"Blues is a way of talking about life. It’s a way of creating mythology out of things that happen to every person, regardless of who they are. It’s a way of examining and exorcising one’s demons."

Liz Mandeville: The Heart Of Chicago

April 2013, Liz Mandeville was honored for her lifelong commitment to the blues with induction into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame! Liz, who started her career in 1983 with a string of gigs at the notorious “Deadwood Dave’s Saloon” on the city’s north side, won the Windy City Blues Society’s 2011 Blues Challenge. A seasoned pro, she has logged thousands of road miles; since 1983, she’s played hundreds of gigs – and people say she just keeps getting better! Based in Chicago, Liz has led her Band through countless tours, playing venues from New York to Seattle, St. Paul to Key West. She has toured Canada, Mexico, Europe and South Africa. Liz and her band toured Germany several times with Honeyboy Edwards and Louisiana Red, and with Robert Cray. Multi-talented Liz Mandeville is no stranger to hard work! Not content to be ‘just a singer,’ Liz taught herself to play electric and acoustic guitar, washboard and porch-board. She has written and produced hundreds of original songs, resulting in five critically-acclaimed CD’s.

Photo by Dorothy Perry

Liz has led her own band longer than any other female musician in Chicago. Starting in 1983, when she started her seminal R&B/Blues band, The Supernaturals, with guitarist Willie Greeson, Liz has never stopped working. Laughingly calling her band “Liz Mandeville’s Technical School of the Blues” members who’d come up thru the Supernaturals went on to join Jimmy Rogers, Dave Specter, The Mighty Blue Kings and The Legendary Blues Band. Later, Liz formed The Blue Point’s in the early 90′s and went on to be signed by Earwig Music Co. Liz plays the washboard in a style first made popular in Louisiana and employed in many traditional blues settings, adding that Creole rhythm to her music. Liz got her first guitar at 16 and started playing professionally soon after. Her guitar style tips its hat to her oldest influences: Mississippi John Hurt, Lightnin’ Hopkins and Muddy Waters mixed with T-Bone’s swing, soul from Curtis Mayfield and the Chicago Blues of Jimmy Reed. With a sense of humor that shines through her impassioned performance, Liz is a polished, professional, and consummate entertainer, not to be missed! Blue Kitty Music released the new, all original CD, Liz Mandeville: Heart ‘O’ Chicago! This 11 song disc features performances from some of Chicago’s finest musicians including Eddie Shaw, Billy Branch, Darryl Wright, Charlie Love and Dizzy Bolinski.

Interview by Michael Limnios

What do you learn about yourself from the blues and what does the blues mean to you?

Blues is a way of talking about life. It’s a way of creating mythology out of things that happen to every person, regardless of who they are. It’s a way of examining and exorcising one’s demons.

How do you describe Liz Mandeville sound and songbook? What characterize your music philosophy?           Photo by Dorothy Perry

At the time I was starting my career I looked to great voices from the past to create my sound. I looked for artists who sang things I could relate to and learned their material, in their keys, note for note, until I could make it my own. Over the years I’ve blended those influences and they all show in my work. So I guess you could say I am the distilled liquor of fruits of the labor of everyone I loved, Bobby Bland, Muddy Waters, Tina Turner, Jimmy Reed, Otis Redding, soul singers, blues singers and I listened to a lot of sax players too and copped their licks as well. Jr. Walker was especially great for that. I also had the honor of opening for him! What a pro!

My music philosophy is “take your lemons and make lemonade!” What don’t kill you make you stronger. When something happens to me I write a song about it, I sing it, I exorcise it and I exercise it. Laugh to keep from crying, never let em see you sweat. Man, you can bitch about your troubles to music and somebody hears it and feels comforted to think, “Well, I thought I was alone here.” Or “Things aren’t so bad, listen to what that chick went thru!” I try to make these events funny, try to tell a story that’ll make you laugh and think. That was the way with the classic blues mamas too. Bessie Smith would tell a story or a joke to set up her next song and put people to thinking about what she was really saying behind the rhyme. You know people didn’t used to be able to say any old thing in public, you had to hide it in the words, be clever, double entendre. I love that, playing with words. It’s one of my favorite things and I love to make people smile.

Which meetings have been the most important experiences for you? What is the best advice ever given you?

The first meeting with bassist Aron Burton was what got me started. He told me “Learn three songs and what key you sing them in then go out and sit in with everybody.” Meeting my first husband was also instrumental. He was so deep in the 50’s Chicago blues I got an appreciation for it. Before that I loved all the R&B & Soul music, but Willie was brutal in getting me to stop trying to sound flowery and go for the feel.

Meeting my present husband Carl has to be the most important for my guitar playing. He told me “You really need to get the best equipment and take yourself seriously.” He took me to the Carvin factory in California and bought me my favorite guitar, I call it “My Pony” cos I love to get on that baby and ride! He also showed me how to get around on the guitar, do some leads. Up till then I was basically filling in a rhythm space to give the song more meat and free up the other players to put in fills and color. My role was sing and play rhythm, Carl really gave me a lot more confidence. He made it more about fun.

Are there any memories from “Heart ‘O’ Chicago” studio sessions which you’d like to share with us?

Making that album was not like any I’ve done before. It was much more organic, taking it’s time and unfolding without any real plan. Like the wind throwing seeds into the dirt that just start coming up. I hadn’t planned to make a CD. I was making demos for other artists. A few of the songs came from conversations I had with Shirley Johnson about her life. “Silver Lining” is about her bout with Pleurosy, and hospitalization. She told me “be careful what you pray for, Liz, I prayed to God to help me give up smoking and ended up in a hospital bed!”

We made this record down in my basement! My husband Carl is real handy and he finished those rooms, put up walls, put in electricity, we got a drum kit and I set up my old pa. We were rehearsing down there and those rehearsals became the rhythm tracks you hear on the CD. There was a lot of input from Darryl and Minoru. Those guys came over every Tuesday night for months and we worked on music all night long. When we got something like 16 songs together I called Jim Godsey (my favorite engineer) and we started looking for studios, but the place I recorded Clarksdale in 2011, is out of business, the places I recorded my Earwig stuff too. Finally Jim said, “Let me bring my stuff to your rehearsal space and see how it sounds.” Wow! Two cheers for modern technology. During that time the focus of this Heart ‘O’ Chicago CD started to come together for me. I wanted to continue the statement I’d started with Clarksdale: the progression of the blues from field holler up the Mississippi thru Memphis to Chicago and the birth of electric blues. That’s why I had Willie and Eddie on Clarksdale, both played with the Chess masters.

For this CD it was the Chicago Blues, people that had shaped my concept of it in the last decades of the last century. That meant Hammond B-3 and horns. That meant Eddie and Billy and Charlie and Dizzy. That meant a tip of the hat to Tyrone Davis and Otis Clay and those guys I mentioned before that have gone home. Of course it was a blast working with Eddie Shaw (photo) again, (this was our third project together) and Billy Branch is so cool. He also blew on my third Earwig release, Back In Love Again. I saw him at Legends one night and he said “I heard you’re making a record, Liz, you better call me!” So he’s back and blowing on two tracks, awesome!

One of the coolest sessions we did was recording Joan Gand’s keyboard tracks. That night Jim and I got out of the basement and went up to her place. She lives back in the woods in this crazy midcentury modern house, like some architects wet dream! In one room, with pop art on the walls, sparsely placed, low late 60’s style furniture, there in the corner was a Hammond B-3 and Leslie. Joan’s husband, Gary, set up a TV tray for Jim’s laptop and she ripped all these great tracks, one after the other. Joan is really tiny, she must be 98 pounds soaking wet, her feet barley reach the pedals, but she sort of swung her feet and bopped her head and voila! Awesome-ness. For the two piano tracks we went into another room, floor to ceiling windows and a huge Steinway grand. Simply beautiful and she plays so fantastically. She really flavors “These Blues” giving it that jazz club sensibility I’d been looking for. More awesome-ness.

"Pop music only lets its artists sing about love and you’re done once you’re 30. The blues speaks to people of all ages. It permits its artists to comment on every topic under the sun." 

What do you miss most nowadays from the blues of past? What are your hopes and fears for the future of?

I mostly miss people from the past, like George Baze, the guitarist I worked with in the 90’s. George had been Jr Wells’ band leader and survived the wreck that killed two other band guys. He wouldn’t tour after that, but he’d go out with me and play, he had so much soul, sang beautifully and played so simply but effectively. I once saw him win a guitar showdown, all the other cats were shredding and playing all this fancy b.s. Then George got up there and played one note until it hurt! His Rainy Night in Georgia could bring the water to your eyes.

Dave Jefferson, who’d been Albert King’s road drummer for many years, played on my first CD. He was a wonderful player bringing a lot of Memphis to his Chicago shuffle. He kept a pair of dice in his pocket “in case I needs to make some paper…” The other drummer on that Look At Me CD, Bob Carter has also passed and was a total character! He knew every pawn shop in the US and Canada and the best place to get a cup of coffee and all the overnight waitresses. He was a fine singer and wrote some good tunes too. I miss those guys.

I miss the many characters who used to hang out on Halsted St. Everybody all dressed in 3 piece suits and Stacy Adams, maybe a Stetson hat, pocket watch, there was a singing drummer Robert Covington, golden voice. Lefty Dizz, they called him “The Clown Prince of the Blues.” He played left hand guitar and he’d hold it out over the audience and do a million hammer-on’s while giving everybody the evil eye! He was so skinny and fierce, the creases on his pants could cut you! He wrote Tin Pan Alley that Stevie Ray cut, it was about the neighborhood he grew up in. No joke! The women all sequins and wigs, I miss Valerie Wellington walking the bar in her converse high tops and velour jogging suits, Barbara LeShour in her floorlength, neon green lame’ dress with headdress of green dingleballs! Barkin Bill, must’ve been 80 when I met him, who once confided in me “I got me some ‘shine, some cocaine, now if I could get me some reefer I’d be smooth” then he got up and sang “Aint nobody’s business if I do!” The party was on back in those days.

"I love that, playing with words. It’s one of my favorite things and I love to make people smile." (Photo by Gary Gand: Liz & Buddy Guy, holding her Blues Hall Of Fame Award)

Make an account of the case of the blues in Chicago. Which is the most interesting period in local blues scene?

For me, whatever period I’m in at the moment is the most interesting. Of course the first Blues Brothers Movie, having been shot here in Chicago did wonders for the health of the blues. We really owe a debt to those guys who made it. All of a sudden people were in love with the blues again. There was a real healthy club scene and lots of players. But that was a generation ago. I think the BB Movie let everybody see the blues is FUN! It’s a little bit naughty, but it’s mostly fun. We need a new inspiration like that one.

Why did you think that the heart of Chicago Blues continues to generate such a devoted following?

Pop music only lets its artists sing about love and you’re done once you’re 30. The blues speaks to people of all ages. It permits its artists to comment on every topic under the sun. People have a problem with the word “Blues” I don’t know why, but people think they’re not going to like it. Then they hear it and say “That’s blues? But I like that!” and then they’re hooked. It really is a universal language the whole world can speak.

What has made you laugh lately and what touched (emotionally) you from the chitlin’ circuits?

Paul Thorn on the King Biscuit Fest singing “Burn Down the Trailer Park.” He’s such a great songwriter! Bobby Rush playing guitar, just him and a bass player, held the whole crowd spell bound with his style. Buddy Guy singing “Stoop Down Mama, Let your Daddy See” at the Blues Blast awards two years ago. Such joy in him.

"What don’t kill you make you stronger. When something happens to me I write a song about it, I sing it, I exorcise it and I exercise it. Laugh to keep from crying, never let em see you sweat." (Liz with Bob Stroger and Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, King Biscuit Fest. / Photo by Lon Mickelson) 

Which memory from Honeyboy Edwards, Louisiana Red, and Willie "Big Eyes" Smith makes you smile?

We were on tour in Germany (Me & my band along with Honeyboy and Red) and had a day off so I stopped by Honey’s room to see if he wanted to come to old town Munich with us. He was resting in bed and Red was sitting in the chair with a guitar in his hand, he always was playing and making up songs on the spot. Those two were telling stories from their past. I was really torn b/c I wanted to go see Munich, but hearing them talk was just fascinating! I’d never known that they’d played together before and been friends for a long time. Red had been married to Odetta, but he wouldn’t talk about that. He said “I’m married to a woman from Africa now, there can’t be no other women talked about! You don’t know what hoodoo she could do!” That woman was real nice and took care of Red, in fact, he would get on stage and just play forever but she sat there at the side of the stage on a folding chair and kept track of the time so he didn’t play too long. They were both very nice men, I’m sorry we only got that short time together and now they’re both gone home.

Willie Smith was so full of life and such a young thinking man. I asked his if I should call him to double check the time for the session and he said “Just text me” he was in his 70’s but he was right on the cutting edge of technology. He was early to the studio session and ready to cut as many takes as it took to get the track sounding right. That’s his voice you hear on the first cut of my previous release, Clarksdale, joking with me and bassist Darryl Wright.

Let’s take a trip with a time machine, so where and why would you really wanna go for a whole day..?

I’d like to go to the Monterey Pop Festival and watch Hendrix and Otis Redding’s shows and if I have to explain why I’m talking to the wrong people!! Imaging seeing those two incredible performers on stage on the same festival! Both men were at the height of their game and gone, what, two years later?

If I could get a second trip I’d like to go to Madison Square Garden to see the Ike and Tina Turner revue that became their double album set. I don’t know what year it was, sometime in the 70’s, but that recording had a profound effect on my show. Or I’d go see James Brown on the Tammy Show. Wow. He is totally the king in my book. I used to do a lot of his steps, him and Tina Turner are two of my big idols.

What does to be a female artist in a “Man’s World” as James Brown says? What is the status of women in Blues?

Well, if you listen to what James says “This is a man’s world…but it wouldn’t be nothing without a woman or a girl.” Men do all the things they do for love. You have to understand that business is business and not to get all emotional about how things are, just keep on working and striving. I think this is a great time to be a woman in the Blues. More women are taking active leadership roles, more women are recognized for their contribution. Women have always been in the blues, in fact the blues started with the Classic Period of the 1920’s when all the stars were female. I think being a blues person is a calling, like the priesthood in a way. I may be a woman, but I have to do this, I have no choice it is what I do, it’s who I am. Yes, there have been times I’ve been disappointed but I get up and keep going forward because to not do that would be like trying not to exhale.

Liz Mandeville - Official website