Singer/ Songwriter Takes Her Latest Album to a New Level
by Amy Wagner
Eleni Mandell is that rare treasure: a female singer/songwriter who refuses to drown in a puddle of her own "oh, woe is me" tears. There has been a tradition of women making emotionally raw albums, which includes Joni Mitchell's Blue and almost any Tori Amos album, and though Mandell admires the ladies who have come before her, the California native is not of their particular ilk.
"To be honest, most of the people I go to for inspiration are not women," she says. "There are definitely women out there that I admire a lot and would love to be as successful as they are, but the people I really go to for inspiration are more like Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson, Bob Dylan and Tom Waits."
As a youngster, Mandell was introduced to music in the same way most children are—piano and violin lessons courtesy of her parents. "My mother used to say, 'Maybe you'll be an opera singer!'" she remembers. "I wasn't interested in being an opera singer, but I really did love being onstage and singing at High Holiday services—just like Aretha Franklin, but a different religion."
Instead of being content with being a member of the temple choir, the burgeoning musician quickly discovered that her favorite pastime was actually becoming a passion. Fast forward a decade or so and she had become a part of the inner circle of the Los Angeles music community, where she learned the ropes of the business from such luminaries as Tom Waits and Chuck E. Weiss of Ricki Lee Jones' "Chuck E.'s in Love" fame.
The promising young singer learned quickly, and soon her name was on the lips of every Los Angeles music-goer. She released her first album, Wishbone, in 1999, and since then has served up a string of solid discs that have included jazzy pop songs and twangy alt-country tunes. The link in Mandell's chain of musical styles has always been her singular voice—low toned and expressive, it is the ultimate storyteller's tool.
For The Miracle of Five (Zedtone Records), her sixth album in only eight years, the singer and her producer, Andy Kaulkin (Merle Haggard, R.L. Burnside), came up with a way to put that special voice of hers front and center. Instead of having Mandell's band record their parts first and then dubbing in the vocals, the songstress and her guitar went before the mic first. The result was no less than amazing.
"I have a fairly low, deep voice and it can be hard for me to project over a full band, even if I'm isolated with headphones on. It changes the way I sing," explains Mandell. "But I really like the more relaxed, intimate sound that we came up with this time around."
And just how does a young woman who follows her heart when it comes to making music, and not the whims of the pop charts, manage such a steady output of music in so short a time? Personal discipline? "I'm not disciplined at all," she laughs. "I only write when the inspiration comes to me, and when it doesn't, I do other things. I like my work to be a natural organic process, so I don't try to force it."
Whether she works off of a strict schedule or not, one thing is almost painfully clear: Eleni Mandell is an artist who has taken the time to study herself. "I really make my albums for myself because you can never second-guess your audience, and I've been lucky that my listeners cover such a broad spectrum," she says. "In the end, I guess I just make records that I want to hear.
She is not alone in her musical tastes. Since The Miracle of Five's release on February 6, the album has been showered with praise. It's not surprising, considering that Mandell's lyrics have grown leaps and bounds since her last release, 2004's Afternoon. It's the personal art of lyric writing that the singer fears is getting lost in our current day and age when a three-minute pop song credits six different people as its author.
"You're going to lose a little bit of the humanity [of the song] if there are too many cooks in the kitchen," she muses. "I feel partly what people relate to are the more personal things and then they can project their own story onto them."
But all talk of art aside, a girl has got to make a living, and while Mandell admits that it hasn't always been easy, this hardworking singer is not about to throw in the towel. "I used to think, When I turn 30, I'll have to re-look at this and maybe go back to school or get a graduate degree or something, but the date kept getting pushed back," she laughs.
In fact, if she ever gets tired of going the solo route, Mandell also has two side projects in the works. As a member of a pop band called the Grabs, which features former Blondie bassist Nigel Harrison, the singer/songwriter leaves her chanteuse side behind in favor of getting her rock and roll on. Her other group, the Living Sisters, is a harmony-based trio that includes Inara George and Becky Stark, who are also pulling double duty as members of The Bird and The Bee and Lavender Diamond, respectively.
But before she can take the time to make any more new music, Mandell has another task before her—a major European tour looms just around the corner. March will see the hardworking singer touring through Germany and Switzerland before she begins a sweep across the U.S. But no matter where she chooses to play, the universal nature of her music is sure to please.
