Olivor was born as Jane Cohen in Brooklyn, New York, and reportedly grew up with a background in folk music, although her particular influences, she has claimed, were Johnny Mathis and Gene Pitney. After releasing five albums from the late 1970s through the early 1980s, her stage fright, anxiety over her rapid success, and her husband's illness and death caused her to take a ten-year hiatus. In the 1990s, she released five more albums from 1995 through 2004. Since 2009, she has been retired from the public eye.