Description

Steve Ashley
We are hoping to go ahead with this concert with a reduced socially distanced audience. We have a stage screen and on stage air extraction. We will, of course, adhere to current government advice.
Steve Ashley was born in London. In his early teens, he immersed himself in rock 'n' roll, blues and American folk music. He saw Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent and Lonnie Donegan perform live during his first years at secondary school. In 1960, he learned to play the mouth organ and developed a blues style.
He became interested in traditional music, met and played with Peter Bellamy in Maidstone then he became heavily involved in the London folk scene and performed alongside Sandy Denny and A L Lloyd, Richard Thompson, Linda Peters, Simon Nicol, Robin and Barry Dransfield, Lea Nicholson, and Ragged Robin's Byers.
He developed a distinctive song writing style that saw him collaborate in performances with many of the folk great and good. His writing was described as a 'potent combination of lyrical poetry, delicious wit and darkly puckish humour.' (David Kidman, Folk radio UK)
In a long and varied career, he has toured many countries and taken part in many major festivals. Of his US tour, Variety magazine said: "Steve Ashley... is a delightful surprise ... The performer not only sings his originals well, but has one of the funniest of dry stage raps. His voice is good. His originals are sensitive, ex-of the Albion Country Band, Ashley can hold an audience.'
In 1981 Ashley took a break from performing to work with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and later for Friends of the Earth.
In 2006, Ashley celebrated his 60th birthday with a special concert with Robert Kirby conducting arrangements for a six-piece chamber orchestra. Also taking part were Ashley's friends from Fairport: Dave Pegg, Chris Leslie, Simon Nicol and Martin Allcock, plus Show of Hands' Phil Beer, Planxty's Johnny Moynihan, Brass Monkey's Martin Brinsford and many other friends, including his old partners from The Tinderbox, Ragged Robin and the Steve Ashley Band. The event was recorded and released six months later as Live in Concert on Dusk Fire Records.
In 2015, Market Square released 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".
As an acoustic guitar player, Ashley's technique is unusual. He plays a right-handed guitar, left-handed, without changing the strings. So, effectively, the instrument is played upside-down. As well as using standard tuning he utilises a number of guitar tunings. He also plays a custom-built electric four-string bouzouki. This unique instrument was designed to include a left-hand cutaway, and giving left-hand access to controls, but is once again strung as a right-handed instrument.
This is a 'hushed' and seated concert.
There will be a bar and the doors open at 7.30
There is always coffee and tea at Rosslyn Court, also soft drinks and usually cake!

Description

62 Sweyn Road,

Cliftonville,

Kent,

England,

CT9 2DD.