Jools Holland: The cat who's kept his cool

After a year that has seen the tyranny of vacuum-packed pop reach a truly alarming zenith – with both the BBC's Fame Academy and ITV's Popstars: The Rivals – it's perhaps heart-warming to consider that New Year's Eve will see millions of people tuning in to a show that celebrates an altogether more home-brewed approach to music. As usual, BBC2 will broadcast the Later programme's annual Hootenanny: a two-hour spectacular, filmed a couple of weeks ago, that this year features the likes of Pulp, Jeff Beck, Tom Jones and the ubiquitous Ms Dynamite.

It will be hosted, of course, by Jools Holland, who will chat amiably to both his musical guests and the sprinkling of celebrities who happen to pop by, and doubtless add some hastily rehearsed piano to some of the evening's performances. No one will be asked about their sex life or marriage break-up; nor will Holland be forced to bluff his way through any comedy sketches. That is neither his nor Later's style: though the concept might seems ridiculously old-fashioned, the programme is simply about the music, man.

Since Later's invention in 1992, Holland – now 44 – has become the public face of the show's brand values, touring the country with his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, releasing albums splattered with star guests (the latest of which, Small World Big Band Vol. 2, featuring Bono, Marianne Faithfull and Robert Plant, was released last month), and becoming so synonymous with the notion of old-style authenticity that he is now the poster-boy of Bell's Scotch Whisky. Moreover, as pop music becomes ever more synthetic, his place in the nation's affections only seems to become more secure.

Some 25 years ago, Holland was doing the rounds of provincial theatres and television studios in an altogether more lowly role, as the keyboard player with Squeeze. Formed in and around Holland's native south London, the band was, to some extent, a vehicle for the songwriting talents of Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford, whose crisply worded, deeply English compositions marked them down as pretenders to the throne once occupied by the Kinks' Ray Davies. That said, Holland brought something of his own to the party: at a time when punk rock's clod-hopping rejection of technique was all the rage, he lent Squeeze a musical sophistication that quickly separated them from their contemporaries.

"I first met him in 1974 in Blackheath," recalls Difford, who recently toured the UK with his former colleague. "He turned up in a leather jacket on the back of a motorbike. He looked every bit the Marlon Brando-type figure. He played some fantastic boogie-woogie piano, which I'd never heard before – all I knew was the Velvet Underground, the Grateful Dead, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones – and then fell off the piano stool and was sick on the floor. He'd had too much cider. He was very cartoon-like in his life in those early days; almost a caricature of himself."

Once the vomit had been wiped up, Holland stayed with the band for six years, during which time they amassed a devoted following not only in the UK, but also in America – where Holland's raconteurish personality often proved to be an enviable asset. "We were on tour in the States," says Difford, "and Miles Copeland, who was managing us, said, 'You guys have got to start talking to the audience. They're not going to buy your records unless you have a rapport with them'." Nobody had the wherewithal to talk naturally to the crowd, apart from Jools. So Miles said to him, 'Pretend you're a Southern preacher. Start selling the band as if you were selling the bible'. And that's what he did. Twenty minutes of the show was devoted to Jools marching up and down the stage, talking about each member of the band in a really witty fashion, – night after night after night."

Unfortunately, feeling that his musical ambitions were being frustrated, he left Squeeze in 1980. Difford recalls weeping when he was told of Holland's exit – and formed an ill-starred project called Jools Holland and The Millionaires. His first step along the path that would lead to Later came in 1982, when he was chosen, along with Paula Yates, to front a Friday Night music programme on Channel 4 called The Tube. It quickly became a latter-day equivalent of the 1960s television staple Ready, Steady, Go – in effect, a decisive signifier that the weekend had begun – and Holland's quick-fire, occasionally ramshackle style suited the programme to perfection. In 1986, he famously blurted out the inspired tag line "If you're a groovy fucker, you'll watch The Tube" on a 5pm trailer, and found himself suspended. By that time, the programme had become noticeably tired and formulaic. Channel 4 brought it to an end the following year.

Holland went on to host a revived Juke Box Jury, and spent a brief period in the US as the co-host of an NBC show called Saturday Night. But it was Later that cemented both his television career and public profile. Though the latter is chiefly bound up with his music, observers of his progress are also prone to comment on his eccentricities: he owns a Greenwich studio modelled, to his own designs, on the purpose-built Welsh village of Portmeirion, and is also the owner of a vast collection of model cars, which reportedly fill up a couple of rooms in his house. "We were in Leicester playing a gig a couple of weeks back," says a musician friend, "and this portly, red-faced character appeared backstage. I asked Jools who he was, and he said, 'He's the head of the Mini Moke club'. Those are the kind of people who tend to get backstage."

In essence, Holland seems to have become an archetypal moneyed English eccentric, fond of the totems of a world that knew nothing of Will Young and Gareth Gates. He has three children, two by his first wife, Mary Leahy, and one by his second spouse, a sculptor called Christabel Durham; it is perhaps telling that their names are George, Rose and Mabel.

In keeping with his on-screen aura of warm affability, his friends paint a picture of a loyal, sensitive man. And though it might be crass to suggest that such virtues chime with his resolutely old-fashioned world view, the point begs to be made. "He's thoughtful and open-hearted," says one associate. "Whenever I've been in darker periods of my life, he's always been the first to pick up the phone and offer some assistance."

His public, meanwhile, seems to see him as a kind of musical tour-guide, ideally placed to help them escape from the bland superficialities of modern pop, and acquaint themselves with something a little more sophisticated. And, though one suspects that lazy record-buyers may view him as a quick route to credibility, Holland is always keen to point them beyond his music, to the stuff that forms his source material.

"The audience have become his disciples," says Difford. "It's, 'Give us a sign, Jools. Which old record should we get out of the cabinet today?' And I think it's great that there's somebody around like that. Jools is a kind of George Melly-ish figure: what George Melly did for jazz, Jools does for rhythm and blues, and good music in general."

There remains but one question. Is he partial to the low-end variety of Scotch that he advertises?

"I've never seen him touch Bell's whisky," laughs Difford. "He always goes for the vintage stuff."