Genya Ravan, (born April 19, 1940), is an American rock singer and producer. Being part of the first successful all-girl band, Goldie and the Gingerbreads, she paved the way for bands like Fanny, The Go-Go’s and The Bangles. She went on to front the powerful horn band Ten Wheel Drive, and she has many production credits, including Ronnie Spector and The Dead Boys, and she started her own record label.
She was born Genya Zelkowitz in Lodz, Poland. Her mother later changed her name to Goldie, but Ravan when she formed the band Ten Wheel Drive. When her parents left Poland, they went into a Russian camp. The singer kindly gave personal details of her youth to AMG on April 4, 2002: "We lost everyone. I never had an aunt or an uncle, I had two brothers, they died. I never met my grandparents, it was me and my sister and my mom and dad. They came from big families and saw all of them die. We escaped to the U.S. via a ship. We were DPs and went straight to Ellis Island."
Young Goldie Zelkowitz didn't know she could sing until she was in her late teens. In the summer of 1962, she asked to sing with the Escorts, who were performing at the Lollipop Lounge in Brooklyn, New York. Soon she was rehearsing with the band and became Richard Perry's first girlfriend (he was the bass vocalist in the group and the man who would go on to produce Ringo Starr, Carly Simon, Leo Sayer, the Pointer Sisters, and so many others). The Escorts recorded and released a few singles on Coral Records in 1962 and 1963: "Somewhere" b/w "Submarine Race Watching,""I Can't Be Free" b/w "One Hand, One Heart," and "Something Has Changed Him" b/w "Back Home Again."
After she left the Escorts, Zelkowitz formed Goldie & the Gingerbreads, an all-female band and a daunting task in a male-dominated industry. They were the first all-female rock band signed to a major record label. The Gingerbreads released singles on Decca and Immediate in the U.K., with "Can't You Hear My Heart Beat," produced by Alan Price of the Animals, hitting on the British charts. (Their manager, Michael Jeffries, also worked with the Animals.) Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun signed Goldie & the Gingerbreads to his Atco imprint and released their singles in the U.S. In 1966, during a temporary breakup of the Gingerbreads, she recorded a single, Disappointed Bride, under the name Patsy Cole.
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Over the course of 1967 and 1968, the group began to fragment as various members came and went. A year later Goldie & The Gingerbreads disbanded. By 1969, Goldie had taken her birth name back as Ravan and partners Aram Schefrin and Mike Zager formed Ten Wheel Drive, which lasted three years. They recorded three albums for Polydor Records.
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After she left the band in 1972, she was signed to Columbia Records by Clive Davis where she made one album in 1972 titled Genya Ravan. She made four more solo albums through the 1970s. In 1974, for one of her first solo records, and in honour of her father, she changed her name once more back to Goldie Zelkowitz. Since then and on any new editions of her earlier releases, she is again Genya Ravan.
Genya Ravan had worked as a producer for different record labels. Amongst others, she was responsible for the debut album Young, Loud and Snotty by the punk rock band Dead Boys (1977) and the comeback album Siren by Ronnie Spector (1982). She also contributed vocals to the latter album. Ravan performed at the Atlanta Pop Festival, twice at Carnegie Hall and twice at Madison Square Garden, along with various clubs in Boston, and Philadelphia, and New York City, including the famous CBGB. She appeared on television shows including The Mike Douglas Show, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Della, and The Dick Cavett Show.
In 2001, she released For Fans Only, a collection of songs recorded over the years available only from her website. She's painting art, recording music, and at the dawn of the new millennium, was busy writing a book/screenplay about her incredible life in the music industry. From major girl group and blues vocalist to pioneering record producer and having performed with Steve Winwood, Dusty Springfield, Buddy Guy, Kool & the Gang, and so many others as an artist, the music industry would be a different place without the vast contributions of Genya Ravan, contributions that the world has still failed to recognize.
In 2004, Raven wrote the memoir “Lollipop Lounge: Memoirs of a Rock and Roll Refugee.” In 2006 she was recruited by Steven Van Zandt to host a monthly radio show on Van Zandt's Underground Garage radio channel - heard throughout North America on Sirius Satellite Radio - and worldwide on Sirius Internet Radio. In 2013, Ravan appeared at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, alongside legends like Wanda Jackson, Martha Reeves, Maria Muldaur and Tracy Nelson as part of the museum's "Women Who Rock" exhibit.
She is currently working as a DJ, hosting two shows on SiriusXM. (Info edited from All Music, Wikipedia & forward.com)