In October 1992, a music programme debuted on BBC Two entitled Later…. It was presented by the musician and raconteur Jools Holland and featured an unprecedented range of musical talent. Thirty years on, the 60th season is unfolding on Saturday nights. This impressive book details what amounts to 30 years of musical history. It is written by Mark Cooper, who cocreated the show in 1992 and was its producer for 26 years. His unique perspective shows how many of the key contributors were chosen. The result is engrossing, elegantly written and cleverly constructed.
Jools Holland had presented the radical musical programme The Tube with the late, great Paula Yates and seemed a natural to present Later…. It is in the round, all musicians remaining present throughout. A holdout in this respect was Van Morrison, who insisted on recording his contribution first and separately. But Van contributed to many Laters over the years, never making this request again, and he brought the entire 25th show to a rousing climax with Gloria. Irish artists, a significant strand over the years, have included Paul Brady, The Corrs, The Chieftains, Christy Moore, Sinéad O’Connor, Lankum, Villagers and, just a few weeks ago, Dermot Kennedy.
The two most distinctive later chapters are Debutantes and Hip-Hop/Grime. The first features relative unknowns who made their TV debuts on the show and went on to great success afterwards. These include a touching account of the late Amy Winehouse and her extraordinary musical talent, plus a young man who appeared to have wandered in off the street named Ed Sheeran. The grime/hip hop shows featured predominantly black performers from the United States faced with a white, British middle-class audience. The director Janet Fraser Cook’s decision was to bring the lights way down, screening out the audience and fellow artists, and concentrating on the performances.
Ed Sheeran writes that he first watched Later… on You Tube, selectively. That is how certain readers will approach the book. Personally, as with the programme itself, I recommend the full, immersive experience.
