Holly Beth Vincent

In her youth Vincent sang and played drums and guitar in several bands and took part in the Los Angeles punk scene.

Vincent continues to write and record and recently has released albums mainly in digital format, including two collections of tech house music.

[4] 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.

[5][7] At 18 she went to live for a year and half in London, England with Chris Wood and his wife Jeannette;[2][8] there she auditioned as drummer and met many British musicians, including Mark Knopfler, with whom she started a romantic relationship.

[8] He introduced Vincent to BBC disc jockey and music historian Charlie Gillett, who was also the owner of Oval Records.

[13] 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.

[8] 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.

[16] Holly and the Italians went on tour in the UK with The Clash[17] 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,[18][19] where they were noticed by renowned photographer Lynn Goldsmith.

[9][22] Internal struggles exploded within the group during the recordings and drummer Steve Young quit the band, replaced by Mike Osborn.

[2][13] The album features many additional musicians, such as Paul Shaffer and Anton Fig (who would later be part of The World's Most Dangerous Band, the house band for the Late Show with David Letterman), Jerry Harrison, The Uptown Horns, an orchestra conducted by Torrie Zito and singer Ellie Greenwich on the cover of The Chiffons' song "Just for Tonight".

[8] Such a long gestation was very expensive for the record company[2] 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.

[31][33] Vincent returned to London and was back in a studio in December 1981 to record with Joey Ramone a duet/cover version of Sonny & Cher song "I Got You Babe", which was released as a single in early 1982.

[36] The chaos surrounding the release of The Right to Be Italian, its bad critical reception and her breakup with Knopfler were experiences that affected Vincent and her writing greatly.

[37] When she went to the US for the album's mixing at Mediasound Studios in New York City a short time later, the British authorities labelled her as an undesirable alien for her reckless behavior during her stay in the country, making her return impossible.

It was poorly reviewed and largely ignored upon its release and, although the video for the single "For What It's Worth" gained some airtime on MTV, it was not commercially successful.

[41] In that period, she sang in a combo called the Wild Things with Anthony Thistlethwaite (The Waterboys) and Mick Taylor (The Rolling Stones), which released the song "Siberian Mines".

[13] While in New York City, she featured in the indie film "The Dwarf" (1984) directed by Richard Monteverde starring Ann "Anna" Magnuson and studied acting briefly with teacher Catherine Gaffigan.

[34] Vincent formed a band called The Oblivious, which included the Italians' original drummer Steve Dalton, and recorded with them the album America, which she wrote in its entirety and produced.