For being considered a “new-comer,” country singer Maura Streppa has paid alot of dues. She has been perfoming for years, growing her name and brand back in North Carolina, but Nashville is a different story. In alot of ways, she truly embodies the “Nashville Experience” for singers and songwriters that have left their homes for Music City to chase a dream that many people don’t understand. A dream that doesn’t always come true for those of us who end up here. However, it’s easy to tell that for Maura Streppa, that sure won’t be the case.
Her newest single “Line Dance” is a masterfully done, honky tonk of a track. A throwback that honors the music this city was built on. Though country music wasn’t always her “desintation” as she recently told Worlds of Country, we are glad she ended up where she did.
“Line Dance” was written by Maura and Ben Wagner, produced by Thomas Dulin with Daniel Donato, Seth Ray, Kirby Bland, Alex Miller and Ben Alleman. From start to finish, the track is catchy and steeped in nostalgia. The idea for “Line Dance” came from a conversation with a friend about the age old inspiration for women in country music; a boy. She was explaining that her and the mystery man were in a place where they “walked this line of are we together or are we not?” It was then her friend said “You’re doing a line dance.”
Though this song isn’t the first relased by Streppa, it feels like a debut of sorts. She came to Nashville in the fall of 2019 to pursue a degree in Songwriting with a minor in Music Business from Belmont University. She spent the first few months relishing in the beauty of living alone and understandably emersing herself in the typical life of a college student. Later, she booked her first residential gig but unfortunatley that was exactly one day before the world shut down for the quarantine. As live music came to a halt, Maura spent her time between Nashville and North Carolina biding her time and songwriting until the world began to re-open. When that started to happen, Streppa buckled down, she said “I came here for a purpose so I’m going to do what I came here to do.”
She then began to make as many connections as she could. Contacting anyone with an Instrgram, asking to play. “I put myself in front of the people I needed to put myself in front of and it all just hit. I’ve been playing a lot of shows since then.” Streppa says that her experience “has definitely been that of a Nashville songwriter,” and she tries to communicate honestly with fellow artists about what that is like. “Go to the [writer’s] rounds. Go enjoy the music and then you will be the music.”
It is that hard work, personality and perspective that will take Maura Streppa far in this industry. She has that fresh positivity of the upcoming generation with old school musical influences that beautifully combine to make her an obvious choice for the next generation of Nashville stars.
Check out the full interview on this week’s episode of Bridge Music Podcast and keep up with Maura on social media for the latest shows, releases and news.
