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Mandy Mercier Biography: Mercier is half Irish and half Cajun French and is a singer-songwriter, harmony vocalist and violin/fiddle player. She grew up in Westport, Connecticut near New York where she studied classical music (performing with Itzhak Perlman in his first American tour) and taking up folk music as a vehicle for social protest. She attended college in Colorado (CU, Boulder) before dropping out and joining the counterculture during the Civil Rights and Viet Nam War protest movements and attended the first Woodstock Festival and Summer of Love in Haight-Ashbury. Returning to New York, Mercier performed frequently at major clubs including Kenny's Castaways, Folk City, Broadway Charlie's and CBGB's. Gigs at New York's Lone Star Cafe led to her move to Austin, encouraged by noted Academy Award screenwriter and celeb biographer (and later revered Southwestern art photographer) Douglas Kent Hall (1938-2008). Mercier also worked in book publishing and magazines in New York as a reviewer and editor before turning to music full time, again at the encouragement of Hall. As a rock-blues singer and songwriter Mercier has released five albums on various labels including Wild Cantinas Records, Frog Records and Halt Music, and has been a guest vocalist on compilation albums with Lost Art Records, Watermelon, Deep South Productions and Dock Entertainment (Spain). She has also worked as a side musician with friends and colleagues including Ray Wylie Hubbard, Blaze Foley, Lucinda Williams, Billy Joe Shaver, Townes Van Zandt, Steve Brooks, Gurf Morlix, Steve Forbert, Shake Russell and Dana Cooper, among many others. Mercier was a weekly featured vocalist with the late Champ Hood's Troubadours during their 12-year residency at Threadgill's and Gruene Hall. Mercier arrived in Austin in 1979 after a 6-month residency at Papa Joe's on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Upon arrival here, she garnered front-page attention in the American-Statesman, and featured articles in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Houston Press, and Houston Chronicle, performing at venues from Steamboat on Sixth Street to Armadillo World Headquarters Beer Garden, Alamo Lounge, emmajoe's and later (upon its reopening) Antone's. Mercier was frequently profiled and reviewed, and mentioned in the first issue, of the Austin Chronicle. Touring regionally in Texas during the 1980s with her band, including a weekly gig at the Black Cat Lounge on Sixth Street and regular gigs in Houston, Dallas, Waco, New Braunfels and Corpus Christi, Mercier later became a featured member of Ray Wylie Hubbard's "Love Wolves" out of Dallas, performing throughout Texas and the U.S. Mercier and Hubbard cut two albums together, and co-wrote several songs and a screenplay. Hubbard co-wrote the title track and is featured, along with Shake Russell, Dana Cooper and Champ Hood, on Mercier's new CD, "Run Out of Darkness" (Wild Cantinas, 2007), and Mercier's previous solo album, "Wild Dreams of the Shy Boys" (WIld Cantinas 2001) both have received excellent reviews in national and international press ("No Depression," "Maverick Country" (England) "Rootstime" (the Netherlands), "Folkwax," "Texas Music Magazine." and "My Texas Music"), as well as regular current airplay throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia. Mercier lived in Los Angeles for the period 1987-1992 where she won "Female Vocalist of the Year" from the Los Angeles Chapter of the California Country Music Association in 1992 and was inducted into the Academy of Country Music, despite being a blues (not country) singer; she next won Honorable Mention in the "M-TV Beach House Band" competition in 1994 and she continued to appear frequently in Third Coast Music/Music City Texas and Austin Chronicle polls throughout 1992-1997 (see web site); after an illness in 1997 and recuperation in Colorado, Mercier's song, "Wild Dreams of the Shy Boys" won an Honor Award in the Great American Song Contest, Contemporary Acoustic/Folk category in 2004; Mercier is currently one of 5 nominees for "Singer-Songwriter of the Year 2008" chosen by the Academy of Texas Music.
Mandy has been nominated as Singer-Songwriter of the Year 2008 by the Academy of Texas Music. Awards show May 3, 2008 in Palestine, Texas. This is a statewide award limited 5 nominees. For more information see www.texasmusicawards.org. Great American Song Contest 2004, Contemporary Acoustic/Folk honor award for "Wild Dreams of the Shy Boys." Austin Chronicle Music Poll, "Strings, (14)" (winner: Champ Hood) 1997 "Music City Texas" awards, 1994: "Female Vocalist Acoustic (HM)," "Female Vocalist, Rock (3rd)" "Female Vocalist, Blues (HM)," "Good Attitude (HM)," "Fiddle/Violin (HM)," "Woman of the Year (HM)," "Female Instrumentalist (HM)," "Female Vocalist, Overall (HM)," "Female Songwriter (HM)," "Acoustic Act (HM)." "M-TV Beach House Band," Honorable Mention, 1994 Academy of Country Music, inducted 1992-93 "Female Vocalist of the Year," Los Angeles Chapter, California Country Music Association, 1992
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