LEA

Artist Information

Biography

In the beginning, there was a voice. Before she could even speak properly, there was song. Have you ever experienced a 3 year old, singing her heart out in a Baptist Church?

That was LEA, some 27 years ago. The song is still one of her favorite hymns, "Sweet Sweet Spirit."

At 13, LEA began to teach herself to play the acoustic guitar by spinning songs out of the chords she'd learn in an old Mel Bay book she'd found. That six-string was her best friend and accompanied LEA to Washington DC area open mics where she honed her skills in song writing and performance.

Her father, who had traveled the world playing trumpet with the 70s soul band, Black Heat, warned LEA early on to treat music as a hobby. Her mother, on the other hand, had once dreamed of being an opera singer and initiated LEA at age 8 into the Jones Family Gospel Singers. She showered the young artist with many of the instruments that line her studio to this day.

LEA waded a while in theatrical waters, but always found herself with a guitar in hand and a song on her mind. So, after a year spent as an exchange student in Germany, where she played her first paying gig, LEA returned with the mission of being a full-time singer/songwriter.

Since then, LEA's voice and songs have graced the stages of a variety of venues including the John F Kennedy Center, American University, Eddie's Attic, and Harmony Hall. She continues to perform in Europe, where her 5th full length CD was released. LEA's songs have been featured in TV, films and have earned her recognition from the Washington Area Music Association and the Mid-Atlantic Song Contest.

Now, LEA is entering new territory as a co-founder of bigBEE Records, an independent label dedicated to "making the world a little sweeter, one song at a time."

Instrumentation

LEA - acoustic guitar & vocals

trio or quartet also available:
Will Henderson- bass
Doug Alan Wilcox djembe and vocals

Discography

creation (2000) - Fully produced. Nominated Best Debut Recording by the Washington Area Music Association!

Looking Forward (2003) - Light instrumentation. Nominated Songwriter of the Year!

LEA "live" (2004) - Recorded at Eddie's Attic in Atlanta, GA.

shine on (2005) - Uplifting songs, rendered simply

open your eyes (2005) - collaboration demo of tunes cowritten with German Hip Hop band, Jazzafact

Great Big World (2007) - Described as a "great voice singing great songs". LEA collaborates with the best DC area musicians to create her best recording to date. Maiden release for ListenGood Records in Arlington, VA

Something Worth Keeping (2008) - return to the acoustic basics

Get It Right (2008) - released on bigBEE Records.

Links

• bigBEE Records
• Buy Get It Right
• MySpace
• You Tube - "A Candle Burning"
• You Tube - "Xenophobia"

Audio

• BadSign/Superstitious (Live)
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• Falling Down - (Solo)
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• Something To Talk About (Trio)
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• Everything's Fine
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• Xenophobia
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• Another Sunny Day
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• Long Time
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• Get It Right
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• Icarus
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• What You've Done For Me
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• Falling Down
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Lyrics

• Falling Down
• Another Sunny Day
• Everything's Fine
• Xenophobia
• Get It Right
• Icarus

Video

LEA with WilPower

Photo Gallery

Press

• Direct Quotes [+ Show ]
  

  "...an extraordinary talented singer/songwriter, [with an] ability to connect with the audience tha..."...an extraordinary talented singer/songwriter, [with an] ability to connect with the audience that is most incredible. LEA enriched all of us with her positive energy, rich repertoire of tunes, expressive acoustic guitar playing, and melodious alto voice, combined with a sense of spontaneity."
  - Alan D. White, Ph.D., Coordinator of the 2007 Meet the Performing Artist Series
  
  "... a singer/songwriter whose ... magnetic voice and deep, heartfelt appeal draws us in... LEA is so refreshing in a sea of wanna-be, sound-alike, cookie cutter performers... a reminder of true talent, bringing not only a fresh perspective, but sound."
  - Women's Rising Magazine
  
  "She's just plain good." - Cathy Fink, multiple Grammy Winner and one of LEA's mentors at Strathmore
  
  "When imagining the influences for Lea's music, the obvious starting point would seem to fall within the genre of Folk. However, allow yourself to listen a bit closer and a bit longer and you will hear the soulful lyric frankness of Blues accompanied by the chordal and melodic complexity of Jazz. Ultimately, the strongest influence on her music is Lea, which she projects with charm and ease when she takes the stage."

• LEA, rising [+ Show ]
  

  By Alex Kafka Say there was a dazzling D.C.-area singer-songwriter with an irresistible, velvety ...By Alex Kafka
  
  Say there was a dazzling D.C.-area singer-songwriter with an irresistible, velvety alto voice, an assured stage presence, and an endless repertoire of wonderfully fresh, original tunes. You'd have heard her--or at least heard of her--right?
  
  Well, maybe. Maybe, if you'd happened upon her at the right Starbucks or were drawn to her endearing sounds as you browsed at Borders. Or maybe if you wandered into one of the monthly Kensington Coffee Houses in the basement of St. Paul's Methodist--that's assuming you can find the entrance. No not that one, follow the sign. No, not that one either, that's the main sanctuary. Yeah, that one, at the top of the handicapped-access ramp, the other side of the building from the parking lot.
  
  How's this for slick? Five-dollar cover, and that includes the bottomless cup of joe donated by Café Monet. Desserts, like those incredible brownies made by one of the three dozen volunteers who manage the event, are a buck extra, but hey, proceeds go to after-school tutoring, and if you have change, you can put it in the donation box for the September 11 victims. Have a seat in one of the folding chairs at a long table with a red plastic cloth and the flowers donated by Johnson's. Heck, take the flowers home after the show if you like, but leave the vase, OK?
  
  So, get the feeling you're not in the heart of the hustle of the big-label music biz? There's the husband-and-wife duo, Richard Dahl and Audrey Morris. He's singing a funny coal-miner-style folk song about dot-commers getting the shaft (his day job's at an Internet firm, he jokes, but he's lucky to have the non-paying folk gigs, for security). These performers are like family. The ones not on stage are all sitting together at a table up front, clapping supportively, laughing at the between-song patter from the performers. Audrey and Richard invite up on stage, for vocal back-up, Cletus Kennelly, Garth Ross, and Lea. She's up there again, for the next set, playing bass and singing back-up vocals for Kennelly, who will later sing back-up for her.
  
  She's unassuming. The demeanor of a self-contained junior-high-school librarian or some such. "A little more vocal?" she asks the sound man, like Oliver Twist requesting more gruel. Yeah, a real prima donna, this one.
  
  Next set, and it's her turn.
  
  *
  
  Lea, who in fact has a last name--"Morris, like the cat," she says--is, by all accounts, ready to take off. "She's in her own ballgame," says Pat Staton, who's played Lea on her show on WAGE-a.m. in Leesburg. "People I think are sitting up and taking notice of her through the music gossip line."
  
  Sarah Launius, who books performers for local Borders stores, doesn't want to lose Lea, but says, "I hope to see her doing more along the lines of the larger university auditoriums, breaking into larger venues. I think it wouldn't be totally out of the question to see her playing at the Birchmere in a year or two."
  
  Molly Ruskin, who runs the Kensington Coffee House with her husband Ray, remembers several years ago when, "out of the blue she sent us a tape. . . . We get lots of stuff but we popped it in, and even though it wasn't a highly produced tape we were immediately intrigued and enchanted. And later, after she had played at the coffee house--at the time she was only 20 years old--we were stunned by her sophistication and the mature sound."
  
  And what is that sound, exactly? Well, that's when people have to scratch their heads for a moment. There's certainly a folk element, "but it's not a folky-dokey type music," says Staton. "There's a lot of jazz and bossa nova. She stretches her voice" A little gospel. A little soul. Her debut CD, Creation, with some arrangements backed by drummer Chris Wheel, has a few cuts--like the angst-rocker "Nothing," or "Pins and Needles," about a humiliated lover--that would sound at home on alternative rock stations. And a couple--like "Chickens," an infectious ode to the little people who plan to become big names--that would sound apt on soft rock stations. But even the DJs who play Lea, like Mary Cliff, who's featured Lea's music on WETA's "Traditions" program, will tell you that most of Lea's material would fare better on public, community, and college stations in Boston, Austin, or New York. Some of the album's best cuts--for instance, "I Was (One)," a heartbreaking lament inspired by overcoming fear of neo-Nazis on a German train she was riding, or "Favourite," a gladdening, but wary, celebration of self--are wonderfully alluring, but maybe too gentle for mainstream airtime.
  
  Jeff Gruber, of Blue House productions in Silver Spring, who co-produced Creation and plays some inventive guitar and mandolin tracks on it, says, "If you can't pigeonhole somebody, the record companies aren't much help." And for Lea, that's a problem. Staton, speaking practically, urges mixing in some "standard pop" on Lea's next CD, "just to get noticed." That approach would be a shame if it involved compromises, but Lea's versatile enough that it shouldn't really call for any stylistic contortions.
  
  After all, Tracy Chapman did it.
  
  *
  
  Oh, no. The Chapman question. Lea used to hate the comparison, though she's grown resigned to it. She says it comes about, basically, "because I'm a black female with dreds and a guitar and she's one of the few others who've really made a name for herself. I don't mind it, but I don't think I sound like her."
  
  No, she doesn't. Her voice, her songwriting, and her whole stage personality are lighter, more mellifluous, and often more lushly harmonized than Chapman's. But it's more than skin color and dreds, too. There's a pervasive bitter-sweetness to the songs, both topically and musically, that's not unlike Chapman. There's the unadorned acoustic presentation. And there's that sense of spontaneity, that feeling of, she just had an experience and she's gonna sit down and tell you about it because it's important.
  
  The Chapman comparisons irritate Lea less now than they did a while ago, she says, and she even does a Chapman cover, "Baby Can I Hold You."
  
  Perhaps lessening the sting, also, is the fact that Lea's compared to a lot of other singer-songwriters, too, at least some of whom don't have dreds, or even a guitar. And anyone who can be compared with that many performers must ultimately sound like, well, herself.
  
  There's a Phoebe Snow flower-child quality to some of the ballads, and an early Roberta Flack kind of calm, precision passion. When the amp's turned up and the kit drums replace the congas, the jazzy chromaticism and syncopation bring to mind the first few Joan Armatrading albums. But the winding melodies and free-verse lyrics inspire Joni Mitchell analogies (which Lea finds flattering but a little baffling, since she's never heard Joni Mitchell--remember, she's only 23). And "Chickens" could be a cover for Sheryl Crowe.
  
  Truth is, Lea listened in high school to Neil Young and other classic rock, plus Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and all the other grunge all her classmates were listening to. So those were her influences? No, not those either.
  
  "It sounds cheesy, but the most honest answer is my parents," she says. Her dad, John, is a trumpet player who traded a career playing with an R&B band called Black Heat for family life and work at the post office, "He was always playing trumpet, walking around singing a bass line." Even when the music was coming from the stereo, "You turn on the music and my dad has an extra part for it."
  
  As does her mom, Sandra, "a staunch Southern Baptist" who wanted to be a professional singer but also ultimately opted for family and post-office work. That doesn't mean she stopped singing, though. She was in the Jones Gospel Family Singers, a group Lea's grandfather started some 45 years ago. Lea, who--family legend has it--had been soloing in church since she was 3, joined the Jones family singers when she was 6 and sang with her mom, her aunts, and a cousin for about a dozen years. "Church music. That's the best music ever," says Lea, who diplomatically skirts the fact that she's no longer singing much of it. Still, it's clear that like most overnight successes, Lea's took about 20 years.
  
  In addition to guitar, she plays flute, drums, bass, and a little piano. She thinks the Jones family singers is "where a lot of my arranging comes from, having to find the left-over part. Singing with them kind of opened up a lot of musical space in my brain."
  
  *
  
  Lea was born in D.C., and grew up in Baltimore's Forest Park neighborhood and in Silver Spring. The household was busy with Lea, her sister Joi, and "various foster kids and cousins," usually two at a time, at least 15 in all, who stayed anywhere from a few weeks to eight or nine years. All that company, she says, "can be good and bad."
  
  Her mom wanted her to be a doctor, though Joi, who plans to be one, has taken some of that heat off. Lea's dad doesn't mind her playing music, but it took him a while to get used to the music she plays. "He's a soul musician," she explains. "To him, I was playing bluegrass." He's a perfectionist with perfect pitch, she says, "and any time you do something wrong he makes sure you know it and makes sure you don't ever do it again. I have him to thank for my ear and my precision. He made it difficult for me for a long time. He didn't appreciate the kind of music I was doing, always dogging the music, telling me it was a waste of time." That friction's lessened, she says. "Now since I've gotten the CD done, it's pretty obvious that I'm serious."
  
  If she was one petal of a beautiful flower in the Jones singers, it seems that she blossomed as an individual performer during an exchange program when she was at Springbrook High School. She was going to go to Spain, but it was too expensive, so she went to Germany instead. With rudimentary German, she says, "I was out there on a limb and did the best I could. I had so much fun and did so many things. I booked some gigs . . . . I was my own booking agent at 17." The highlight was when she brought together some German students and put on a show based on stories by Oscar Wilde. For the production, "The Happy Prince," she scored the music, adapted the script, and made costumes. "We did a little bit of traveling. It filled me with pride, filled me with joy."
  
  Her parents, both college grads, wanted her to go that direction. She went to Montgomery College "for a couple years and I had enough of it," she says. "I'm not opposed to going back to it, but it's not on my mind." She worked at a Pizza Hut, and whatever the tips were, the job inspired the song "Chickens," as in don't count 'em.
  
  Sally knows around 4:30 she'll be free. That's the only way she
  
  makes it through the day. She'll never be a Marilyn Monroe, but she knows
  
  she's got her thing. She's a good girl, she's a smart girl and she's never
  
  out of place. She's just thinking 'bout the time when eveyrone'll know her
  
  name. And she fills another glass 'til they say when. She's so busy counting
  
  chickens, man, that she can't even see that right now baby, no one's ever heard
  
  you at all. Sally's gonna buy a cover for the pool, put a swing in the front
  
  yard just for her boys. Nobody minds that she lives on Second Street in an
  
  old rundown apartment by the closed down Dairy Queen. Where's the harm in
  
  only dreaming if it's the best break that she's had?..."
  
  "I used to work the lunch buffet," Lea recalls. "One area looked like a dance floor. And I thought, 'I could turn this Pizza Hut into a club and I could play here.' . . . Sally is me, planning about when I'm gonna be famous and play guitar and sing all the time. It's about being in the exact opposite of the place where you want to be but knowing you're going to get there."
  
  For a couple years, she became deeply involved, she says, in "an intense religious movement" called the International Church of Christ. Meeting in her old high-school auditorium, "a lot of people would consider it a cult. I just think it was radical Christianity. It was really great . . . charismatic, warm people, young people, diversity, attachment to the Bible, close attention to the teachings of Christ, a pure lifestyle, a whole lot of evangelism."
  
  "I'm not badmouthing it," Lea says, but she grew away from it. "From time to time, people have their doubts anyway. What I was saying I believed wasn't in my head and in my heart. I didn't want to go through the motions."
  
  She stopped attending the International Church meetings, moved, and started a new relationship. She played more shows at Montgomery College and hung out with a group that was as different from the church group as "night and day," she says. "It didn't bother me. I still don't drink, don't smoke. Those are not of interest to me. But I realized people can do those things and it doesn't make them evil. Playing guitar is what I'm addicted to. I've had a few varying experiences with it, which I think in the long run is a very good thing."
  
  That life transition left its mark on the CD's title song, "Creation," which Lea says is "not so much mocking my religious background as questioning it a little bit, asking God some direct questions."
  
  "Seems every inclination of our hearts is on/evil all the time," she sings. . . . "Here I am a little part of creation. One mother's child born/free and wild in this great nation./Here's my message, here's my plea: I will be all that I can be in this place/and this time."
  
  The song has a jaunty, perplexed quality, joyously embellished by the fiddle playing of Rick Schmidt, whom the album's co-producer Gruber brought in and calls "an incredible multi-instrumentalist, one of the best secrets in this area."
  
  Lea says of the song, "I know people need faith, but God is hard to define. My beliefs are constantly evolving, but that song, it kind of sums up a big part of my philosophy. I'm here. I'm a part of what's going on. Sometimes it's beautiful. Sometimes' it's not. But I'm just really grateful to be a part of it."
  
  *
  
  Lea next attended to her two most vital creations, her 2-year-old daughter Laela Sequoia Meadow, and the CD. Laela's name is a combination of Lea's and that of the girl's dad Lee, a songwriter and sax player. Laela, whose picture you can see on Creation's back cover, "is a beautiful, beautiful girl--stubborn," says Lea. "I honestly encourage a little bit of rebellion. I think she ought to exercise her rights as a two-year-old. She's adventurous, climbing, bossing people around." For her first Christmas, Laela got her own little guitar, and "she plays the drums all the time. She's been to gigs, seen me on cable access. She'll point and say, 'Mommy,' and start dancing."
  
  The CD is also beautiful, and in its creation, also stubborn. Lea thought it would take a few months and a couple thousand dollars. She picked Gruber out of the phone book because she liked his company logo, came in, and laid out her plan. Gruber, who Lea says is "the man, he's just awesome," "basically shook his head and said, 'You have to be joking.'" When her speakers and guitar were ripped off from the trunk of her car, the business model went further askew.
  
  The album was still made for a relative pittance, though a few times the pittance she imagined. Her mom and others helped out financially, and that few months turned into three years.
  
  The next album, of course, is on her mind. Asked if she has enough songs--which she says usually come to her first as chord progressions, with melody and lyrics following--she says that's no problem. She has about 100 to 150 of them. "I've written so many songs," she says, adding with typical self-promotion, "and so many of them are completely crap." Aha. Well then, out of those 100 to 150, how many are studio-worthy? She clarifies: All of them--they're culled from the complete list, which she thinks numbers roughly 1,000.
  
  "I don't need to be told that I have to be out there," says Lea. "I'm not a business person. I'm not one for chasing down gigs or producers or A&R [artist and repertoire] people, but the last couple years I've gotten better at learning to present myself.
  
  "I'm really not here to impress anybody. I'm just doing what I do. I'm not selling sex and I'm not selling an image. This is what I have to say. Some people will like it. Some people won't."
  
  
  
  *
  
  Even in her 20-minute Kensington set full of love songs, Lea doesn't like to be pigeonholed, throwing in a ghoulish number about dancing corpses whose fingernails are still growing.
  
  But she closes with a tender bossa nova, solo, with just an acoustic guitar. "I'll Want Nothing More," a gorgeous, straight-forward love song, works fine even without the overdubbed flute tracks (by Lea) that grace the CD. As she sings it, her eyes shine as she gazes out at the audience and at her new beau, Jason, a professional puppeteer from upstate New York who's flown down for the occasion.
  
  Love is real, give in to doubt no more, but one must learn to walk before one
  
  can fly. Patiently awaiting wings. When they come, I'll break loose, be free
  
  of everything that stood in my way before.
  
  Alexander C. Kafka is an editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education and a freelance arts writer.
  

• LEA - Looking Forward [+ Show ]
  

  For several years now folk music enthusiasts have bypassed smoky bars and loud clubs by hosting con... For several years now folk music enthusiasts have bypassed smoky bars and loud clubs by hosting concerts in their homes. Typically an audience of 25 to 50 people will fill up the living room, dining room and family room at a host's house. Some bring snacks to share; desserts and coffee are sometimes provided. No alcohol is served or consumed. And, there is always a basket with a "suggested donation" sign with the evening's contributions going strictly to the performers. People go for one reason, to hear the music -- every word, every note. Artist and fan benefit from this practice, says singer-songwriter Lea, who appears at the Weil House concert Oct. 18 in Takoma Park. "The atmosphere is created entirely by the musician and the audience. People ask questions. There is definitely less distance and it is definitely welcomed," says Lea. "You can imagine how intimate it can be." A young woman in her mid-twenties, Lea has just released her second album, "Looking Forward," and is at work on her next, due out in summer 2004. Her songs are well crafted and they bring Lea much respect within the local folk scene as well as among her peers. There is also a more musically aggressive side to Lea, which she releases when playing bass in the all-girl, funk-rock, horn-driven septet Zeala. In both settings it is Lea's songwriting that shines. "Long Time" from the new release can be heard on her MP3 page. "It was written on a rainy day last November, a day or two before [returning to] Germany [on tour]. Seeing the leaves wet on the streets made things look different. I was thinking about the past. Impressions we get of the world change." "Looking Forward" follows a theme of reflection and reevaluation. Though, Lea says, it was not a conscious choice when she selected the tracks that would appear on the album. She seems ready to embrace a new phase and is hopeful that whatever comes her way will lead toward achieving a greater listening audience. "It [does] reference where I've been in my personal development. Generally, when thinking of looking forward you have some hope of where you're heading."
  
  Maria Villafana

• Singer-Songwriter Lea Creates Positive Energy In Music and Action [+ Show ]
  

  Her music has been compared to Joni Mitchell and is a soulful blending of R&B, jazz and urban folk. ...Her music has been compared to Joni Mitchell and is a soulful blending of R&B, jazz and urban folk. "If I could get away with not describing it, that's what I would do. Most folks say it's a folk-jazz fusion," Lea said. "My musical influences come from classic rock artists like Neil Young and Eric Clapton. I'm most like Neil Young in terms of his simplicity and the things he was writing about."You might say that Lea was born into music. Her mother was a member of the Jones Family Gospel Singers and her father a professional trumpet player. Lea credits them for her polished performances as well as starting her with music lessons at a young age. By the time she was 13, Lea had not only begun playing guitar and writing songs but also knew it would become her career. "When I was playing and writing, there was a fulfillment there that I knew I wouldn't get anywhere else."In between touring and taking care of her three-year-old daughter, Lea has found time to lend her talent to benefit nonprofit organizations like Community Harvest and Habitat For Humanity. "It's not part of my mission statement, but when I open myself to using my greatest gift to give, not just to make money or ease my own mind, the opportunity presents itself. When I'm playing in someone's living room, it has a healing effect and brings love and peace, and then I'll meet someone there who wants me to do something. I wouldn't say I'm an activist, but I'm conscientious about creating positive energy."Today, Lea is on the road in the U. S. and Europe promoting her second CD, "Looking Forward." Regarding her commentary between songs, she said, "I have to be honest and open, and I find myself saying things to the audience that I wouldn't say to friends. I find it very therapeutic."
  
  Linda McCarty
  
  

• In a Word : honeyed [+ Show ]
  

  LEA's brand new CD, creation, was much anticipated by her friends in Takoma Park's Okay cafe songwri...LEA's brand new CD, creation, was much anticipated by her friends in Takoma Park's Okay cafe songwriter's ciricle and her growing following in the DC coffeehouse circuit. She's a true standout. Her melodies are charming, her lyrics resonant, her alto warm and soft and delicious, just like honey. She's stunning to hear live and comforting to hear in the background of any winter day.
  This CD, being a self produduced enterprise, doesn' that that orchestral, miledeep quality of corporately sponsored records. But LEA's style is so straightforward that it calls for a clean setting. It keeps her smooth vocals and harmonies (all done by LEA) at the forefront, where they belong. It gently showcases her multiinstrumental talents as well, with only a few credits per song going to other musicians.
  Some favorites: "Favourite" (coincidence?), which decorates her pretty acoustic guitar with just a little mandolin and percussion. It's the best kind of song - intelligent and catchy all at once. In this tune as in her others, LEA has got a lot to say, but she won't say it in song unless it's got some hook to it. On "Nothing", which has her riled up enough to plug in guitars, there is an unmistakable joy in its melody. "Pins & Needles" is moody and restless, made palatable with harmony vocals haunting the background. Those harmonies then turn around and go dreamy sweet on "This Song", a declaration of love just as soft and enchanting as moonbeams. But I think I like "Chickens" best - it's classic LEA, with the loveliest of guitar tones and most memorable of vocal melodies.
  Listen and you'll get why everyone prodded her to get her stuff recorded, already! - by Carolyn Feola
  

• Direct Quotes [+ Show ]
  

  "...an extraordinary talented singer/songwriter, [with an] ability to connect with the audience tha..."...an extraordinary talented singer/songwriter, [with an] ability to connect with the audience that is most incredible. LEA enriched all of us with her positive energy, rich repertoire of tunes, expressive acoustic guitar playing, and melodious alto voice, combined with a sense of spontaneity."
  - Alan D. White, Ph.D., Coordinator of the 2007 Meet the Performing Artist Series
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Jill Griffith, an audience member says:
  
  "I think you have the most unique and beautiful voice and the most amazing gift for writing songs that transport me to another place and at the same time, speak directly to my soul. Thanks again for sharing your gift."
  
  Moby (in the morning), Atlanta, GA radio personality says:
  
  "LEA is absolutely the most refreshing musician I have heard in quite some time. To say she is incredibly talented is an understatement, but it's all I know to say. She totally knocks my socks off. "
  
  Ray Ruskin of the Kensington Coffeehouse says:
  
  "Astouningly talented, LEA has to be on of the finest young artist in the DC metro area. She simply hypnotizes the audiences with skill and sophistication at a level beyond her years. Intriguing and soulful, LEA is completely original, always enjoyable."
  
  Phil Peacock of The Merryhills in London, England says:
  
  "From the very first opening bars, of the very first track of her demo CD, it was very clear to me, that Lea has a very special talent indeed. What I call having that Magic Ingredient "X". I just wanted to keep playing the CD over and over!
  And, WOW!! what a performance!!
  Beautiful Songs, Beautiful Voice, Delivery, and Exceptional Guitar Playing! If ever a singer/songwriter deserves stardom, then Lea should be top of the list! If nobody in the States snaps her up soon, then I feel sure she would make it BIG TIME in the UK! It'll be your loss America!!"
  
  Amikaeyla Proudfoot Gaston of the National Womyn of Color Institue says:
  
  LEA's muse- ic is sultry, soothing and spectacular... Her style, although similar in tonation and instrumentation, reaches further than the Tracy Chapman/Joan Armatrading genre - bridging styles and cultures alike... Charged with simplicity and integrity."

• Making a Name for Herself - Just "LEA" will perform Saturday [+ Show ]
  

  Her name is LEA, but it's not some arrogant one named songwriter thing like Jewel or Madonna. Her m...Her name is LEA, but it's not some arrogant one named songwriter thing like Jewel or Madonna.
  Her music has its own ring to it, so for a name, just "LEA " is fine for the 24 year old.
  The Washington DC songwriter calls her music jazz/folk fusion. SHe recently told an audience that she was somewhere between India.arie and Rage Against the machine.
  It'd be a disservice, though, not to point out that sh's way more in line with the R&B sppirit of the former than the metal of the latter.
  If you define an artist like Ani DiFranco as the middle ground between those tow, well, then, she's happy to be listed in that company, which she often is... - by Brad Barnes, Staff Writer

• LEA finds the answers [+ Show ]
  

  A 23 year old folk/jazz artist named LEA stuck out in the youngster line up of the Gwyneth Fair in L...A 23 year old folk/jazz artist named LEA stuck out in the youngster line up of the Gwyneth Fair in Loudoun County in late July. If her age didn't single her out, her music definitely did.
  LEA, a singer/songwriter from Silver Spring, MD, gracefully walked out on the stage. it was just her and a guitar, and that was all she needed to pull the audience in.
  Her warm voice and poignant lyrics reminded me what it was like to be a teenager and told the teens that she knew what they were going through.
  When all was said and done, the songs she played took the audience on a blissful rider from adolescence to adulthood.
  LEA has been singing her whole life. Her mother sang all the time and her father is an accomplished trumpet player.
  "The music I was singing and listening to as a kid" was a major influence for her.
  "It's taken me a long time to figure that out", she said.
  Her music, an eclectic "folk/jazz type stuff", is masterfully written. While she is very good with just a guitar, the cull band on her first CD, creation, adds to her magnificence.
  Songs like, "Nothing" and "Chickens" have an intriguing quality that make them good songs to use with the repeat button on the CD player.
  In "Nothing" for example, she sings "I don't want to be there/but I can't find the door. Someone told me I look like the lady on the pancake box." Such lines remind listeners of a time when they felt the same way.
  LEA's lyrics touch the soul, while her music relaxes the body.
  "I can always draw a line to my life or a friends life," she said of her lyrics. She hopes that her music will promote unity because, she said, "we're all pretty much in the same boat."
  Besides being an accomplished solo artist, LEA also plays bass for an all female funk band called Zeala. Catching her alone or with Zeala is well worth the trip. - Kristie Little

• COLLEGE Quotes [+ Show ]
  

  "Great musician and message. Definitely the best act we've had on campus this year." - Bethany Peter..."Great musician and message. Definitely the best act we've had on campus this year." - Bethany Peters, college student in Salem, VA
  
  "LEA really captured the essence of African American History Month by sharing her own perspective, as well as, a terrific overview on the musical contribution of others... We are so glad we booked her and will certainly have her back again next year." Lily Graaf - DSA in Knoxville, TN
  
  "It's not her singing or guitar playing, which are both really good. And it's not so much what she's singing about. It's that she manages to get you with all three. The music sounds good and as soon as you stop to listen to the lyrics, you're glad you did... The show was inspiring and gave me a really good feeling. I'm really glad I came down to check her out and I would suggest her music to anyone." - Todd Hamlin, college student in Wilkes Barre, PA
  
  "Just great. Professional, easy to work with and music that the staff and students enjoy. We'll keep bringing her back." - Mounira Morris DSA in Meadville, PA

• UNITY Quotes [+ Show ]
  

  We recently had the good fortune to host Lea Morris at Unity Church in Charlottesville as the guest ...We recently had the good fortune to host Lea Morris at Unity Church in Charlottesville as the guest musician for our Sunday worship service. The topic was "love" and Lea masterfully added to the service with original music and vocals that brought congregants to their feet.
  
  Lea's contribution was a sensitivity to the theme of the service that minister's dream of - a musical thread that allows hearts to open and a space for deeper connection with Spirit to occur.
  
  We look forward to Lea's return and can highly recommend her for your church. - Rev Don Lansky of Unity Church in Charlottesville, VA
  
  
  Delightful and uplifting. We are so grateful that LEA has been lead to share with us. Her musical message and presence are always a blessing on our community. - Revs Don & Cynthia Foster
  
  What a precious light! You are so appreciated and loved. The songs you sing inspired warmth and joy, for which we are so thankful. - Mahala Connolly of Unity by the Bay in Severna Park, MD

Setlist

Summertime - George Gershwin
Golden Star (original)
Journey (original)
Follow the Drinking Gourd - (Spiritual)
Too Fast (original)
Dock of the Bay - Otis Redding
Wake up (original)
Temporary Blue (original)
Ain't No Sunshine - Bill Withers
Profile Blues (original)
Woodstock (Joni Mitchell)

LEA is prepared to do all original or cover sets, as the venue requires.

Typically, a compbinate of her stirring original and tastefully revisited familiar tunes is ideal.

An exciting, new element of LEA's repertoire has been inspired by her repeated requests to give lecture/concerts for Black History and Women's History Months.

Basic Requirements

Calendar