INTERVIEW WITH LIZ MANDEVILLE

Liz Mandeville, Wayne Baker Brooks, Sugar Blue, Peaches Staten and many more to entertain our vets for

Warrior Summit 2011

Tuesday, August 23 at Soldier Field

Blues diva Liz Mandeville wears many hats. A modern day Renaissance woman, she is a sultry singer, award-winning songwriter, guitarist, journalist, painter, educator and all-around bon vivant. She has performed all over the world and has released four CDs of original music on the Earwig music label. Currently she is recording tunes for a new CD to be released on her own indie label.

In recent years, Liz has found herself with another title, that of “military wife” when she married devoted husband Carl, who serves in the Illinois National Guard.

Not surprisingly, the prolific songwriter was inspired by her experience to pen “Illinois National Guard Blues” and included it on her most recent, critically acclaimed CD, Red Top.  The tune, about a loyal husband who joins the Guard to support his loved ones but ends up getting shipped to Iraq, struck a chord with many folks in a similar situation.  Since then, Liz has penned two more tunes with similar themes: “My Mama Wears Combat Boots” and “A Soldier’s Wife,” which she has just recorded.

Liz will perform all three military-themed tunes, backed by Jake, Elwood & The Band (Blues Brothers tribute), for the Fourth Annual Illinois Warrior Summit, Welcome Home Concert and Valor Games on Tuesday, August 23. The day-long event will be held at Soldier Field, Chicago from 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Admission is free and open to veterans, service members and their families.  Chicago Blues artists Wayne Baker Brooks & the All-Star Blues Band, featuring Sugar Blue and Peaches Staten will also entertain the troops (see below for set times).

The Summit www.IllinoisWarriorSummit.com will provide a unique concert series, resource fair and military-themed entertainment that benefits the Serving All Veterans Equally (SAVE) Foundation and serves our veterans. With over 200 vendors, the goal of the Summit is to assist vets and service members with obtaining information about benefits, employment, education, housing and legal services that are available to them.

This year, the Warrior Summit will combine with the Valor Games www.ValorGamesMidwest.org  along with musicians and military personnel in order to reach as many vets and service members as possible. The festivities will include health screenings, a resource fair and family fun.  Free tickets to Chicago sports games (White Sox, Cubs, Slaughter), t-shirts, meals and much more will be given out on a first come basis. Scroll down for performance schedule.

Chicago Blues Guide asked Liz Mandeville to share some details about her personal life as a military spouse.

Q. Liz, please tell us about your experience as both a blues artist and military wife and how that led to you writing the three songs you will perform at Warrior Summit.

Way back in 1983, I started my first blues band The Supernaturals. I learned my craft in that band logging thousands of road miles doing countless gigs in venues across the U.S. and Canada. In the early ‘90’s, I had a serious wake-up call on the way to a gig; black ice caused a freak van wreck. As I gripped the wheel, the van spinning out of control, I called out to God for another chance to use the talent I’d been given. Incredibly my prayers were answered in a heartbeat! Right then I decided to quit touring until I’d changed my circumstances. I wanted to be more than just a good entertainer. I wanted to be a great musician as well so I enrolled at Columbia College Chicago and got a degree in music.

During my years at school I performed weekly at the Blue Chicago clubs by night while attending classes, reading and writing papers in the Center for Black Music Research (at Columbia) by day.  That invaluable time gave me not only a great musical foundation to build on, but deep knowledge of blues history and my place in it. 

The same year I graduated from school, 1996, I released my first CD on the Earwig label, Look At Me. Over the next fourteen years, three more discs followed, each greeted by critical acclaim, wonderful opportunities like tours of Europe and the chance to work with some of the finest musicians in Blues. 

It was while I was touring to support my third Earwig release, Back In Love Again, a CD that featured songs inspired by a series of terrible losses (the death of both my parents, break-up of my marriage, deaths of three of my music business partners all within the space of a few years) and what it meant to be on my own in the world, that I met the man who is now my husband. Shell shocked by loss, not wanting another painful experience, I was not an easy woman to get close to, but this man was and is exceptional. A former marine and a union electrician, Carl is a very serious guy. He moved to Chicago to court me but had a hard time finding decent work. I had been so seriously disappointed by my bad love choices that my attitude was “No romance without finance!” Carl felt his best option at the time was to join the National Guard which he did.

Deployment is a fact of life for military families. I was very proud of Carl’s service following Hurricane Katrina when he spent a month with his Illinois Guard Unit helping restore order to that sad, chaotic situation. Hearing that he was being deployed to Iraq brought on a lot of other emotions and led to my penning “Illinois National Guard Blues”, which is featured on my fourth Earwig release, 2008’s Red Top. Due to health complications, Carl did not end up deploying to Iraq, but he has deployed on several other missions, the most recent being a peace keeping mission in the Middle East.

 It was while sitting in a hotel room in Seattle last year after I’d gone to see him off for that mission, contemplating my next year without him that I wrote “A Soldiers Wife.” Guard families get a monthly magazine featuring different warriors and their stories. I was reading about a woman who had to leave her kids and go fight in Afghanistan when I got the idea for “My Mama Wears Combat Boots” thinking about the old school yard slam and how it’s now a badge of honor for a mom to serve her country and wear the dreaded combat boots! I thought how far we’ve come as women; who knows, maybe one day a woman will be president.

Q.  Please tell us about your two new songs that you will perform for the vets.

I finally got into the studio last week and laid the tracks for those two songs. “Combat Boots” is a rocker and a rave-up song that people can shout with pride.  The chorus goes “My mama wears combat boots/ My mama’s got a gun that shoots/ She put a new spin on power suits ‘cause / My mama wears combat boots!”  Here’s the third verse: “She used to mini-van, she used to car pool/ Everyday she got the kids to school/ but these days she ain’t got no time for that/ she’s doing her second tour in Iraq/ if you really wanna hear the news it’s that: MY MAMA WEARS COMBAT BOOTS!!!”

“A Soldiers Wife” is much more poignant, a very emotional ballad. What people don’t understand is that a years’ deployment is actually a year of duty plus the 4 or so months of training that happen before the soldier is sent to the field.  Once they have the soldier’s mind set they need to have them focus on the mission so once they’re gone you may get to see them for a day or two before they’re sent on the mission. I was lucky, I got to go to Seattle to see my soldier for two days before he deployed.   The bridge says it all: “400 days I’ll wait and pray/ I’ll live without him 400 days/ 400 nights I’ll sleep alone/ saving my love until he gets home/ I chose this life/ I’m a soldiers wife.

Q. When can we expect “My Mama Wears Combat Boots” and “A Soldier’s Wife” to be released on your new indie label ?

These two songs will join five swinging blues tracks I recorded in March this year with my friend, Grammy winner, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith who did an outstanding job on drums and also blew some inspired harp on two tracks. One of the tunes is graced by some wonderful saucy sax courtesy of the legendary Eddie Shaw. Both of these guys were such a pleasure to work with, such great attitude and professionalism. There are other special guests slotted to appear on various tracks which are still being mixed. We hope to have the project released in October, but we may start with a single before the end of September! It’s all very exciting; I’ve gotten so much support from all corners of the world of blues. Every day I get an excited songwriter submitting material or a friend contacting me from Europe to volunteer a track. I hope this is the first of many projects for BLUE SMOKE Records.

Performance Schedule (subject to change)

Wayne Baker Brooks & Lonnie Brooks photo: Jennifer Wheeler

11:30 A.M.

OPENING CEREMONIES WITH U.S. NAVY LEAPFROGS

12:30 P.M. EMCEE WELCOME/INTROS/OPEN

12:40 – 1:00 Voice of Veterans (4-piece pop/rock band – Viet Nam Vets; fiddle, mandolin, guitar, drums, piano, slide guitar, bass, 4 vox)

1:10 – 2:00 Jake Elwood & the Band featuring special guest Liz Mandeville on guitar (9 players: horns, bass, drums, keys, B3, guitar, vocals

EMCEE COMMENTS & AWARDS

2:10– 2:30 Workout Music Band (Rock)

2:40 – 3:00 EXO Skeleton Band (4-piece Melodic Punk/ Alternative Rock band

EMCEE COMMENTS & AWARDS

3:10– 3:35 Open to Suggestion (Classic and current rock, blues, folk, punk and rockabilly)

3:45 – 4:15 Joan Collaso Band (Jazz/Pop Trio with vox: keys, bass, drums)

EMCEE COMMENTS & AWARDS

4:25 – 5:05 Joey Glenn (Country)

5:15 – 5:45 Gabriel’s Last Breath (4-piece rock, USMC return’d from Afghan)

***RANGER GROUP JUMP BETWEEN SET CHANGE

6:05– 6: 55 Rockie Lynne (5-piece Country)

Rockie Lynne presentation to Gabriel’s Last Breath

EMCEE COMMENTS & AWARDS

7:05 – 7:55 Color 3 Band (former members of Boston – 70s/80s Rock; 3 vox +G/B/D)

8:05 – 8:55 Wayne Baker Brooks & All-Star Blues (featuring SPECIAL GUESTS Sugar Blue, and Peaches Staten)

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