Holly and the Italians

Holly and the Italians were a short-lived American power-pop band that formed Los Angeles, California in 1978 by Chicago born singer and guitarist Holly Beth Vincent, bassist Mark Sidgwick, and drummer Steve Young. Unable to garner much attention in Los Angeles, the band flew to London shortly after forming in hopes of securing a record deal and possibly gaining an audience in the New Wave and post-punk scene that was quite popular in Britain at the time. After playing on the pub circuit extensivley, they came to prominence as the opening act for fellow Americans Blondie, and were signed to disc jockey Charlie Gillett's record label, Opal. The 1979 release of the single "Tell That Girl To Shut Up" garnered the band a recording contract with Virgin Records. While the single wasn't a very big hit for Holly and the Italians, it would be in 1988 when covered by Transvision Vamp. The band recorded their only album, The Right To Be Italian, produced by Richard Gottehrer. Their next two singles, "Youth Coup" and "Miles Away," (the latter written by bassist Mark Henry), failed to chart and the group disbanded at the end of 1981. In 1982 Holly Beth Vincent issued a solo album entitled Holly and the Italians even though the band was now defunct and the album was solely credited to Vincent. The album featured a minor hit with the completely overhauled cover of Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth," and the subsequent video gained some airtime on MTV. Later that year Vincent recorded a cover of Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe" with Ramones frontman Joey Ramone. After a brief period replacing Patty Donahue in The Waitresses, she appeared in a combo called the Wild Things with Anthony Thistlethwaite of The Waterboys, and in 1995 teamed up with Concrete Blonde singer Johnette Napolitano for a musical side project entitled Vowel Movement. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.