Liz Mandeville Gives Fun Workshops!

Four Great Topics:

1. History of the Blues

2. Women’s Contributions to the Blues,

3. Blues Music 101

4. Song Writing for Fun and Profit

Liz has a BA in Music from Chicago’s Columbia College.

After eight years of touring with her band, Liz decided that although she was a good entertainer, she wanted to be a better musician. She enrolled at fine arts focused Columbia College, Chicago where she graduated with honors in 1996.

At Columbia Liz was unbelievably lucky to work with Music Department Chair, WilliamRusso, who had been an arranger for Duke Ellington and Stan Getz.Composer Kimo Williams, vocalist Bobbi Wilsyn and arranger Orbert Davis were among Liz’s professors. In Columbia’s English Department, performer and historian, George Bailey, was most influential. He encouraged Liz’s research and guided her writing on the world of blues, her place in it and giving an historical perspective.

During her college years, Liz was Artist in Residence at the Blue Chicago clubs from 1994-99. She performed with many great blues artists & recorded 2 tracks for the Blue Chicago Label’s “Red Hot Mamas” CD. While getting her college degree by day she was getting her “PhD in the Streets,” (as her fellow musicians teased her) singing blues in the clubs at night.

Liz Mandeville Loves Blues History! She Makes It Fun!

While Liz was a College student in the 1990’s, she spent hours in Columbia’s extensive library and their Center for Black Music Research as well as the City of Chicago’s Harold Washington Library, combing the stacks, reading historical data, back issues of the Chicago Defender (America’s first Black owned newspaper) and with the help of blues historian Suzanne Flandereau, building her knowledge of America’s Roots Music.

She uses those resources paired with her enthusiasm, her talent as an entertainer and her handy guitar in presenting these four fun, informative workshops: • History of the Blues, from field hollers to funk…• Women’s Contributions to the Blues, what , why and who… • Blues Music 101, or what is this music & how do I clap to it?• Song Writing for Fun and Profit

Here’s a summary of what you’ll get in each workshop….

History of the Blues: From Field Hollers to Funk…

Today it feels as if Blues has always been part of Americas cultural tapestry. It’s actually a blend of many threads. Work songs, Spirituals, Toasts, Minstrelsy, Vaudeville, and Politics, all had a hand in that blend which continues to morph and grow even today. In fact today’s Blues has incorporated rock, funk and heavy metal! In this fun, fact filled workshop:

• Liz starts at the beginning, demonstrates the work song, its beginnings and uses. • She talks about the Revivalist movement, the traveling tent show, its music and

Biblical message and how it influenced the popular music of the day. • Liz will take you on a tour of the minstrel show contrasting it with vaudeville and

how the two art forms came together and the Classic Blues Period bloomed.• Next, the Classic Blues Period, a decade that changed the world! Who was

responsible, who were the major players and what happened to end it?• The rise of the guitar, country blues, Northern Migrations, Memphis and Chicago.• Chess Records, from the birth of Electric Blues to the Birth of Rock & Roll.• Chicago’s Delmark , Alligator, Blind Pig, and Earwig Records: Who, what & why?• Enter the Funk! Johnny Guitar Watson, James Brown & disco touch the blues.• Hip Hop: a direct descendant of the Toast, what was that, who toasted an why?• The Blues NOW and in the Future…

Women’s Contribution to the Blues

Since its inception, women have been instrumental in building, improving and adding to the great mystery that is American Blues Music. Consider these facts:

• A woman named the blues and created the template for all Blues Singers that followed her. She kept her seminal act going for 50 years!

• 3 female Vaudeville stars incited the Classic Blues period. One of them also discovered Eubie Blake!

• A woman took blues guitar from country pickin’ to urban electric paving the way for the Chicago masters of Chess Records fame!

• At the height of the 60’s Civil Rights Movement, a beauty queen took her winnings and used them to reignite the career of her favorite artist, Lightnin’ Hopkins!

You’ll hear intimate details of these stories and many more. Join Liz Mandeville in an interactive, music filled journey that traces the political climate in the US that would lead any woman to sing the blues, important periods in blues and the women who helped form them, the songs, the players and their juicy inside stories.

Blues 101: How to Listen, Where to Clap!

Geared toward the non-musician, great for introducing the blues to kids, this fun interactive One Hour Workshop will get you clapping, singing, and swinging along to the blues of all periods.

Questions addressed include:• What is the Blues? A short history, where it started and what were

the songs like? You’ll learn a field holler, line-out and hear a classic blues song, a boogie and a lump de lump.

• How do you recognize blues when you hear it? Explaining timing, tempo, the importance of the rhythm, the blues scale, and blue notes. The room will become a rhythm machine!

• Types of blues; What’s the difference between Blues and Jazz; Blues & Rock; Blues & Hip-Hop? As an ever changing art form, blues has grown from Field Hollers to the 12-bar. What makes these different? What is a LUMP? We’ll follow one lick thru 40 years of morphing!

Song Writing for Fun & Profit!

Liz Mandeville has written hundreds of songs . More than 80 of her songs have been recorded and internationally distributed. She’s produced five radio commercials . She won the 2005 International Songwriting Contest, and was a finalist in the USA Songwriting Contest. In 2008 Liz was nominated Songwriter of the Year by the American Roots Music Association.Join Liz for a fascinating class on the mechanics of songwriting from idea to completion and beyond. • Liz will talk about song form, what are the parts of a song and how do

they function?• Types of songs, ballad, boogie, 12-bar, rock song, what are they really?• Developing an idea, giving yourself a writing assignment, collecting

hooks, some famous songs and how they got written. • We’ll look at some popular songs and figure out what makes them tick.• The class will write a song together and play it. Liz will also cover areas of business such as copywriting & publishing