30 Facts About Steve Ashley

Steve Frank Ashley was born on 9 March 1946 and is an English singer-songwriter, recording artist, multi-instrumentalist, writer and graphic designer.

Steve Ashley was born in Perivale, London, England and grew up in Northolt, Middlesex.

Steve Ashley saw Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent and Lonnie Donegan perform live during his first years at secondary school.

Steve Ashley became seriously interested in British traditional music, performing unaccompanied songs in West London folk clubs.

Steve Ashley led the art college blues band, The Tea Set, on vocals and blues harmonica.

In 1968, now as a folk songwriter, Steve Ashley formed a duo with guitar player Dave Menday called The Tinderbox.

Steve Ashley hired a number of musicians to back Ashley, including members of Fairport Convention and Pentangle, plus a section of the London Symphony Orchestra, directed by Kirby.

The club's resident performers with Steve Ashley were Richard Thompson, Linda Peters, Simon Nicol, Robin and Barry Dransfield, Lea Nicholson, and Ragged Robin's Byers.

In November, Steve Ashley signed a solo recording deal with Gull Records, and with a few track changes, his long-delayed first album was finally released in April 1974 entitled Stroll On.

In spring 1975 Steve Ashley undertook a six-week solo tour of the US and Canada, opening shows for many artists including Leon Redbone, Tracy Nelson, Gene Clark, Chris Hillman and Jonathan Edwards.

Steve Ashley's originals are sensitive, ex-of the Albion Country Band, Ashley can hold an audience.

However, by the end of 1975, Gull's deal with Motown fell through and Steve Ashley was without a record company.

Steve Ashley's planned third album, Rare Old Men, was never released and it was not until 1979 that Fairport's Dave Pegg recorded, produced and eventually released what was his third album, Steve Ashley's Family Album, on his own Woodworm label.

In 1978, at the Rotterdam Folk Festival, Steve Ashley met the Australian folk-rock band, The Bushwackers, whose leader, Dobe Newton, asked Steve Ashley to write some musical settings of poems by the deceased bush poet, Henry Lawson.

In 1981, Steve Ashley became active in Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's campaign to ban Trident and remove US Cruise missiles from the UK.

Steve Ashley recorded and released two cassette albums of peace songs.

Steve Ashley recorded a single with CND's Bruce Kent and the Labour peer, Lord Noel-Baker.

In 1992, Steve Ashley retired from the music industry to concentrate on his design and copywriting work for various UK charities.

Back on the road, Steve Ashley performed as a solo artist and in duos with Al Fenn and Dik Cadbury, as well as making occasional guest appearances with Fairport Convention.

In 2006, Steve Ashley celebrated his 60th birthday with a special concert with Robert Kirby conducting his arrangements for a six-piece chamber orchestra.

In 2015, Market Square released Steve Ashley's first stripped back solo album, This Little Game, which was included in both The Telegraph and Folk Radio UK's lists of "The Best Folk Albums of 2015".

In 1968, with Tinderbox, Steve Ashley recorded a live radio session with folk singer Shirley Collins for John Peel's Night Ride programme on BBC Radio 1.

In 1974 Steve Ashley recorded a live session of his songs for Capital Radio's "Sarah and Friends" with Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg, Dave Mattacks and Lea Nicholson.

In 1980, Steve Ashley opened a fundraising concert for Friends of the Earth with the classical guitarists John Williams and Gerald Garcia headlining at London's Roundhouse.

Steve Ashley was a close friend and creative associate of the naturalist author and filmmaker, Roger Deakin.

Together they worked on two of Deakin's TV documentary films, The Ballad of the Ten Rod Plot and Stable Lads, with Steve Ashley writing and recording music for both.

Steve Ashley recorded harmonica for Richard Thompson's soundtrack for the movie, Sweet Talker.

Also in November 2007, the arranger Harvey Brough invited Steve Ashley to sing his song, "The Rough with the Smooth" to a specially written string quartet arrangement as part of Brough's 50th birthday celebrations at Union Chapel, Islington.

Steve Ashley plays a right-handed guitar, left-handed, without changing the strings, in the manner of Elizabeth Cotten.

Artists who have recorded or performed Steve Ashley's songs include: The Arizona Smoke Review, Phil Beer, Anne Briggs, Maggie Boyle, The Bushwackers, Fil Campbell, Paul Downes, Fairport Convention, Jo Freya, Grace Notes, Green Diesel, Wizz Jones, Tom McFarland, Ralph McTell, Steph Miller and The Winter Station, Johnny Moynihan, Dobe Newton, O'Hooley and Tidow, The Owl Service, St Agnes Fountain, Show of Hands, Martin Simpson, Sproatly Smith, Christine Wheeler and Bill Zorn.