(Liz Mandeville Greeson)
(8CD)
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.
(8CD)
BIOGRAPHY
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.....
(Wikipedia)