Genya Ravan (b. 1945, Lodz, Poland) is a rock vocalist, producer, and pioneer. Born Genya Zelkowitz, her mother later changed her name to Goldie. The family emigrated to the United States from a Russian refugee camp in 1947. Growing up on New York’s Lower East Side, “R&B is what I was listening to as a child… One, two in the morning – my ear glued to the radio so my mother couldn’t hear it. I learned really how to speak English through music.” In her late teens, “I picked up alto sax, drums, and harmonica,” and joined producer Richard Perry’s band The Escorts in 1962, playing at Brooklyn’s Lollipop Lounge (”Lollipop Lounge” is the title of Ravan’s autobiography). This influential rocker formed one of the early girl groups, Goldie and the Gingerbreads, in 1963. The group had a British hit with “Can’t You Hear My Heart Beat” before Herman’s Hermits’ American release. Goldie Zelkowitz became Genya Ravan when a drummer told her she should use her real name and and that she sounded so black she should call herself “raven,” as in blackbird, but she wanted it spelled different, thus Ravan.

Genya Ravan, Michael Zager, and Aram Shefrin formed Ten Wheel Drive in 1968, a jazz/rock fusion band that released three albums with Ravan. Ten Wheel Drive appeared at New York’s the Fillmore East in 1969. Apart from the band’s intense musical presence, Genya Ravan caused some excitement when she took off her transparent vest and continued the performance half naked with painted breasts and shoulders. Ravan’s raw, rocking vocals were compared to her contemporary, Janis Joplin.

Genya Ravan started producing albums in the mid-70’s, most notably Young, Loud and Snotty for punk band The Dead Boys on Sire Records. On her own Polish Records label (whose motto was “who do I f*** to get off this label?”), she produced Ronnie Spector’s Siren album. Outside of women producing themselves, Genya Ravan was the very first woman to produce significant male bands. “Sonic Reducer” by the Dead Boys is an underground classic and was one of the better-sounding discs when Sire Records started heralding the new wave rock movement. Ravan has produced numerous groups, from Joy Rider released on Polydor in Europe to the Crumbsuckers, Certain General, Long John Baldrey, Kool & the Gang, Tiny Tim, and many, many others. Her visibility as a vocalist is at times overshadowed by the huge amount of production and industry work that she took on, from promotion to A&R at various labels. Her albums Urban Desire(1978) and And I Mean It!(1979) give a sense of the enormous talent of Genya Ravan.