Genya with Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show "RAVAN became the first woman producer hired by a major label. Did work with Lou Reed, Ian Hunter, Mick Ronson, Ronnie Spector, Blue Oyster Cult.  She appeared on the Movie "The Warriors" soundtrack as a singer."    ROLLING STONE   "GENYA RAVAN is one of the few women performers who give the High-energy show we expect from the best male rockers..."  John Gabree, NEW YORK MAGAZINE Genya paved the way for modern women rockers... playing hard rock before it was fashionable! Cashbox Billboard Wall Street Journal NY. Times New York Magazine Village Voice  Rolling Stone Tom Wolf's Book Clive Davis' Book Rock & Roll Encyclopedia Life Magazine NY. Post LOLLIPOP LOUNGE REVIEWS   Review of new CD from German Rock Magazine: Soul'n'Roll Genya Ravan For Fans Only! Exclusively distributed via website www.genyaravan.com by Ernst Hofacker New sign of life from a wrongly forgotten rock pioneer. Stones, Kinks, Who, Lou Reed, Blondie, Zappa, Ronnie Spector - this woman shared the stage with them all. She even had fought a vocal battle with legendary Janis Joplin, and by the way: she won. After the 60s, when Genya was talk of the town in England for a short time with Goldie & The Gingerbreads, the first-ever purely female band line up, she returned to New York in the early 70s to run jazzrockers Ten Wheel Drive. Since 1975 she was the soul of the CBGB's Club, helped numerous punk and wave acts to take off. And as a solo artist she released two of the shamely most underrated albums ever, URBAN DESIRE and AND I MEAN IT (both still not available on CD). 1980 she gave up frustrated, switched over to professional production work and wasn't heard since then - until today. Now finally, 20 years after, the lady starts all over again. Although FOR FANS ONLY! offers mostly outtakes, live recordings and demos from the late 70s (wich are occasionally lofi) it's magnificent. So the excellent version of the Shel Silverstein original Carry Me Carrie would have deserved to become a big hit then. The dramatic 202 Rivington Street reaches nearly the height of Ravans killer ballad Shadowboxing, Fleetwood Mac's Rattle Snake Shake shows the competent rhythm'n'blues shouter and Marvin Gaye's To Keep You Satisfied puts a big tear into every listener's heart. Beside that there are two brandnew songs:: Reconsider, a charming duett with Joe Droukas, her partner in crime from the old days, und Chip Taylors Take Me For A Little While. Who needs Tina Turner anyway? It's highest time to rediscover that woman! Review of  "For Fans Only" by Barbara Flaska Flash! To any and all who ever wished they had experienced the best of late '70s punk-rock-new wave, and especially if you have, you gotta get this Genya. Genya Ravan has just released For Fans Only, a collection of formerly unreleased songs, most dating from the late '70s. She's released this record herself in response to the constant and sometimes anguished pleas from her fans for a CD from her. Ravan compiled 13 tracks representing some of the tastiest of her studio outtakes and live performance recordings. This one (and critics be damned!) is put out for the people who really count for something, for the fans. For Fans Only (and I say it because I really mean it) is a great record. It is hot, Ravan's exotic voice is hotter yet, and the CD is hot off the presses.  continued... WNYC AM FM Interview with Genya Oct 29th 2004 Leonard Lopate Show http://wnyc.org/shows/lopate/archive.html Feature Article and Interview with Genya StereoSociety.com Listen to Interveiw on WFMU Jonesville Station' June 2004' http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/JS Interview with Genya by Chris Parcellin Interview with Genya and Hilly Kristal of CBGB Records Review by David Freeland Fri., July 8 2005 NY Press Enlarge Genya and David Freeland In her recent autobiography, Lollipop Lounge, Genya Ravan recalls opening for Sly and the Family Stone when an audience member shouted, “Sly!” Ravan abruptly stopped everything to tell the audience, “If you don’t want to listen to my music, I will get the fuck off. If you do want to listen to more of my music, then shut the fuck up.” She was promptly arrested for obscenity. If the story doesn’t qualify Ravan as the original wild woman of rock, it certainly stakes her claim as a pioneer of bad-girl attitude, years before Courtney Love, Chrissie Hynde and even Janis Joplin, the singer to whom she was mercilessly compared in the late 60s and early 70s. “I hated when they compared me,” she says today, older and perhaps a bit softer. “I also understood why – but not at the time. At the time I was just really pissed off.” Like Joplin, Ravan hollers with spine-chilling intensity, but she also has a gentler side that lets her explore jazz and soul with conviction. In today’s music world, where young singers prove their “eclecticism” by trying on different styles like Sean John sportswear, Ravan stands out as a true original. “R&B is what I was listening to as a child on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. 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.” Born Goldie Zelkowitz in Poland, Ravan came to New York at the outset of 1947, having survived the Holocaust in labor camps with her mother, father, and sister. As a young woman she worked as a cheesecake model before releasing her first single in 1962. Later, she formed what is arguably the first successful female rock band (Goldie and the Gingerbreads), fronted the jazz-funk group Ten Wheel Drive, then went solo in the early 70s. Her career peak came in 1978 with the success of Urban Desire, regarded as a classic of New Wave. But in the mid 80s everything collapsed. “I bottomed on cocaine, on booze. I lost everything. Right after [losing] my own record company, Polish Records, I went into seclusion.” Then came the worst news Ravan could hear: she was diagnosed with lung cancer. “Oh, long story, honey. They said I had third stage and I had maybe three to six months to live. I remember just thinking, ‘What the hell is money about? What the hell is any of this about except living, breathing and looking at nature?’” With ironclad determination Ravan fought back, kicked drugs and cancer, and returned to performing. Her show at the Cutting Room will be recorded for a CD, and promises to be an emotional knockout. “From performing recently, I almost embarrass myself because I am so out there. I’m being so intimate that I feel almost exposed. I think that’s where all my feelings are. That’s my primal scream.” The Cutting Room, 19 West 24th St., (between Broadway & 6th Ave.), 212-691-1900; 8, $10. —David Freeland Interview with Genya on woodstock.com Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Ten Wheel Drive Review at: