Holly Knight

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Holly Knight is a songwriter, vocalist and musician, who has written some of the biggest hits in pop and rock music. She was voted Best Songwriter in the 11th annual Rolling Stone songwriters poll.

Contents

[edit] Biography

She was born in New York and started playing classical piano as a young child. She soon became interested in rock music, and left home at about sixteen to pursue her dreams. Five years later, in the early 1980s, her band Spider got a recording contract with Dreamland Records, released Spider: Between the Lines and was managed by Bill Aucoin of KISS and Billy Idol fame. She had a second band called Device in the mid 1980s, who had a hit with "Hanging on a Heart Attack" off their 22B3 album.


The Dreamland president, songwriter and record producer Mike Chapman, urged her to leave the band and go to Los Angeles, California to pursue her songwriting career. She worked for his publishing company and then for EMI Publishing for many years.

Knight and Chapman worked together on Top 5 U.S. hit "Better Be Good To Me" by Tina Turner and "Love Is a Battlefield", each of which won a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. She also co wrote the highly successful song The Best also by Turner which was a #1 single around the world. On her own and in collaboration with others, Knight wrote songs for Heart, Aerosmith, Rod Stewart, and many more.

In recent years, Knight co-wrote (with Cami Elen and Jymm Thomas) the theme song for the popular Joss Whedon television show Angel (it is performed by Darling Violetta). She also wrote and produced the title theme for the sitcom Still Standing, and has been continuing to pursue a career as a record producer. Recently she was sampled by dance producers Scooter for a remix of her 1988 song "Howling at the Moon".

[edit] Family

She currently resides with her two sons in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California.

[edit] Songs

[edit] References

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