Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Best.
Hi Ashley, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
My story started at a tender age, my Grandad had passed away when I was 4yrs old. He was in a Country music band. Many times he would borrow a reel to reel recorder that my Dad had purchased for my Mom, he would record songs that he was going to sing for shows. It was those recordings that first spoke to me, those were my memories of him, his voice and a Gibson Hummingbird guitar on that recorder. Fast forward to the age of 14, my Dad had sold our house and purchased 22 acres of land. He wanted to build a farm. Times were tough in our region (Harrison County, Ohio), we were a coal mining county and the mines had all been shut down for nearly 10 yrs and there weren’t many jobs around. My Dad had went to many different states looking for other mining jobs, but most other mines were destined to end up the same. My Dad had grown up on farms, milking cows and slopping hogs and he wanted to go back to his roots, to build something that could be passed down and built upon, generation after generation. So he purchased what he could afford, bare land, that wasn’t so bare, it was more like an untamed beast, full of thorny trees and bushes. So, by now I’m sure you’re wondering what all this has to do with my music career, this is where the real desire came about. As we worked to build the basement of our house, my older brother (Trent) had a radio playing day in and day out, it would be playing on the local Country radio station and I fell in love with that music, especially Dwight Yoakam. From that moment on, I never turned the radio off!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
My journey has been anything but smooth, but I honestly don’t know if I would change the road I’ve traveled. As I mentioned in the previous question, I had become consumed with the radio, but primarily Dwight Yoakam. I started diving into his music, I needed to know the artist himself. Finding out where he came from, his back ground. Dwight Yoakam”s family had hailed from the holler’s of ole Kentucky, coal mining country. Through my search I realized Dwight was a song writer. Not all singers are songwriters, but Dwight was and if I was to venture into music, that’s who I wanted to be like. Now my Dad had dreams of passing the family farm onto me and it’s not like i didn’t enjoy the work, especially working with him, I loved it. But the idea of standing on a stage in front of thousands of screaming fans, it just did something to me, spoke to me in a way that I just couldn’t get the thought/idea out of my head. If I could just write a song, a good song then maybe my Dad would agree that this is something I should pursue. Now back in the day, around 12yrs old, I was known for my short story writings. My 6th grade teacher would often read them out loud to the rest of the class and kids would either laugh or cry, depending on the story. During this same time period my Mom had written a few poems that had gotten published into a book of poems. I remember my 6th grade teacher asking me if i was going to be a poet, with a disgusted looking face I said “absolutely not!”, I hated poetry. Once I realized that songs are a form of poetry put to music, I knew I could do it. My Dad had bought me a Yamaha guitar for Christmas, when i was 16yrs old, no lessons, but I had me a guitar. I struggled with understanding the guitar, the chord progressions, just all of it, I was struggling. My Dad told me, “If you want something bad enough you’ll figure it out.” I would work all day on the farm, clearing fields, building fence, building barns, then late at night I would sit in my room teaching myself how to play, how to write. I finally wrote the song and sent it to an add in Country Weekly Magazine and for $200 I could have my song recorded into a demo and submitted to publishers in Nashville. I was so excited, I presented it to my Dad and said “what do you think?”. What he said next haunted me for a very long time, “If the song was any good they would be paying you, not you paying them, this dream you have of music will never work, you don’t have the talent. There are thousands of people trying to do what you want to do and you will never make it!” . It was the beginning of a long, long road. Every time I took the stage, over 12 years had passed, I would hear those words echoing in my head. I battled losing my 1st wife to an unexpected death with 2 young daughters to take care of, battled years of addiction with alcohol, but through it all his words were the hardest thing to over come.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’ve spent my adult life honing in on my songwriting. After my 1st wife had passed away at age 26, I was 29 with a 6yr old daughter and a 9 month old daughter. It didn’t take long for me to go into a downward spiral. I was by my wife’s side, she literally died in my arms, that night haunted me for a long time. I got to the point that I was afraid to go to sleep because of the nightmares. I thought I could escape the nightmares if I could sleep some during the day, but they still found me. It got to the point I would sleep out in my car, but the nightmares still found me. During this time period was when the writing truly started. One of my songs “Nothing Ever Seems To Do”, released on my debut EP “I Believe” in 2018 came to me one morning while sitting on the front deck of my In-Laws house, I was hungover bad, it was hot that morning and the wind started blowing through a big maple tree. I closed my eyes and just listened. The sound that the wind made threw the branches of that tree spoke to me, I could literally hear words. At that time in my life I always kept my guitar with me, always by my side. I picked up my guitar and started playing the rhythm of the song, started singing the words that the wind had made threw the branches and leaves of that maple tree. That’s the way songs used to come to me. I wasn’t really writing them, I would just listen to the wind and they would come. I was so afraid to change my life, at this point. What if I changed, I didn’t like who I was but if I changed my lifestyle and become the person that I knew I could be, the person that I should be for myself and my daughters, maybe the words would stop coming. Maybe the music would end. I finally had become the writer that I had always dreamed to be. In short, I did change. I went home to the family farm and the wind followed, it followed me to the hay fields while baling hay, to the fields in the spring as I would work the land. I’ve learnt that I don’t always have to listen, that sometimes the rhythm of the guitar will spark something creative in me. That rhythm that I have is what makes me unique in style. After speaking and working with a very talented guitarist Roger Hoard, he has said that the rhythms I have can’t be taught. The way I write isn’t by theories, it’s all about my soul and who I am. I am Ashley Best singer/songwriter, after all these years I’ve finally found myself!
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
I guess the one thing that I would like to say is, “Don’t ever let anybody, no matter who they are, discourage you from being you.” I loved my Dad and respected my Dad, maybe a pinch to much, I’m not saying he shouldn’t have said those words, “you’re not good enough” to me, I’m saying I shouldn’t have believed in his words more than I believed in myself. Life will always throw things at you, challenge you, it’s all part of life’s plan of figuring out who you really are, what you are truly made of. Embrace the obstacles, chances are there’s a song in there, you just got to listen for it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ashleybestcountrymusic.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashleybestmusic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ashbestmusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ashleybest1796
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/album/61ED29HiqrbzFuCHArncfs https://www.tiktok.com/@ashleybestmusic
