Biography

Katie Lee is an Arizona folk singer

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

, writer, actress and photographer.

She graduated from the University of Arizona

University of Arizona

The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...

 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts

Bachelor of Fine Arts

In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...

. After that, she went on to study with two of the most successful folksingers of the 1940s, Burl Ives

Burl Ives

Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American actor, writer and folk music singer. As an actor, Ives's work included comedies, dramas, and voice work in theater, television, and motion pictures. Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives's voice .....

 and Josh White

Josh White

Joshua Daniel White , better known as Josh White, was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, actor, and civil rights activist. He also recorded under the names "Pinewood Tom" and "Tippy Barton" in the 1930s....

. Her early albums of folk music, Life is Just a Bed of Neuroses (1960) and Songs of Couch and Consultation (1957) are long out of print, but six more recent CDs are still available. She has also released three videos, including Love Song to Glen Canyon (DVD, 2007).

After joining a rafting

Rafting

Rafting or white water rafting is a challenging recreational outdoor activity using an inflatable raft to navigate a river or other bodies of water. This is usually done on white water or different degrees of rough water, in order to thrill and excite the raft passengers. The development of this...

 trip in the Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park, the 15th national park in the United States...

 she became a regular on river trips on the Colorado River

Colorado River

The Colorado River , is a river in the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The watershed of the Colorado River covers in parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states...

 and joined the opposition to the construction of Glen Canyon Dam

Glen Canyon Dam

Glen Canyon Dam is a concrete arch dam on the Colorado River in northern Arizona in the United States, just north of Page. The dam was built to provide hydroelectricity and flow regulation from the upper Colorado River Basin to the lower. Its reservoir is called Lake Powell, and is the second...

. In 1964, Lee released an album on Folkways Records

Folkways Records

Folkways Records was a record label founded by Moses Asch that documented folk, world, and children's music. It was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1987, and is now part of Smithsonian Folkways.-History:...

, entitled, Folk Songs of the Colorado River. In the 1980s she recorded a cassette-only release Colorado River Songs consisting of old songs popular among river runners on the Colorado River

Colorado River

The Colorado River , is a river in the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The watershed of the Colorado River covers in parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states...

 and the Grand Canyon, and some original compositions. This release was hailed by Edward Abbey

Edward Abbey

Edward Paul Abbey was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental...

 and David Foreman

David Foreman

Dave Foreman is a US environmentalist and co-founder of the radical environmental movement Earth First!-Work with The Wilderness Society:...

 among others. Colorado River Songs was expanded to include more songs and re-released in 1997 on CD. She has also released Glen Canyon River Journeys on CD, which mixes music and spoken word commentary, and is featured on the 2005 Smithsonian Folkways

Smithsonian Folkways

Smithsonian Folkways is the nonprofit record label of the Smithsonian Institution. It is a part of the Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, located at Capital Gallery in downtown Washington, D.C. The label was founded in 1987 after the family of Moses Asch, founder of Folkways...

 compilation album, Songs and Stories from Grand Canyon.

She has also written three books,Sandstone Seduction, Ten Thousand Goddam Cattle and All My Rivers Are Gone. Ten Thousand Goddam Cattle is a study of the music, stories, and poetry of the American cowboy

Cowboy

A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...

. It was also recorded as an album.

Katie Lee met her first husband "Brandy" (Edwin Carl Brandelius Jr.) to whom her book "Sandstone Seduction" is dedicated, on a trip to Baja California. Brandy was a war veteran, a race car driver and good friend of Turk Murphy

Turk Murphy

Melvin Edward Alton “Turk” Murphy was renowned as a trombonist who played traditional and dixieland jazz in San Francisco....

. Katie Lee noted Brandy as the prime influence on finishing and publishing her first book "Ten Thousand Goddam Cattle." Brandy is the father of Jerilyn Lee Brandelius author of The Grateful Dead Family Album (and four other children) from his first marriage.

Sandstone Seduction, a memoir, relates her continuing love affair with desert rivers and canyons, and reveals her Lady Godiva

Lady Godiva

Godiva , often referred to as Lady Godiva , was an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who, according to legend, rode naked through the streets of Coventry in order to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation imposed by her husband on his tenants...

-style bicycle ride through downtown Jerome, Arizona

Jerome, Arizona

Jerome is a town in Yavapai County, Arizona, United States. According to 2006 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the town is 353.-History:...

, where she lives.

Chronicles of her adventures in Baja California appear in the book Almost An Island written by Bruce Berger. Lee presently lives in Jerome, Arizona

Jerome, Arizona

Jerome is a town in Yavapai County, Arizona, United States. According to 2006 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the town is 353.-History:...

.

October 1st 2011 Katie Lee was inducted into the Arizona Music Hall of Fame.

Sources and external links

• KatyDoodIt.com The Official Katie Lee web site
• Lee at Folkways
• Katie Lee at Space Age Pop
• Tribute to Katie Lee
• NPR interview, audio
• http://books.google.com/books?id=5qExTKKi174C&pg=PA151&lpg=PA151&dq=sandstone+seduction+by+katie+lee Sandstone Seduction on Google books
• http://verdenews.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=43932 Verde Independent article