Holly Beth Vincent (born Holly Beth Cernuto in 1956) is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, and 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. 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 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.
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 where they met BBC disc jockey and music historian Charlie Gillett, who was also the owner of Oval Records. Gillett put under contract the new band, which was playing the local club scene at the time. Their bassist Bruce Lipson did not move to the United Kingdom and was replaced by the British 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.
Holly and the Italians went on tour in the UK with The Clash and opened with ska band The Selecter for the American new wave chart-topping act Blondie at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on 22 January 1980. The band eventually signed a two-album deal with Virgin Records.
At the beginning of 1980, Holly and the Italians moved to the US and started recording their debut album, The Right to Be Italian, at Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Internal struggles exploded within the group during the recordings and drummer Steve Young quit the band, replaced by Mike Osborn. Vincent was unsatisfied with the sound of the album, so The Right to Be Italian was given a final remix in the UK by producer John Brand and finally released in February 1981, more than a year after the project was set in motion. Such a long gestation was very expensive for the record company and detrimental for the band, which lost its initial momentum and was attacked by the music press, turned hostile after a mismatched tour with The Selecter and The Bodysnatchers. The Right to Be Italian was re-evaluated in modern times and considered a pop punk masterpiece. It appears at No. 40 in the article "60 Great Albums You've Probably Never Heard" by Jody Rosen from the November 18, 2013 issue of New York Magazine. Holly and the Italians went on tour in the US and in August 1980 played the major Heatwave festival near Toronto. The band notably toured with The Selecter, opened for The Clash during their Sandinista! tour pre-Bonds shows in New York City and did several shows around the US with the Ramones. They toured in the UK in the spring of 1981 and appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test TV show on May 12. After a few more dates in the US in summer 1981, Holly and the Italians were reduced to Vincent and Sidgwick and disbanded by the end of the year.
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.
