital download as many of them as we can, with the 25th Anniversary Commemorative Album of Safari Records (originally released in 2002 and still available on CD), The Yobs' CHRISTMAS ALBUM, two albums from The Boys: BOYS ONLY and TO HELL WITH THE BOYS and five albums from Toyah: SHEEP FARMING IN BARNET, THE BLUE MEANING, ANTHEM, THE CHANGELING and Toyah's Live 1980 album, TOYAH! TOYAH! TOYAH! already available from the Safari store.
Some of the albums we've found haven't been available since the vinyl days of yore, and many feature bonus tracks not available on the original recordings; watch this space for updates on more digital releases from the Safari Records catalogue.