
This devoted teacher excels teaching ASL, and when not in the classroom, she enjoys pursuing her passion: music. She produced a classic country album, “Wild Blackberries” with her band, Katie Joe and the Next of Kin. Her northern Michigan roots inspired the album, and her memory of the blackberries grown there influenced the album’s name.
Katie Lewis began her journey in music in her early twenties and after fifteen years of experience playing solo and in various bands, she decided to start her own band.
With the encouragement of her friends, Lewis began a startup for donations on social media in hopes of gaining her own studio to record her music. To her surprise, she successfully raised $6K with the enormous effort from her community. Lewis said that moment changed her life, “I will forever be grateful for all the help I received.”
The band members she chose for her group came from bands she played in previously, choosing the members she worked with best. This included professional musicians Russ Lawton, her drummer, Nate Wilson, her keyboard player, and Ben Lively, her fiddle player. They worked for free and helped her out immensely. Lewis brought the songs together as the guitarist and the lead singer and ended up in Vermont after getting her crew together, quickly writing each of her songs and recording them.
Following the release of her album, COVID hit the U.S. and any opportunities to promote it went down the drain. Due to the unfortunate timing, the album didn’t get much recognition. Despite the impediment, Katie Lewis has remained positive through it all and has even made some new covers on her social media recently