Liz Mandeville
| Liz Mandeville | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Liz Mandeville-Greeson |
| Genres | Blues, R&B |
| Occupation(s) | Blues musician, journalist, songwriter, painter, record label owner, music producer |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar, rubboard |
| Years active | 1983–present |
| Website | Official website |
LIz Mandeville is an American vocalist, songwriter, and Chicago blues musician known for her versatile voice, high-voltage performances, insightful songs, and traditional blues guitar playing. She has written and produced hundreds of original songs, including the songs on her albums. She has received critical acclaim and has toured internationally. She owns the record label Blue Kitty Music.
Mandeville grew up in an arts-filled home in a musical family in Wisconsin. Her father sang folk songs and played the guitar, and her mother was a teacher and theater buff. Her father taught her to sing and paint, and she started playing the guitar at age 16. She first played professionally in coffee houses around Wisconsin. She moved to Chicago in 1979 to study theater and started going to Chicago clubs to observe and study singing, playing, and audience responses. During this time she met her future husband (and later ex-husband) Willie Greeson (known as Willie Phillips), who played in the Legendary Blues Band. He introduced her to the Chicago blues and R&B world. She learned from local artists Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers and Kansas City Red at the Chicago club B.L.U.E.S. on Halstead. After a bandleader in a Chicago jazz club tried to publicly humiliate her by accusing her of being a blues singer, she became determined to study music. She graduated with honors from Columbia College with a degree in music. She also studied voice for eight years with baritone Doug Susu-Mago, who taught her to use her voice as an instrument and to regard her presentation as an athletic performance.
Mandeville toured professionally for ten years across the upper Midwest and Canada with the R&B band the Supernaturals. She met bassist Aron Burton in 1994 and started "a longstanding performance relationship" with him that included her "label recording debut." She began performing regularly at Chicago blues clubs and worked with blues artists such as Willie Kent, Maurice John Vaughn, and Michael Coleman. Her first European tour was in 1997, and she continues to tour internationally to critical acclaim, having performed for audiences in South Africa, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Latvia, and Canada. She has been an artist-in-residence at the Chicago blues clubs Kingston Mines, Blue Chicago on Clark, B.L.U.E., Blue Chicago, and Bill's Blues. She formed her own record label, Blue Kitty Music, in 2011.
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