For the Union City native, Battle Creek resident and front person for the band that bears her name, Erika Scherry is a singer first, last and always.

This aspiring country/pop artist, who won the Michigan Idol competition in 2008, though missed her chance to qualify for the Fox TV show “American Idol,” has been inspired ever since, to work even harder.

This Thursday, she and her band return to Dowagiac, where she will play the Beckwith Park Summer Concert Series. The Thursday concert begins at 7:30 p.m. at Beckwith Park, where lawn chair seating is available.

Hosted by the Dowagiac Downtown Development Authority, the 2017 performance schedule has been underwritten by Chemical Bank, Honor Credit Union and Huntington Bank.

Scherry calls her band Country Rock with an edge she believes is different from other local bands.  It includes Battle Creek musician Paul Rogers on rhythm guitar and Kalamazoo drummer Jeff Taylor, along with Danny King and Adam Roush.

Critics have said her powerful vocals are sure to push Erika to the top of the music totem pole.

“Singing is what she’s always done,” Scherry said. “Nothing else really interests me.”

Scherry comes from a musical family.  Her mother Linda, older sister Sheri and brother Spencer share her passion for music. For as long as she can remember, Scherry has been singing, first watching her mom, a music major, as she rehearsed for productions at Kellogg Community College. Later she, too, took part in musicals before carving out a career of her own in music.

Linda remembers when Scherry was just 5, she got up with a band and sang “Achy Breaky Heart” all by herself and not just part of the song – she sang the whole thing.  In later years, in junior high, Scherry would spend up to six hours a day in her room singing.

Linda said, “That’s what she did and you could tell that’s what she was going to do.”

Erika joined the Derek Herman Band, based in Nashville, Tenn., in 2009 and then formed her own band, Erika Scherry and Swift Kick, in which she was the lead singer.  Later she started her present band, titled simply the Erika Scherry Band.