Changing Android action bar background colour

For some reason this setup just gives me the default action bar background colour.

styles.xml

<resources>

    <!-- Base application theme. -->
    <style name="AppTheme" parent="Theme.AppCompat.Light.DarkActionBar">
        <!-- Customize your theme here. -->
        <item name="android:actionBarStyle">@style/MyActionBar</item>
    </style>

    <style name="MyActionBar"
        parent="@android:style/Widget.Holo.Light.ActionBar.Solid.Inverse">
        <item name="android:background">#d73830</item>
    </style>

</resources>

AndroidManifest.xml

<application
    android:allowBackup="true"
    android:icon="@drawable/logo"
    android:label="@string/app_name"
    android:theme="@style/AppTheme" >
    ...
</application>

In activity_main.xml my theme is set to 'AppTheme'.