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Edward Anthony Ashton (1 March 1946 – 28 May 2001) was an English rock pianist, keyboardist, singer, composer, producer and artist.
Biography
Born in
Blackburn
Blackburn () is an industrial town and the administrative centre of the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The town is north of the West Pennine Moors on the southern edge of the Ribble Valley, east of Preston and north-n ...
, Lancashire, Ashton spent his formative years in the seaside town of Blackpool where his parents had an upright piano. When he was a child, his mother sent him to piano lessons. At the age of 13 in 1959, while Ashton was a student at St. George's School, Blackpool, he joined a local group, The College Boys, on rhythm guitar and piano. When Ashton left school at the age of 15 he was already an accomplished pianist. He played in a jazz trio, The Tony Ashton Trio with drummer John Laidlaw and bass player Pete Shelton in 1961 and 1962 at the Picador Club in Blackpool. Although his work began during the
Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developme ...
era, his roots lay firmly in
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
,
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
and the
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
. After playing with various Blackpool bands, Ashton was invited to join the Liverpool group
The Remo Four
The Remo Four were a 1950s–1960s rock band from Liverpool, England. They were contemporaries of The Beatles, and later had the same manager, Brian Epstein. Its members were Colin Manley (born Colin William Manley, 16 April 1942, in Old Swan, ...
as organist and vocalist. The group spent some time being the resident band at the Star Club in Hamburg; they followed this with a US tour accompanying the Beatles. They recorded some singles but their best work came in 1966 when they released their album ''Smile''. Before they broke up in 1968 they backed
George Harrison
George Harrison (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Indian c ...
on his album ''
Wonderwall Music
''Wonderwall Music'' is the debut solo album by English musician George Harrison and the soundtrack to the 1968 film '' Wonderwall'', directed by Joe Massot. Released in November 1968, it was the first solo album by a member of the Beatles, and ...
''.
Career
At the end of the 1960s Ashton formed a new group with Remo drummer
Roy Dyke and bass player
Kim Gardner
Kim Gardner (27 January 1948 in Dulwich, London – 24 October 2001 in Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles) was an English musician.
He was part of the British Invasion of the US during the 1960s, and sound recording and reproduction, rec ...
. They called themselves
Ashton, Gardner and Dyke. Their music, which was all composed by Ashton, was a fusion of R&B and jazz. The
trio recorded three albums, but gained recognition in the United Kingdom in 1971, when the single "Resurrection Shuffle" reached number three on the
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...
. Following this sudden success they failed to get any more hit singles and broke up in 1973. Ashton said: "The hit backfired on us and we ended up playing cabaret again. The best thing we did was playing with
Herbie Mann
Herbert Jay Solomon (April 16, 1930 – July 1, 2003), known by his stage name Herbie Mann, was an American jazz flute player and important early practitioner of world music. Early in his career, he also played tenor saxophone and clarinet (incl ...
at Ronnie Scott's. We wanted to be an album band, but once you've got a big hit, you're in the pop league."
![Tony1971](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Tony1971.jpg)
Ashton also played with The Executives, The Mastersounds and on sessions with
Jerry Lee Lewis
Jerry Lee Lewis (September 29, 1935October 28, 2022) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Nicknamed "The Killer", he was described as "rock & roll's first great wild man". A pioneer of rock and roll and rockabilly music, Lewis made ...
, George Harrison,
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton (born 1945) is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is often regarded as one of the most successful and influential guitarists in rock music. Clapton ranked second in ''Rolling Stone''s list of ...
and
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
. When Ashton, Gardner and Dyke broke up in 1973 Ashton briefly joined
Family
Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...
, and played a prominent role on the last Family album ''It's Only A Movie'', sharing lead vocal duties with Roger Chapman on the title track and also on "Sweet Desiree".
Tony met
Deep Purple
Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in London in 1968. They are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal music, heavy metal and modern hard rock music, but their musical style has changed over the course of its existence. Ori ...
in the early 1970s, when the last recording of Ashton, Gardner and Dyke was a collaboration with keyboardist
Jon Lord
John Douglas Lord (9 June 194116 July 2012) was an English orchestral and rock composer, pianist, and Hammond organ player known for his pioneering work in fusing rock with classical or baroque forms, especially with the British rock band Deep ...
on the soundtrack for a b-movie called ''
The Last Rebel
''The Last Rebel'' is the seventh studio album by American rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, released in 1993. It is the last album to feature drummer Kurt Custer and guitarist Randall Hall.
Track listing
# "Good Lovin's Hard to Find" (Ed King, Gary R ...
''. In the meantime, Ashton had appeared on Jon Lord's first solo album ''
Gemini Suite
After the 1969 classical / rock fusion ''Concerto for Group and Orchestra'', Jon Lord was commissioned to write a follow-up. This was ''Gemini Suite'', five long movements inspired by the members of Deep Purple, and performed live in September 19 ...
'' in 1971. In 1973, Ashton joined the group
Family
Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...
for their last album and tour. That same year, he and
David Coverdale
David Coverdale (born 22 September 1951) is an English singer who is best known as the lead vocalist of Whitesnake, a hard rock band he founded in 1978. Before Whitesnake, Coverdale was the lead singer of Deep Purple from 1973 to 1976, after wh ...
and Glenn Hughes were guest vocalists on Jon Lord's second album ''
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
''. Ashton and Lord became close friends. In the summer of 1974, during a break in Deep Purple's busy touring schedule, Tony Ashton and Jon Lord recorded their album ''
First of the Big Bands
''First of the Big Bands'' is a studio album by Tony Ashton of Ashton, Gardner and Dyke and Jon Lord of Deep Purple, released in April 1974 by Purple Records in the UK and Europe and Warner Bros. Records in the US. The project was Ashton's and L ...
''. This project was launched with a gig at the
London Palladium
The London Palladium () is a Grade II* West End theatre located on Argyll Street, London, in the famous area of Soho. The theatre holds 2,286 seats. Of the roster of stars who have played there, many have televised performances. Between 1955 an ...
the same year and the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
taped a special live appearance at
Golders Green Hippodrome
The Golders Green Hippodrome was built in 1913 by Bertie Crewe as a 3,000-seat music hall, to serve North London and the new London Underground Northern line expansion into Golders Green in the London Borough of Barnet, London, England.
Taken ...
in London. The album of this show combines rhythm and blues, boogie piano and
Hammond organ
The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...
with a big band. Ashton also contributed to
Roger Glover
Roger David Glover (born 30 November 1945) is a Welsh bassist, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the member of the hard rock bands Deep Purple and Rainbow. As a member of Deep Purple, Glover was inducted into the Rock and Ro ...
's ''Butterfly Ball'' project. In these years, Ashton and Lord found a second home in
Zermatt
Zermatt () is a municipality in the district of Visp in the German-speaking section of the canton of Valais in Switzerland. It has a year-round population of about 5,800 and is classified as a town by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office (FSO).
...
, an alpine resort in Switzerland, sometimes to ski, but more often to provide non-profit gigs in a unique complex (one hotel-two night-clubs-two restaurants and four pubs) called "Hotel Post" which was run by American-born Karl Ivarsson. Ashton managed to come to the place almost until his death, and Jon Lord was a regular visitor until his death even though the hotel did not exist anymore.
In August 1976, when Deep Purple split, Jon Lord and Ian Paice combined with Tony Ashton. The result was the formation of
Paice Ashton Lord
Paice Ashton Lord was a short-lived British rock band featuring Deep Purple band members Ian Paice and Jon Lord with singer Tony Ashton. The band was formed in 1976, released its only album in 1977 and broke up in 1978.
History
After Deep Pur ...
, a band rooted in funk, jazz and rock. The line-up was completed by future
Whitesnake
Whitesnake are an English hard rock band formed in London in 1978. The group was originally put together as the backing band for singer David Coverdale, who had recently left Deep Purple. Though the band quickly developed into their own entit ...
guitarist
Bernie Marsden
Bernard John Marsden (born 7 May 1951) is an English rock and blues guitarist. He is primarily known for his work with Whitesnake, having written or co-written with David Coverdale many of the group's hit songs, such as "Fool for Your Loving", ...
and bass player
Paul Martinez
Paul Frank Martinez (born 6 October 1947, Leicester, Leicestershire, England) is a British session musician and songwriter, best known for his work with Robert Plant, Cat Stevens, Jackie Edwards, Dave Edmunds, George Harrison, Maggie Bell, Vas ...
. They recorded ''Malice in Wonderland'' in Munich and a nationwide tour of the UK was set in motion. The tour was cancelled while still in progress because of large financial losses. The band broke up leaving Ashton without a record deal and poor prospects.
[Tony Ashton Obituary.]
During the eighties Ashton co-hosted a TV show with
Rick Wakeman
Richard Christopher Wakeman (born 18 May 1949) is an English keyboardist best known as a former member of the progressive rock band Yes across five tenures between 1971 and 2004, and for his solo albums released in the 1970s.
Born and raised ...
called "GasTank". The show was aired every two weeks and, on each episode, there were guests ranging from
Phil Lynott
Philip Parris Lynott (, ; 20 August 1949 – 4 January 1986) was an Irish singer, bassist, and songwriter. His most commercially successful group was Thin Lizzy, of which he was a founding member, the principal songwriter, lead vocalist and ba ...
to Ian Paice who sat in with the show's in-house band led by Ashton and Wakeman (others were Tony Fernandez and Chas Cronk). In between performances, the guests were interviewed by Wakeman. In 1984, Ashton was given a very small budget to record an album for EMI in Switzerland. The result was the album ''Live in the Studio'', recorded in less than three days. After that, Ashton went through some hard times due to ill health and lack of work. Although he continued to perform sporadically, he did not release anything until 1988 with a single called "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning". In 1986 he married Sandra Naidoo and adopted her daughter Indira.
Final years
By the early 1990s, Tony Ashton began to develop his second career as an artist. Many of Ashton's paintings were bought by the television presenter and DJ
Chris Evans for exhibition at his art gallery, Well Hung, in
Notting Hill
Notting Hill is a district of West London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Notting Hill is known for being a cosmopolitan and multicultural neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting Hill Carnival and Portobello Road M ...
. Apart from selling a lot of paintings (ink drawings and oil/acrylic), his work can be seen on the covers of various CDs, including his maxi-single ''Mr Ashton Sings Big Red and Other Love Songs''. In 1996, Ashton played in some gigs in (Germany) and reunited with Bernie Marsden. Together they played at various Festivals (in Norway and in the UK).
In 2000, when he became seriously ill, a special benefit concert was recorded and filmed at
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...
's
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios (formerly EMI Recording Studios) is a recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music c ...
, featuring the many diverse talents of a number of Ashton's friends and colleagues over the years, including Jon Lord, Ian Paice,
Micky Moody
Michael Joseph "Micky" Moody (born 30 August 1950) is an English guitarist, and a former member of the rock bands Juicy Lucy and Whitesnake. He was also a founder-member of Snafu. Together with his former Whitesnake colleague Bernie Marsden h ...
, Bernie Marsden,
Howie Casey
Howard William Casey (born 12 July 1937) is a British rhythm and blues and rock saxophonist. He came to prominence in the early 1960s as a member of Derry and the Seniors, the first rock and roll band from Liverpool to play clubs in Germany, ...
,
Chris Barber
Donald Christopher "Chris" Barber OBE (17 April 1930 – 2 March 2021) was an English jazz musician, best known as a bandleader and trombonist. He helped many musicians with their careers and had a UK top twenty trad jazz hit with " Petite Fl ...
,
John Entwistle
John Alec Entwistle (9 October 194427 June 2002) was an English musician who was the bassist for the rock band The Who. Entwistle's music career spanned over four decades. Nicknamed "The Ox" and "Thunderfingers", he was the band's only member ...
,
Zak Starkey
Zak Richard Starkey (born 13 September 1965) is an English rock drummer who has performed and recorded with English rock band the Who since 1996. He is also the third drummer to have appeared with English rock band Oasis. In 2020, Starkey toure ...
,
Pete York
Peter York (born 15 August 1942 in Redcar, Yorkshire, England) is a British rock drummer who has been performing since the 1960s.
Biography
Born in Redcar, he attended the Nottingham High School and learnt to play the trumpet and snare drum ...
,
Zoot Money
George Bruno Money (born 17 July 1942) is an English vocalist, keyboardist and bandleader. He is best known for his playing of the Hammond organ and association with his Big Roll Band. Inspired by Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles, he was drawn ...
,
Joe Brown,
Geoff Emerick
Geoffrey Ernest Emerick (5 December 1945 – 2 October 2018) was an English sound engineer and record producer who worked with the Beatles on their albums '' Revolver'' (1966), '' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' (1967) and ''Abbey Road ...
,
Mike Figgis
Michael Figgis (born 28 February 1948) is an English film director, screenwriter, and composer. He was nominated for two Academy Awards for his work in ''Leaving Las Vegas'' (1995). Figgis was the founding patron of the independent filmmakers o ...
and
Ewan McGregor
Ewan Gordon McGregor ( ; born 31 March 1971) is a Scottish actor. His accolades include a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and the BAFTA Britannia Humanitarian Award. In 2013, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British ...
. In the early nineties, Ashton also wrote the first of a planned trilogy of books, which has tales of various aspects of his career including Paice Ashton Lord, the Gastank TV series, and his love of Zermatt in Switzerland, which he first visited with Ashton Gardner & Dyke in 1970, and which gave him the title for the book: ''Zermattitis: a musicians' guide to going downhill fast''. It has been recently published by Wymer Publishing, as a limited edition with a DVD of rare and previously unreleased film of Ashton Gardner & Dyke, including a live performance from Montreux Jazz Festival 1970.
Tony Ashton died from cancer on 28 May 2001 at his home in London at the age of 55.
Discography
Albums
Live albums
Videos
Singles/EPs
Session work/appearances
References
External links
Tony Ashton art gallery*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ashton, Tony
Family (band) members
1946 births
2001 deaths
People from Blackburn
English rock pianists
English rock keyboardists
English rock singers
20th-century English singers
20th-century British pianists
Deaths from cancer in England
Chicken Shack members
Paice Ashton Lord members
Ashton, Gardner and Dyke members