Genya
Ravan
If the story doesn’t quite qualify Ravan as the original wild woman of rock, it certainly stakes her claim as a pioneer of bad-grrrl 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 [to Joplin],” 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.” Sure, like Joplin, Ravan hollers with chilling intensity, but she also has a gentler, reflective side that lets her “explore” jazz and soul with conviction and chops. In today’s music, when 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. 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 was 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 peaked with the success of Urban Desire (1978), regarded as a classic of New Wave. But in the mid 80s, VH1-style everything collapsed. “I bottomed on cocaine, on booze. I lost everything. Right after [losing] my own record company, Polish [as in ‘buff’] Records, I went into seclusion.” Then came even worse news: Ravan 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 manic determination, Ravan fought back, kicked drugs and cancer, and returned to performing. Her show at the Cutting Room will be recorded for 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.” Cutting Room, 19 W. 24th St. (betw. B’way & 6th Ave.), 212-691-1900; 8, $10 --- David Freeland |
June
23, 2005 I recently finished Genya Ravan's Lollipop Lounge: Memoirs of a Rock and Roll Refugee. It's a fascinating read of someone whose been largely forgotten in the music world, despite her truly incredible voice and her series of "first woman to" landmarks. The book itself has a breezy, conversational tone -- it's not a prose masterpiece -- but the tone adds an element of emotional depth. When Ravan mentions her sexual abuse, almost as a passing comment, it's more striking than much writing that dwells on and analyzes trauma (oddly, Ravan spends extremely little time talking about her childhood time in a concentration camp during the Holocaust). That lack of self-analysis generally works well, as we avoid any pop-psychology. And the straight-ahead narrative works well. Genya was the leader of the first all-female rock'n'roll band (Goldie and the Gingerbreads) and the first female producer (her best known work is probably "Sonic Reducer" by the Dead Boys). She's certainly proud of her accomplishments, but she's more interested in telling her story than in setting herself up as a pioneer. She just did what she wanted to do, which in some ways is the strongest form of feminism. As you might expect in a rock bio, there's a slide into sex and drug problems. Ravan handles it well, not asking for sympathy and not asking for excuses. She's clean now, but not self-righteous, and the tone she started writing continues, letting you feel as if you're listening to a friend tell you how it was for her, rather than reading a didactic morality play (which this book isn't). More important than the story, perhaps, is the fact that the world has forgotten Ravan's music. I've managed to track down only two full albums (both on LP, good luck with the CDs, although I believe she has reissued two through Hip-O) and assorted other tracks. Her voice gets compared to Janis Joplin's, but Ravan's is fuller and more interesting. Put her in front of the jazz-rock (in the best possible sense) of Ten Wheel Drive and the results are magnificent. Start with Construction #1. Posted by Justin Cober-Lake
|
 CURLED
UP WITH A GOOD BOOK - REVIEW
OF LOLLIPOP LOUNGE© 2005 by Steven Rosen for curledup.com. There are a lot of these types of books out there - tell-alls, behind-the-scenes, groupies with gossip - but this is real. This is told by a singer who lived the life and truly understood what it was all about. Genya Ravan was a wild and wonderful singer who combined a sort of do-wop, R&B, blues and rock style into a vocal presentation all her own. This is a book of her rise to fame and of all the falls along the way. In Lollipop Lounge, she talks about touring with the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Kinks, and the Hollies, and fronting her own jazz/rock/fusion outfit, Ten Wheel Drive. She survived those tours, as well as a terrible bout with cancer, and the stories she shares here are full of humor and compassion and a deep understanding that the real miracle of her life - is her life. But the tales are remarkable. Here, she documents her first meeting with guitar virtuoso, Jeff Beck: "He
(Jeff) said, 'My guitar got stolen ... my favorite guitar.' I could hardly
understand him between his crying and his heavy English accent. Then he
added: 'And my wife has left me.'" |
HOLLYWOOD
REPORTER BOOK REVIEW - LOLLIPOP LOUNGE LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll are all well and good, but as the years pass they get harder to do gracefully. Well, at least the drugs and rock 'n' roll part, hangovers and amp-induced tinnitus taking longer and longer to recover from and hurting more than they did in the old days. Just ask
Pete Townshend (news). Just ask Walter Yetnikoff. Just ask Genya Ravan,
who comes roaring into the pages of her book, "Lollipop Lounge:
Memoirs of a Rock and Roll Refugee," and leaves it, if not exactly
lamb-like, noticeably subdued.
BILLBOARD BOOKS REVIEW OCTOBER 2004 LOLLIPOP
LOUNGE: MEMOIRS OF A ROCK AND ROLL REFUGEE Before Kittie or Hole, before The Go-Gos or Heart, even before Isis or Fanny there was Goldie and The Gingerbreads, the first self-contained all-girl rock band. Sharing bills with groups like The Rolling Stones, Chubby Checker and The Hollies, the band was a radical sensation led by irrepressible hellcat, Genya Ravan. She has written possibly the greatest autobiography of a chick rocker ever. Ravan spares no one, including herself, in the retelling of a life lived full-throttle. She hops in and out of bed with men and women she fancies, including some of the biggest stars in rock (yes, Mick Jagger, too&). She parties as hard as anyone and she never stops singing. Born a Jew in Poland at the onset of World War II, she and her family escape from a prison camp and flee to America with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Settling on the Lower East Side, young Genyusha rebels against the strict constraints her parents set around her. Goldie, as her mother renames her in an attempt toward Americanization, is a wild child who is soon tearing around on the back of motorcycles, posing for cheesecake photographers and singing whenever she can. As her fame as a throaty rocker to rival contemporary Janis Joplin grows, so do her adventures. Her story hurtles across the page. Luckily the tale is nowhere near finished, as Genya Ravan has a new album coming out, another tour and many more stories to tell. Alyson
Palmer |
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. 
Genya
Ravan and the Lollipop Lounge