Katie is an award-winning musician and songwriter, who has performed live on PBS & NPR stations, and has toured from New York to Colorado, Texas to Tennessee. She has shared bills with Tony Rice, Del McCoury Band, Yonder Mountain String Band, The Steel Wheels, The Black Lillies, Lake Street Dive, Langhorne Slim, The David Mayfield Parade, and many others. Her singing and harmonies have been compared to Gillian Welch (Isthmus, Madison, WI) and Gram Parsons (City Paper, Rochester, NY.) She was also voted “Best Country/Bluegrass Performer” in her home city of Madison, Wisconsin in the Madison Area Music Awards. According to Local Sounds Magazine in Madison, WI, “Katie Powderly released one of the best albums [of the year], but Local Sounds’ Rick Tvedt has also hailed it as one of the best recordings to ever come out of the Madison area.” The album they’re referring to is Katie’s debut LP, Slips of the Tongue (Red-Winged Blackbird Records), which features a hell of a lineup of supporting musicians, including Josh Oliver (Watchhouse/Mandolin Orange), Bryn Davies (Tony Rice, Guy Clark, Jack White), Tom Pryor (The Black Lillies), and Jill Andrews (the everybodyfields), and was recorded at Butch Vig's famed Smart Studios in Madison, WI, with significant help from Scott Minor (Sparklehorse.) Katie now resides in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Maryland after a years-long sojourn across the country. When she's not performing with her electrified Americana band, The Unconditional Lovers, whose first album will be out in 2024, you can find her playing her songs as a solo artist. Katie is releasing a double EP of Appalachian ballads entitled Live by the Song, Die by the Song pressed to both CD and vinyl on 12.31.23 on Red-Winged Blackbird Records, with the first single, “My Mourning Dove” out on all streaming platforms July 26, 2023.
Katie participated in the 2023 Tennessee Songwriters Competition at the Birthplace of Country Museum and went on to be one of the three finalists at the Museum who went on to play at the second level of the competition at The Downhome in downtown Johnson City, TN. The winner from that level went on to play at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, TN.