Lea Marra & the River Boys Embrace Bluegrass and Folk on Debut Album

Lea Marra & the River Boys. Credit: Courtesy of Lea Marra & the River Boys

Since her dad was a musician, local singer-songwriter Lea Marra gravitated to music at an early age.

“We had a piano in the house, and when I was about 7, I would fool around on the piano,” says Marra in a recent phone interview. Her new band, Lea Marra & the River Boys, will release their first album and perform with Chloe and the Steel Strings and Dave Ziggy of C-Level at 7 p.m. on Friday, March 15, at the Beachland Tavern. “I had piano lessons, and I stuck with that until I was 10. At that point, I was more drawn to the guitar. My dad taught me the basics, and I kept at it. They gave me lessons from there until I was 14. [Singer-songwriter] Avril Lavigne and [emo rockers] Paramore were big influences. My parents listened to ’50s and ’60s music and also old country. I was surrounded by a lot of different genres. I was into the early 2000’s pop stuff and country stuff.”

She started writing songs right away and played one of the earliest tunes she wrote, a track about her fifth grade crush, at seventh grade camp.

“My music teacher in seventh grade told me to play it in front of everyone,” she says. “No one knew I played and sang, I was very nervous as it was my first time performing in front of my peers, but I did it, and the reaction was good.”

Playing open mics in her tween and teen years opened up the experience of performing in front of people. Connecting with other musicians in high school and befriending drummer Joe Linsky in school led to her first band, the indie outfit the Tom Katlees, which released one full-length before breaking up in 2019. She was only 17 at the time she fronted that group. Her next band, the Dream Catchers, evolved out of the Tom Katlees and delivered two albums. The River Boys became her latest backing band last summer.

“The last two members of the Dream Catchers departed the band, and I felt it needed to be rebranded, and the way the music was going determined that too,” she says. “The Dream Catchers were more alt-country when we had a drummer. We lost our drummer and tried to find the right fit but it didn’t work out so then we became a string band. The music has now evolved into more of a folksy, bluegrass-y sound.”

She wrote many of the songs on her new album during the Dream Catchers era but didn’t have a chance to record them. She cut them at the start of January at Bay Village’s Plastic Dino Studio with producer Tuck Mindrum. The resulting album, Ace of Cups, contains several tracks that live listeners have heard at shows for the past year.

“It was great to record with Tuck,” she says. “He really took his time with us. He would stay later if needed. I enjoyed working with him, and I think the Boys did as well.”

One highlight, “Chocolate and Flowers,” features hiccuping vocals and plucky guitars as Marra sings about the beginning of her current relationship and describes her past relationships compared to the new one.

“I was listening to a lot of [singer-songwriter] Sierra Ferrell and took influences from her for that song,” Marra says. “I think you can tell I was listening to her a lot when you hear this song. It’s a light-hearted love song.”

The upcoming release show at the Beachland Tavern will pair Marra and her River Boys with a couple of their musical friends from different bands in the Cleveland music scene.

“We’re really looking forward to it,” she says of the release party. “We’re really happy to share the stage with [Chloe and the Steel Strings and Dave Ziggy of C-Level]. Our music flows well, so it will be a nice changeup of genre a bit, but it’ll be fluid as well.”

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