Born in Atlanta, Georgia and raised in the wilds of Wisconsin, Mandi Strachota is the product of southern roots and Midwest know-how, a potent mix of practicality and soulful dreaming. She’s been singing all her life, belting out Willie Nelson, Whitney Houston and Sheena Easton tunes in the family living room, strong-arming her pre-school pals into elaborate musical productions of “Annie” at the local YMCA lobby, and joining in family sing-a-longs on the long rides to visit her granny in Tennessee.
Music, dance and performance have always been woven intimately into the fabric of her childhood, from her first piano class at the age of 4, to intensive violin lessons and gospel choir sessions while a mathematics major at Notre Dame. Soon after college graduation, the music still calling her, Mandi decided it was time to head south with the intent of finding a job and starting her creative life.
Mandi became a fixture on the Atlanta scene, playing at local spots like the Northside Tavern, as well as booking a slew of wedding dates. She met singer/songwriter Larry Griffith after seeing his set at a club called Crystal’s on Marietta Square. “I ended up coming back every week until Larry offered to throw me some tips if I would be a permanent fixture. I played with Larry for six years after that.”
break-up, medical issues, the loss of both her grandfather and grandmother in close succession, a dark clash of bad luck and bad timing – all resulted in a period of depression, sadness, anger, but also – in a glimmer of redemption. “It enabled me to see things more clearly,” Mandi says of that time in her life, “and to want to stick up for the real me and to share that person with the world. From the moment I knew this album would exist, I knew it would be titled ‘Unleashed.’”
Recorded at The Greenhouse in Atlanta, Unleashed is Mandi Strachota finding herself – rediscovering that childhood love of music, while finding both her voice and her joy again. “This was the first time I felt I could do what I wanted to do creatively,” she says of the album, “The majority of the songs are about that transformation. You can hear the desire to get out in ‘Ready To Run,’ the state of realization of how I led myself into this corner of dependence and lack of confidence in ‘These Days,’ the ultimate rock bottom of it all when I quit believing in love in ‘Just Rain,’ and the triumphant resurrection in ‘Growing Pains,’ ‘My Time To Shine,’ and ‘These Shoes.’”
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