SEE ALSO: HOLLY GOLIGHTLY & THE BROKEOFFS
THEE HEADCOATEES
Holly Golightly (real name) started her musical career as a founder member of all girl garage band Thee Headcoatees, a Billy Childish / Thee Headcoats splinter group in 1991.
She spent four years as a Headcoatee before breaking away to release her debut record, The Good Things, in 1995. Where the Headcoatees sound was a blend of girl group sounds and three-chord garage-rock with all the original songs coming from the pen of Billy Childish, Holly’s solo sound is more a blend of pre-rock electric blues, folk rock, and less frantic rock & roll.
Apart from the wide range of covers of such artists as Willie Dixon, Ike Turner, Lee Hazelwood, Wreckless Eric, and Bill Withers, Golightly also writes all her own material.
Holly Golightly is definitely the most interesting and diverse artist to come out of the Billy Childish school and is certainly one of the better singer/songwriters of the post-grunge era who gets better with every album.
Since her debut in 1995, Golightly has been very prolific, releasing 13 long play records and loads of singles for a wide variety of labels as well as touring America eight times as well as Australia & Europe.
Holly’s sound has remained remarkably consistent throughout, but each record has a quality that sets it apart from the others. In 1999 she released an album with her friend Billy Childish, on which the two sound like a scuffed-up British version of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood. Another is ‘Truly She Is None Other’ probably her most successful so far, it also featured the song ‘Tell Me Now So I Know’ which was picked for the main title theme for Jim Jarmushs movie starring Bill Murray ‘Broken Flowers’. There’s also a great compilation of all her singles and E.P’s called Single’s Round-Up. We also released a great mid-price sampler called ‘My First Holly Golightly Album’ which is a great way to sample her songs, most of which feature in her live sets.
Over the years Holly has been guest vocalist on various other bands projects, including live with Mudhoney, on a couple of Green Hornes releases and on a couple of Rocket From The Crypt tracks including their hit single ‘Lipstick’. After playing several west coast shows with The White Stripes, and supporting them at their some of their London shows, Holly has become good friends with Jack and Meg, recording a duet with them at Toe Rag Studios called It’s true that we love one another, for the final track on their classic album ‘Elephant’ Holly has recently recorded a duet with Mikabomb on the track ‘Won’t Go Out’ (a Holly song) on their new album ‘Hellcats’ (Damgood 241) Buy it here
We have also re-issued her second album Laugh It Up (originally released by the now defunct Vinyl Japan) on LP and CD and have the one album she recorded with Bllly Childish called In Blood whch originally came out on Wabana Records, it’s on Vinyl & Digi-pak CD.
In 2009 we released three re-issues of albums that originally came out on Sympathy For The Record Industry. These are Painted On, Up The Empire & Down Gina’s At 3.
We re-released the album Holly did with long time cohort Dan Melchior, entitled Desperate Little Town in 2011. For the past few years Holly has kept herself busy working with Lawyer Dave as HOLLY GOLIGHTLY & THE BROKEOFFS, check their page out for more info.
A solo album, Slowtown Now!, came out in August 2015. It was her first solo album since 2004’s Slowly But Surely and was recorded at London’s Gizzard Studios with Ed Deegan at the controls. It features 12 tracks performed by the perfect Holly Golightly band line-up of Bruce Brand (drums), Matt Radford (double bass), Ed Deegan (guitar) and Bradley Burgess (guitar). Holly also released a limited 7″ single “Seven Wonders” taken from the album.
Holly’s most recent album, Do The Get Along, came out in November 2018. It features 12 songs performed by the perfect Holly Golightly band line-up of Bruce Brand (drums), Matt Radford (double bass), Ed Deegan (guitar) and Bradley Burgess (guitar). Alongide nine original tracks there are three choice covers – ‘Satan is His Name’ by Steve King & The Echelons, ‘Love (Can’t You Hear Me)’ by the Knight Bros., and ‘I Don’t Know’, originally recorded by Ruth Brown.