Holly Beth Vincent (born Holly Beth Cernuto in 1956) is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer.
In her youth Vincent sang and played drums and guitar in several bands and took part in the Los Angeles punk scene. In 1978, she formed Holly and the Italians and moved to London, England, where the band was welcomed by the British press and gained a recording contract with Virgin Records on the strength of the single "Tell That Girl to Shut Up". Holly and the Italians' debut album The Right to Be Italian had a troubled and long production and was a commercial failure, which led to the band's dissolution at the end of 1980, after a US tour supporting The Clash and the Ramones.
Vincent recorded under her name the album Holly and the Italians in the UK and was then deported to the US by the British authorities. She went to live in New York City, where she was a member of The Waitresses for a short time and played in other local groups. In 1990, she moved to Los Angeles and two years later recorded the album America with a new band that she had formed called The Oblivious. The album Vowel Movement followed in 1994, as a collaboration with Concrete Blonde singer Johnette Napolitano.
Vincent continues to write and record and recently has released albums mainly in digital format, including two collections of tech house music.
Career
Beginnings
Vincent was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1956 to Bob and June Vincent. Her mother was of Swedish and French background and her father, Italian; both of them had been big band singers during the 1940s. In 1962, her family moved to Lake Tahoe, Nevada, where Bob Vincent was the entertainment director of Harrah's Lake Tahoe and where the young Holly came in contact for the first time with professional performing artists. Her brother is drummer Nick Vincent. When ten years old, she received her first acoustic guitar and began composing songs. After three years in Nevada, the family relocated to Los Angeles and Vincent started playing drums in high school bands, performing covers of The Rolling Stones and The Move. She ran away from home in 1972, but later returned to Los Angeles and completed schooling at William Howard Taft Charter High School. At 18 she went to live for a year and half in London, England with Chris Wood and his wife Jeannette; there she auditioned as drummer and met many British musicians, including Mark Knopfler, with whom she started a romantic relationship. Back in California, she earned money with obscure jobs, toured with a series of midwestern bar bands, was the drummer of the rockabilly outfit Brothel Creepers and a member of the all-female punk rock band Backstage Pass, where she played guitar and sang. Her musical and political preferences placed her within the nascent LA punk scene, gravitating around The Masque club.
Holly and the Italians
In 1978, Vincent formed in Los Angeles the band Holly and the Italians with drummer Steve Young (aka Steve Dalton), whom she knew from high school. The new band moved to London in early 1979 and Vincent went to live with Knopfler. He introduced Vincent to BBC disc jockey and music historian Charlie Gillett, who was also the owner of Oval Records. Gillett put the new band, which was playing the local club scene at the time, under contract. Their bassist Bruce Lipson did not move to the United Kingdom and was replaced by the Briton Mark Sidgwick (aka Mark Henry), formerly of the band The Boyfriends. Guitarist Colin White also joined the group for live performances.
Through Oval Records, Holly and the Italians released in December 1979 the single "Tell That Girl to Shut Up", which was a minor hit in the UK and stirred the interest of the British music press. The papers treated the band as a major attraction in the period of new wave explosion and Vincent appeared twice on the front page of Melody Maker, even before the single was released. "Tell That Girl to Shut Up", written by Vincent, became a UK top 50 hit again in 1988 when it was covered by the British pop rock band Transvision Vamp as the second single from their debut album Pop Art. The song was cited by the magazine Mojo as one of the Top 20 Killer New Wave Tracks from the US.