Sat 10/12 @ 11:30AM-8:30PM
Geauga County guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Lea Marra calls her music “porch folk,” conveying the easygoing warmth of her music and performances. Over time, she and her band, which she now calls the River Boys, have evolved from being a densely arranged Americana rock act to something sparser and more bluegrass-influenced, with just three other members who together play guitar, mandolin, banjo and upright bass, topped with three-part harmonies.
She has also spent more than a decade working to grow her music scene through bluegrass songs and grassroots organizing, giving up-and-coming musicians places to play and mentors to look up to. More than a decade ago, she took over a music festival in Chardon called Love Fest when its organizers retired. Since then, she’s grown and expanded it into an event called the Wild Maple Music Festival, which takes place this weekend on Chardon Square, featuring 17 acts doing original music, most from northeast Ohio with a a handful of regional acts thrown in.
“Our whole basis of the festival is to celebrate original music, to have that shine and to have people experience it,” she says.
Marra and her River Boys will be performing with other acts ranging from hip hop to country including Waylon Fingers & Friends, Astral Radio, Tyler Bohnic, Beezy Douglas, Songs for an Unknown God and Brown Liquor Band. The final six acts of the day are all female-fronted acts, reflecting the exploding participation in the music scene by women. Several are relatively well known in the area including AJ & the Woods, Frida & the Mann and Rachel Shortt & the Underwoods. (Chloe & the Steel Strings from Toledo and evening closer Ohayo from Youngstown are the other two.)
In addition to all-day music, the festival includes yoga, a petting zoo, a tie-dye station, a kids’ story reading, a bubble show by Dr. U.R. Awesome, vendors and the now-ubiquitous food trucks. It’s family-friendly and free.
Chardon, OH 44024