Holly & The Italians – Tell That Girl To Shut Up

7th January 2025 · 1970s, 1979, Music, Punk

Holly Beth Vincent combined a feisty punk attitude with a smouldering sexuality and pop tunes you would remember in her short-lived band Holly & The Italians. None more so than this.

Tell That Girl To Shut Up was their best song, came out as a single in 1979, and deserved to be a big hit, but wasn’t until it was covered nearly a decade later by Transvision Vamp, though Wendy James was a pale imitation of Holly.

Holly & The Italians played several times at the Hope & Anchor at a time when I lived right around the corner, so I got to know their set pretty well and still have this single, though I confess I had rather forgotten about them.

And I had no idea ’til now that her teenage romance with Mark Knopfler – which ended when she dumped him by phone while Dire Straits were on tour – was the inspiration for his song Romeo And Juliet.

Holly was born in Chicago, spent her childhood in Lake Tahoe, where her Italian father was entertainment director of a big casino, and came of musical age in Los Angeles, drumming in a rockabilly band (The Brothel Creepers), and fronting an all-female punk band (Backstage Pass).

She formed Holly & The Italians there with herself on guitar and vocals, Bruce Lipson on bass and Steve Young on drums, adding Colin White on guitar, and new bassist Mark Sidgwick when they moved to the UK in 1979.

Holly moved in with Knopfler, whom she’d met on an earlier visit to London in her teens, and he introduced her to BBC DJ Charlie Gillett, who released this single on his label Oval Records, though their relationship ended after he accused her of using his name to further her career.

Holly & The Italians supported Blondie (and The Selecter) at Hammersmith Odeon early in 1980, the attention earning them a deal with Virgin Records but also deportation from the UK and the band moved to New York.

AFter touring the US with The Clash and The Ramones, they hired legendary ’60s girl-group producer Shadow Morton to produce what would become their only album, but fired him and hired fellow ’60s legend Richard Gottehrer instead, who had launched the careers of Blondie, Madonna and The Ramones.

After a long delay, and a return to London to tour with The Selecter and The Bodysnatchers – and an OGWT appearance – The Right To Be Italian was finally released in 1981 to mediocre reviews, by which time the band had broken up.

Holly’s next move was duet single with Joey Ramone, singing the old Sonny & Cher chestnut I Got You Babe – recorded in London by Wham! producer Steve Brown, with Thomas Dolby playing the synths.

Over the next 11 years she was involved with various groups, including a brief spell with The Waitresses, a band called The Wild Things with former Stone Mick Taylor, and a band with her brother Nick called Bikey that played only one show.

In 1990 she moved back to California and made a pretty good album called America under the group name Oblivious. In 1995 she teamed up with her old friend Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde – the pair had once worked as waitresses together in LA – to make an album as Vowel Movement.

Since then she has self-released several albums via Bandcamp, including two collections of techno music, and The Right To Be Italian has been – rightly – reevaluated as a pop-punk classic.