LIZ MANDEVILLE

                             

2013 Chicago Blues Hall of Fame Inductee, the award-winning singer/songwriter guitarist, record producer, Liz Mandeville’s 5th CD, CLarksdale traces the blues from its Delta origins to the electric sound of Chicago's hey day. This record salutes the Chess sound, featuring artists from that labels two top artists. Sax legend, Eddie Shaw, from Howlin Wolf's Band and Willie "Big Eye's Smith from Muddy Waters band, both contribute solid performances and their special mojo to Liz's 5th release, her first for the new Blue Kitty Music Label.

Liz continues to deliver excellence with her newly reconstituted Blue Points Band, a solid rhythm section that wraps itself around Liz's mature, versitile vocal to deliver you a one-two punch that hits straight in your soul. 

Liz's 4th CD, Red Top, flew up to the #3 spot spending 20 weeks in the top 20, on the Roots-time Radio Charts after its release last fall. A diminutive redhead, Liz came to Chicago to study theatre & discovered the city’s rich music scene. She brings to the stage a giant presence that’s impossible to resist or ignore crafted over years of touring, performing & studying.

Liz delights audiences all over the world. In the US, she is a featured artist from New York City to Seattle, from Minneapolis to Key West. In the 80’s Liz led her band, The Supernaturals, through countless tours of Canada & established herself in the Midwest. In the last two decades she has also toured Latvia, France, Belgium & Holland. Liz & her band toured Germany several times with label mates Honeyboy Edwards & Louisiana Red & with Robert Cray, playing major festivals & concerts. Germany’s ARD TV features Liz in a “Chicago Must See” travel show. 

She produced 4 critically acclaimed, internationally released CD’s for Chicago based Earwig Music Co. In 1996, Look At Me, in 2000, Ready To Cheat, in 2002, Back In Love Again & 2008’s Red Top, which earned Liz an American Roots Music Association nomination for Blues Songwriter of the Year. The CDs showcase Liz’s powerful, rich, versatile, voice, her creativity as a producer, arranger, guitarist and song-crafter. All fifty songs on Liz’s CD’s are self-penned. 

Liz’s won the 2005 USA Songwriting Contest for her song, “He Left It in His Other Pants,” from her READY TO CHEAT CD. Her song “Life Sentence of the Blues” was a finalist in the 2006 International Songwriting Contest. The CD was nominated “Best Blues CD of the Year” by the Chicago Music Awards, as was BACK IN LOVE AGAIN. Liz co-wrote the title track with label-mate Johnny Drummer. She joins Drummer in a duet on his 2nd Earwig disc, Unleaded Blues & performed with him at Chicago’s Old Town School where they also gave a Songwriters Workshop. 

While earning a BA in Music from Columbia College, Chicago, where she did the research she uses in her workshops, Liz spent 1994 to 1999 as diva in residence at the Blue Chicago Clubs. As a member of Aron Burton’s Blues Band she performed every week to packed houses of international blues fans with a Who’s Who of Blues legends. These performances led to Liz’s Earwig recording debut on Aron Burton Live from Buddy Guy’s Legends. She also contributed two tracks to Blue Chicago’s RED HOT MAMA’S CD. 

Liz can often be seen leading her own band, The Blue Points, repertoire runs the gamut of styles, smooth to swing, funk to rock. They spent 2006 & 7, wowing crowds at Chicago’s oldest blues venue, The Kingston Mines, pleasing folks from 21 to 75. In 2008 Liz & the Band returned to Canada & played festivals & club dates there & across the US. 2008 also saw Liz returning to Europe, both in March for a date with the Latvian Blues Band & for the entire month of May, to work with Holland’s swinging Blues Crowns who joined Liz on the Chicago Blues Festival’s Front Porch Stage. Following her show, Liz set a festival record for the most CD’s sold by a single artist!

She also maintains a rigorous schedule of solo performances. Liz spent November, 2007, on a solo acoustic tour of Florida. She has developed a solo guitar style that tips its hat to her oldest influences, Mississippi John Hurt, Lightnin’ Hopkins & Muddy Waters. 

Liz is a published author & popular speaker. Using her guitar and gift for gab, her Songwriting, Blues 101 & Blues Women workshops are fun & interactive. Her Blues in the Schools shows in Thunder Bay Ontario resulted in record numbers of parents joining the Blues Society there. Her non-fiction articles have been published in Big City Blues Magazine, & ChicagoBluesGuide.com. 

With a sense of humor that shines through her impassioned performance, Liz is a polished, consummate entertainer, not to be missed.

Artist Biography by Richard Skelly IN ALLMUSIC 

Born and raised into a musical family in Wisconsin, guitarist and singer Liz Mandeville grew up in an arts-filled environment. Her father played guitar and sang folk songs while taking classes at the Art Institute of Chicago on the GI bill. He taught his daughter to paint and sing, and Liz often accompanied her father to art museums, gardens and art galleries, wherever his work took him. Her mother was an actress and she saw to it that her daughter had a proper education in the theater arts as well, something which came in handy many years later when Mandeville decided to pursue a career as a blues singer.

Musicians and artists were frequent guests in the Mandeville's home, and the young Mandeville was encouraged to write songs, poetry and short stories. Family vacations around the south exposed young Liz to blues, bluegrass, traditional country and folk music and New Orleans jazz and funk.

Her first professional gigs were in coffee houses around Wisconsin, playing songs her father had taught her. She cited as influences on her earliest attempts at music people like James Brown, Muddy Waters and Lightnin' Hopkins.

Known previously as Liz Mandeville-Greeson, Mandeville played the bars in and around Chicago for most of the '90s and 2000s, and she made occasional tours to points east -- New York City -- and West, to California, as well as many cities and towns in between. She spent much of the late '80 touring across the U.S. and Canada by van with her then-band, the Supernaturals. During the 2000s, she worked with a band called the Blue Points.

Aron Burton Live In 1994, she met Chicago bassist Aron Burton and subsequently performed with him at the 1994 Chicago Blues Festival. She recorded two tracks with him on his 1996 album, Aron Burton Live, and that led to her being signed to Michael Frank's Earwig Music Company.

Between 1994 and 1999, Mandeville was a frequent sight on stage at the Blue Chicago nightclubs, where she had the chance to work with a short who's-who of Chicago-area musicians, including Willie Kent, Maurice John Vaughn and Michael Coleman. She recorded her first two albums with musicians from that scene, including Burton on bass, Allan Batts, keyboards, and drummer Dave Jefferson.

Among her awards and distinctions: she was nominated for Blues songwriter of the year in 2008 by the American Roots Music Association, was named semi-finalist in the 2006 International Songwriting Competition for her composition, "Life Sentence of the Blues," and she received an award in 2005 for Best Songwriter in the USA Songwriting Competition, for her humorous tune, "He Left It in His Other Pants."

Red Top Her albums, showcasing her spry, sometimes humorous original songs, all for the Chicago-based Earwig Music label, include 2008's Red Top, Back in Love Again (2002), Ready to Cheat (1999) and Look at Me (1996). She has performed on a slew of other albums by Chicago-based blues performers, including Johnny Drummer's 2000 release, Unleaded Blues, Aron Burton's Live from Buddy Guy's Legends and a compilation of Chicago-area women blues singers, Red Hot Mamas for the Blue Chicago label.