The BEST episodes of Later... with Jools Holland season 48
Every episode of Later... with Jools Holland season 48, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of Later... with Jools Holland season 48!
Jools brings together hot, legendary and undiscovered artists for live studio performances, interviews and musical magic.
#1 - Gregory Porter, Field Music, Son Little, Mumford & Sons (w/ Baaba Maal, The Very Best & Beatenberg), Christeen & The Queens, Sam Lee
Season 48 - Episode 2 - Aired 4/29/2016
US jazz singer songwriter Gregory Porter, who following his debut on the show back in 2011 has gone on to achieve critical and commercial success with his Liquid Spirit LP going Top 10 in the UK, which also won him a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal. He returns to the show to perform tracks from his follow-up Take Me To The Alley. Back in September 2015 in a recording studio in London, Mumford & Sons joined up with acclaimed Senegalese musician Baaba Maal and London/Malawi duo The Very Best to record together for a South African release. They followed it up earlier this year with six shows together across South Africa and they will all be reuniting in Maidstone to perform on the show. Making her UK TV debut is Nantes-born Héloïse Letissier, aka Christine and The Queens. Moving to London after finishing her studies in 2010, Letissier found herself drawn to the performing arts underworld of Soho, where she met the drag queens of Madame JoJo's, who inadvertently helped birth her musical project. She has grown to become a huge mainstream star in her native France, and is known for her energetic and visually arresting live shows, which see her interact with four male dancers and a shadowy four-piece band. She - and they - will be showing off her dance-art-pop sound and style on the show. From Sunderland and making their Later… debut are Field Music, who are essentially brothers David and Peter Brewis. Over their 11-year history, they have released six albums, and were nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2012. They will be playing a couple of tracks from their most recent LP, Commontime, which saw them crack the UK Top 40 for the first time, along with garnering a raft of glowing reviews.
Watch Now:Amazon#2 - Iggy Pop, Blossoms, Margo Price, Protoje, Graham Nash, Lou Doillon
Season 48 - Episode 5 - Aired 5/20/2016
Joining Jools on the fifth show of this run is ultimate frontman Iggy Pop, who makes his live debut on the show with tracks from his recent and 17th studio album Post Pop Depression. Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme and Dean Fertita and Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders join Iggy. French rock 'n' roll chanteuse Lou Doillon is in the studio with her band to perform a couple of numbers from her second album Lay Low. Also on the show is Jamaican reggae revival/hip-hop star Protoje. He and his eight-piece band run through tracks from his current album Ancient Future. Graham Nash launches his sixth solo album This Path Tonight, his first in 14 years, which is produced by Shane Fontayne - who joins Graham in an acoustic duo for this performance. Finishing the line-up are indie pop band Blossoms and Tennessee-based Margo Price.
Watch Now:Amazon#3 - The Lumineers, Underworld, Rationale, Marlon Williams, Savages, Beverley Knight
Season 48 - Episode 3 - Aired 5/6/2016
Joining Jools on the third show of this current run and making their debut on the show is the British electronic group Underworld, who recently returned with their first studio album in six years entitled Barbara Barbara, We Face A Shining Future. Karl Hyde and Rick Smith will perform a couple of tracks from the album along with their classic 1996 anthem ‘Born Slippy.NUXX'. Also on the show and making their debut are Denver-based folk pop trio The Lumineers, whose irresistible anthem Ho Hey became one of the tunes of 2012. They now return with their follow up, Cleopatra, which is the result of three years of non-stop touring, six months of secluded writing in a small house in Denver, and two months of recording in the rural isolation of Woodstock. British post-punk band led by French-born Jehnny Beth, Savages return to the show following their debut back in 2012, with tracks from their recent album Adore Life, the follow-up to their Mercury nominated debut Silence Yourself. Making his TV debut is London-based producer and singer Rationale, whose rich baritone voice combined with his slick, synth-led soulful songs have been garnering him attention since he started mysteriously posting them online last year. Chatting to Jools at the piano is US singer Ronnie Spector, known for being lead singer of the iconic 60s R&B/pop girl group The Ronettes, who has recorded an album as a love letter to 60s Britain, covering songs by the likes of The Kinks, The Animals and many others.
Watch Now:Amazon#4 - Tame Impala, Biffy Clyro, Michael Kiwanuka, Moon Hooch, James Blake, Lera Lynn
Season 48 - Episode 7 - Aired 6/3/2016
Joining Jools in the last studio session of the series are Kevin Parker's Tame Impala, who won Best International Group at this year's Brit Awards for 2015 album Currents, which continues to celebrate Parker's melodic and psychedelic gifts while channelling the 'Bee Gees on mushrooms' and Supertramp. Incredibly, Tame Impala first appeared on Later in November 2012 alongside Biffy Clyro! The Scottish trio also have a date with destiny in the shape of the Later studio and return at their melodic and piledriving best with tunes from their seventh album Ellipsis, which has all the melody, power and musical complexity that we've come to expect, as showcased on lead track Wolves of Winter. Also returning to the studio is singer-songwriter Michael Kiwanuka who previews the big soul sound of his second album Love and Hate, which successfully expands the blueprint of his solo music which helped make him the BBC Sound of 2012. And introducing the punk-jazz of Brooklyn-based trio Moon Hooch, who peddle horns, drums and party in their unique and noisy blend of what they like to call cave music as featured on forthcoming album Red Sky. As their press release claims, 'it's like house but it's more wild, more jagged, more free, more natural to live in.' James Blake returns to the show fresh from collaborating with Beyonce on her Lemonade album with songs from his third album The Colour of Anything, which features a cover by Quentin Blake (no relation) and which builds on Blake's hushed fusion of balladry and dubstep, continuing his mission to 'subdue a generation' as he joked to the Guardian recently. And introducing singer-songwriter Lera Lynn, whose latest album Resistor is a noirish blend of late-night atmospherics, tough rock n roll and sparse poetry.
Watch Now:Amazon#5 - Laura Mvula, Paul Simon, Kano, Jason Isbell, The Coral, Lake Street Drive
Season 48 - Episode 1 - Aired 4/22/2016
Joining Jools on the first show of a brand new series is Birmingham-born Laura Mvula, who returns to the show following her debut in 2013 with tracks from her upcoming second album, The Dreaming Room, which builds on the rich sound of her big-selling debut Sing To The Moon and sees her working with the likes of Nile Rodgers and Miles Davis collaborator John Scofield. Jools also welcomes legendary singer-songwriter Paul Simon for a rare solo appearance as he launches his latest solo album, Stranger To Stranger, on the eve of a major American tour. He'll be performing a new song and a classic. From East London, acclaimed British grime MC, KANO first appeared on the show back in 2007 and he returns to the Later… studio to run through tracks from his recent Top 10 album ‘Made In The Manor', his first album in six years and his fifth long player to date which has been described as "as much a love letter to his East End roots as it is a forensic portrayal of inner city England today, with just the merest hint of dark prophecy about what trouble may lie round the corner..." Making his debut on the show is Nashville singer songwriter and guitarist Jason Isbell. A former member of alt-country band Drive By Truckers, who has been having great success since going solo in 2007 and he will be performing a couple of tracks from his recent fifth album ‘Something More Than Free', which not only went Top 20 in the UK, but saw mainstream success in the US going Top five as well as winning two Grammy awards. Returning to the Later... with Jools studio is Florida-raised soul singer extraordinaire Charles Bradley, whose star has been on the rise since his debut album was released back in 2011 when he was in his late 60s He and his band will be playing numbers from his third album, Changes, which sees ‘The Screaming Eagle of Soul' take on Black Sabbath's 1972 classic track and transform it into a bruised, beaten-down anthem for the broken-hearted. Completing the li
Watch Now:Amazon#6 - The Last Shadow Puppets, Dinosaur Jr, Bonnie Raitt, NAO, Zucchero, Ballake Sissoko & Vincent Segal
Season 48 - Episode 6 - Aired 5/27/2016
Joining Jools on the sixth show are the Last Shadow Puppets. They perform tracks from their second LP in eight years, the chart-topping Everything You've Come to Expect, whilst no doubt working a sharp suit or two. Bonnie Raitt returns to the show to run through some of the songs from her recently released twentieth album Dig in Deep. In addition to originals, Raitt has recorded material by some of her favourite working songwriters, and a couple of knock-out covers. Dig in Deep features a healthy dose of the signature slide work from the woman Rolling Stone named one of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. Malian kora player Ballake Sissoko and French cellist Vincent Segal have pulled two seemingly incompatible instruments together, melding Sissoko's traditional playing with Segal's trip hop-infused approach to the classical cello to great effect on their second album together. NAO makes her TV debut with her neo-soul, electro and R&B sound that has already seen her nominated for a MOBO award. Another act making their debut on the show are Dinosaur Jr. They earned themselves a reputation as one of the formative influences on US alt-rock in the 80s and early 90s before splitting in 1997. A reunion followed in 2005 and now the original line-up are making the trip to Maidstone, Kent, to play some new songs. Completing the line-up is Zucchero, who in a career spanning more than three decades has sold over 50 million records around the world and is credited as the 'father of the Italian blues'. He performs a track at the piano from his recently released twelfth album Black Cat, his first full-length studio album in six years which sees him collaborate with producers such as T-Bone Burnett, Brendan O'Brien and Don Was.
Watch Now:Amazon#7 - Corinne Bailey Rae, Sir Elton John, Bloc Party, Spring King, Kronos Quartet
Season 48 - Episode 4 - Aired 5/13/2016
Joining Jools on the show this week, Leeds's finest, Corinne Bailey Rae, who made her debut on Later back in 2005, previews her third album and her first in six years, The Heart Speaks in Whispers. The album was produced here and in LA and she introduces her new band featuring husband and co-producer Steve Brown. There's a solo visit from Sir Elton John, borrowing Jools's piano to perform numbers from his 32nd album, Wonderful Crazy Night. London's Bloc Party have reinvented themselves with a fifth album and the first in four years - Hymns - drawing on dance rhythms and using gospel vocal settings driven by their new rhythm section to sound both melancholic and ecstatic all at once. San Francisco-based Kronos Quartet have been going well over 40 years and continue to be perhaps the foremost interpreters of contemporary classical and new music. Here, they drop in from a British tour to share their stunning arrangement of Blues legend Geeshie Wiley's Last Kind Words. The line-up is completed by two artists making their UK TV debut on the show. Firstly, Mancunian energetic new comers Spring King, a four piece started by singer and drummer Tarek Musa, who are quickly becoming known for their lively shows and high-energy garage rock tunes. Secondly, from Canada, indie-folk singer songwriter Basia Bulat. Born in Toronto and raised by Polish immigrant parents, she enlisted My Morning Jacket's Jim James for production duties on her recently released fourth album Good Advice, which sees her toning down her trademark autoharp in favour of dazzling, technicolour pop.
Watch Now:Amazon