Off the Fork: Marina DeLuca breaks into music as Marley Hudson

It’s safe to say that Marina DeLuca has the North Fork in her blood. She was raised in East Marion, graduated from Greenport High School, and returned there to work after graduating from Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. 

“I think that a lot of people, when they’re in their hometown, they’re like, “Oh, I want to get out of my hometown and go somewhere.’ And then I would go somewhere. 
And I was like, ‘But I love the North Fork,’” Ms. DeLuca said.

But as much as she loved it, the North Fork didn’t hold her future. Ms. DeLuca, who goes by the stage name Marley Hudson, is making her way as a folk singer in Brooklyn.

“Music, for me, was the slow-rolling aspect where every time I was ready to quit, something came in that would help get to that next step,” said Ms. DeLuca.

Her path to music started in elementary school. When she had her opportunity to select an instrument, she was able to play almost all of them. It came so easily that music joined her explorations of science as a refuge from adolescence. Later, in high school, her boyfriend was in a band. One day, the bass player didn’t show up for practice, and they asked her to fill in.

“And it turns out I totally had a knack for it, so I ended up becoming a member of the band, and what that did for me at the time is it became the first place where all the anxiety just went away. It became this beautiful, safe world where I felt like myself. I was calm and could feel comfortable in my own skin.”

Another piece fell into place when that same boyfriend bought floor seats to see Paul McCartney. Being a broke high-schooler, shelling out for her ticket was not a welcome surprise. 

“That experience completely changed my life,” she recalled. “It was just all these people hugging, swaying back and forth — old young, everybody across the board. 
And I was like, ‘I don’t know what this is, but I want to be around it.’”

These pivotal moments opened Ms. DeLuca to music. She took voice lessons and practiced her guitar. She slowly started writing songs. Then, finally, she took the plunge and started playing and organizing open mics to overcome her stage fright. 

“That started to build some music community for me. The people who used to go still have a special place in my heart because they listened to a lot of trial and error from me. I think it was one of the most supportive audiences I’ve ever played for,” she said.

These open mics led to a chance meeting with Greg McMullen, a musical staple of the North and South forks. Mr. McMullen brought Ms. DeLuca to play at some of his shows, giving her some much-needed exposure and connecting her with his network.

“I’m going to be eternally grateful for him and everything that he did to help me move forward in this and start to see it, not so much as a dream, but as, ‘Oh, I could do this as a career, a profession.’ He was a huge mentor,” said Ms. DeLuca.

Though she has a passion for the environment and science, it never held the same power for her as music. She saw her coworkers light up when discussing their environmental work and began to realize that her life was leading in a different direction.

“I thought, ‘Something might not be lining up here.’ And I think that that continued to push me towards the music,” she said. “I don’t exactly know how I fit into this whole space, but it’s just something that really feels comfortable. It causes that same spark that I was seeing at my coworkers for all the work that they were doing with nature.”

Ms. DeLuca has had opportunities to network and meet people in the city who are also in the creative fields, and through that process of collaboration, she learned the landscape of the industry. She is trying to see her art as something she can build a career on. 

“I think is the hardest part for me is figuring out if I want this craft that I developed and that has always just been so true to me to become monetized,” said Ms. DeLuca. “This is my flying leap of faith. I left my job, and I existed as an unemployed musician for a brief period of time. I just got a new job that keeps the roof over my head. I’ve been working on all things music. So basically, it has been a hodgepodge of diving into as many areas as possible.”

Ms. DeLuca encourages anyone considering making their passion their full-time gig to persevere.

“It definitely could be a little sideways at times. And can feel a little bit like, ‘Oh no, what have I done? Is everything going according to the plan?’ And then you look back in 10 years or so, and yes, yes, it is,” she said. “My childhood self wouldn’t believe that this is my life today.”