Jools Holland - Best Of Friends

All-star jams of varying flavours

Mr Later… has notched up six albums of buddy projects over the last few years, which have now been pared down to a manageable 20 tracks, supposedly representing the highlights from the series. While, yes, George Harrison’s Horse To The Water was perhaps the last great song the late Beatle made, several other inclusions are a touch baffling. Chummying up to The Stereophonics for a cover of Ewan McColl’s First Time Ever I Saw Your Face would be a dubious move in anyone’s book, and one would think that a musician as learned and gifted as Holland would have pulled the plug the second croaky Kelly Jones went to open his mouth. Similarly the Mica Paris rendition of I Put A Spell On You is far from magical. The biggest successes are mostly when Jools vamps along with veteran names (Prince Buster, Solomon Burke, Edwin Starr), although upstarts such as KT Tunstall more than hold their own. A bonus DVD tells the story of the collaborations with a handful of promo videos, most notably Jamiroquai’s surprisingly jolly take on I’m In The Mood For Love.

Rhino | cat no tbc

Reviewed by Terry Staunton
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