background-color from gradient background
.menu ul li a:visited
{
color: red;
text-decoration: none;
}
.menu ul li a:active
{
background:none;
background-color:#0b75b2;
}
.menu ul li a:hover
{
background:none;
color: red;
background-color:#0b75b2;
}
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Menu</title>
<style type="text/css">
html{
font:11px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; /* Sets the font size and type for the whole html page */
color:#333;} /* Sets the font color for the whole html page */
.menu{
width: 100%; /* The menu should be the entire width of it's surrounding object, in this case the whole page */
background-color: #333;} /* dark grey bg */
.menu ul{
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
float: left;}
.menu ul li{
display: inline;} /* Makes the link all appear in one line, rather than on top of each other */
.menu ul li a{
float: left;
text-decoration: none; /* removes the underline from the menu text */
color: #fff; /* text color of the menu */
padding: 10.5px 11px; /* 10.5px of padding to the right and left of the link and 11px to the top and bottom */
background-color:none;
background: -moz-linear-gradient(black, white); /* FF 3.6+ */
background: -ms-linear-gradient(black, white); /* IE10 */
background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%, #000000), color-stop(100%, #ffffff)); /* Safari 4+, Chrome 2+ */
background: -webkit-linear-gradient(black, white); /* Safari 5.1+, Chrome 10+ */
background: -o-linear-gradient(black, white); /* Opera 11.10 */
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr='#000000', endColorstr='#ffffff'); /* IE6 & IE7 */
-ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr='#000000', endColorstr='#ffffff')"; /* IE8+ */
background: linear-gradient(red, white); /* the standard */
}
.menu ul li a:visited{ /* This bit just makes sure the text color doesn't change once you've visited a link */
color: red;
text-decoration: none;}
.menu ul li a:active{
background-color:#0b75b2;
}
.menu ul li a:hover{
color: red;
background-color:#0b75b2;} /* change the background color of the list item when you hover over it */
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div class="menu">
<ul>
<li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
</ul>
<br style="clear: left" />
</div>
</body>
</html>
background:none first and then set the background-color