The Lea Brothers Band

The Lea Brothers Band has been described as an imaginary band - the better your imagination the better the band. "What we really are is a boundary-less band," says Bruce Lea. "Anybody who sings along with us is in the band, and the more people singing, the better the band sounds."

After learning guitar by playing along with Kingston Trio records in the sixties, the four Lea brothers (Bruce, Page, Winston and Haynes) and their good friend Millard Woodard drifted in different directions musically. Bruce veered into country, playing Hank Williams and Buck Owens, and the occasional bit of Elvis. Page and Winston tuned into America and Crosby Stills and Nash. Millard spent time in a rhythm and blues band on the frat party and club circuit. Haynes studied law. The music of Jerry Jeff Walker pulled all five together in the mid to late seventies, and one night at a Christmas party at Kate and Billy Harrison’s house, the Lea Brothers Band was born. (Millard was obviously outnumbered when the vote came up to name the band.) Soon thereafter, they added Frank "Dr. Stix" Bradley’s percussion. "Somebody had to give them a beat they can all live with," he surmises.

"Millard and Frank are key players," according to Page. "It’s always good to have someone in a band that actually knows something about music." Similar logic led them to invite "Mr. Sax" Jim Bailey, a trained jazz musician, to join after a fishing trip sometime around 1987. Winston says, "Jim’s probably wondering what happened to his musical career, but it’s amazing what depth he can add to the simple three chord songs we play."

"Besides," adds Haynes. "The fish really seemed to like the saxophone."

Fred Frohbose joined the group a few years later. "I thought it would be good to have at least one singer besides me who’s usually on key," Millard says, "and you never know when you might need a urologist," noting Fred’s professional specialty.

Then, Bruce went to a Willie Nelson concert and noticed Willie’s Family Band has two drummers. Not to be outdone, the Lea Brothers began auditions at their studio in Fort Landing, NC. John “JT” Tomlinson was clearly the finest drummer to find the place. “We were sure with JT and Dr. Stix we’d really have a hard driving, swinging rhythm section,” Fred said, “but so far we haven’t been able to get them both to show up at the same time.”

Some critics have suggested that the boys add a bass player, “but we felt the need to add another guitarist,” countered Bruce. “You can’t have too many blonde Martin guitars on stage. Plus we were worried that all the non-Leas might want to change the name of the band, so we invited Page’s son 2-Page to join, restoring our majority. Besides, he promised to learn the mandolin, and we’re hoping one of Haynes’ daughters will get a bass.”

Now their repertory is extremely varied. "Millard can play or fake any song that’s ever been recorded," Winston asserts. "So if someone in the crowd wants to hear it, or better yet sing along to it, we’ll try to play it." But sooner or later the band will steer the crowd back to old favorites by Jerry Jeff, Guy Clark, Willie Nelson, Smokey Robinson, Ben E. King and, yes, the Kingston Trio.

Jerry Jeff once advised them to never do songs that require chords you can’t play after six beers. To that they added, play mostly songs a crowd can learn, and join in on, after hearing a couple of choruses. "That’s the point," Bruce says. "With everybody making music, imagine how much fun you can have."

For more information, please contact Lesley Ireland at (919) 781-8014 or LIreland@FightBlindness.org

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