★★★  Inter Act  ★★★ with Ashley Maher

Emma:

Have you always danced and sung? What are your early memories?

Ashley:

Yes!! I started singing when I was five. Since (luckily) the public schools I attended all had exceptional music programs, I grew up singing everything: madrigals, choral music, Broadway tunes, jazz, barbershop, pop, you name it. Meanwhile, I studied piano and did ballet and tap dance at our local community center. I had a super happy childhood with three siblings, hilarious & wonderful parents, lots of travel, a mum who encouraged anything we were interested in, and a safe and leafy neighborhood near the beach to romp around in.

I was both a tomboy and a girlie girl. I loved playing sports with the boys at school, then changing into a pink tutu for ballet. Music and dance were joyful places to express myself. I won awards and my teachers encouraged my talent.

Emma:

Did you always listen to a wide range of music? When did you get into Senegalese sounds and what drew you to them?

Ashley:

Since my dad was Irish / English and grew up in Brazil, he played a lot of samba, Bossa nova and jazz. Meanwhile, my mum oscillated between classical music and listening to Top 40 pop on our kitchen radio. Weirdly, I was never really a record-buyer. Rather, I trotted along behind my music-obsessed sister, absorbing whatever she played: from Jethro Tull to the Clash to Funkadelic to Keith Jarrett to Bruce Springsteen. My younger brother was obsessed with Kate Bush. But my own heart was with an R & B / soul / disco station at the end of the radio dial called KDAY. Since our high school bussed in students from African-American neighborhoods, I would hear my favorite music on their boom boxes in the school hallways.

I remember during the high school dances, sitting impatient-and-unmoved on the sidelines while the DJ played The Steve Miller Band, The Eagles, Journey, Chicago, Devo … then jumping up with glee when he’d switch to Earth Wind and Fire, the Isley Brothers, the Emotions, the Commodores, and Chaka Khan. I also loved singer-songwriters like James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, and Carole King.

I discovered African music while taking a short cut through the music department at UC Berkeley. Hearing an unfamiliar sound coming out of one of the rooms, I peeked in to see what it was. In that doorway, it felt like I was hit by lightening. Every cell in my body lit up like a candle, and I knew in an instant that this was going to be my life’s path. It was a Ghanaian drumming class, taught by CK Ladzekpo. I studied with him for two years, falling in love both with the mathematics of how these rhythms fit together and how they made me feel.

Upon graduating, I moved to London in search of African music. For my 12 years there … working, learning, collaborating, recording, my focus gradually narrowed from African-music-in-general to West African music to Senegalese music. This was party because Senegal’s Youssou Ndour became my all star favorite artist, and partly because Senegal’s mbalax rhythms that drove this music were so deliciously complex and intoxicating.

Emma:

Have you always had the chance to make music with other people? Are you from a musical family? Playing and singing together is so fundamentally important - it adds to all solo endeavours, too.

Ashley:

Although my family was made of music appreciators, rather than music makers, I grew up always making music at school. Then, in London, I hung out with the musicians I was working with.

Seeing the way music is made IN Africa deepened my understanding of how music can be social. Singing and dancing is a big part of community life across the continent. I found that people dance and sing far more often than in the West. Meanwhile, my years of studying, performing, and teaching as a vocal improvisor has enriched my experience of singing and creating with others in the moment.

Emma:

How do you write - does the tune come first, or the rhythm, or the words? Do you prefer to write with others or on your own?

Ashley:

I imagine most songwriters will say the same thing: that songs arrive from all different angles … sometimes starting with the melody, words, or rhythm first. In early years, many of my songs had a common walking tempo because I would compose in my head as I walked around London. Every morning, I’d sit in different cafés and write words words words … later sifting through them to create songs.

In my “middle years” I did quite a few collaborative co-writes. Someone would give me a groove or rhythm that I loved and I would write a melody, words, harmonies over the top.

In more recent years, the majority of my songs start with a rhythm that I create and then build on top of. It all starts with The Groove. And I also enjoy allowing a song to create itself before me. Once I have a groove, I will open up the mic and just see what comes out without thought or direction. Often, I’ve found that my first or second improvisation has the most potent and interestingly spontaneous ideas, phrasing, melodic shapes. I sift through and sift through to find the phrases that feel the best and words then start to surface (again, almost on their own) until my logical mind starts to step in and make sense of it all … creating sections, chord progressions, harmonies, beginnings and endings.

Emma:

Did your music-making need to change shape at all throughout 2020?

Ashley:

Covid was huge blow. By March, I had raised the money to go to Senegal to do two big shows and everything got cancelled, I lost all my jobs at once and wondered how on earth I would get through?

However, ultimately, it ended up being a very rich year for me, creatively. Unemployment kicked in and overnight I had ALL DAY to work on music. But how to do it, when we couldn’t see one another? I ended up studying Wolof (the Senegalese language), writing a LOT, co-writing and collaborating with artists as a series of split screen duets with musicians from Morocco, France, Senegal, India, Italy, England, Canada, France, Brazil, Cameroon, and the USA, learning Final Cut Pro X, and diving into the sheer fun of making videos. It’s been amazing!!

Emma:

If you have any free time, what music do you use as escapism (if at all)?

Ashley:

I still blast my favorites: vintage Youssou Ndour, Oumou Sangare, Sara Tavares, Kine Lam, Pape Diouf, Moustapha Mbaye & Ndongo Lo when I am taking a long walk or in the car. I don’t really listen to music at home, though.

Emma:

Do you have any non-musical hobbies?

Ashley:

I absolutely LOVE being in Nature. Most mornings, I hike in the mountains and spend time meditating, connecting with the earth, and clearing my heart and mind. I have many happy memories tromping around Cornwall as a kid and when I lived in London, as my grandparents lived there.

Emma:

How much time do you spend travelling?

Ashley:

While juggling traveling with raising children (I have a 30 year old son and a 20 year old daughter) is tricky, I have done a fair amount of it. In the past 15 years, I have probably been to Senegal about 17 times. When living in London and signed to Virgin Records, my son had been on 60 airplanes with me by the age of 2!! I have performed all over Europe, in Senegal, and across the States and grew up traveling because my father worked in that industry.

Now that my kids are grown, my dream is to be out in the world performing, teaching, collaborating, recording, and onstage far more. When the pandemic passes, I will be on my way!!

Emma:

Your voice is gloriously unstrained and its tone beautiful - do you think that the quality of the sounds a person makes improves if they are ‘in their best zone’?

Ashley:

A turning point for me was studying opera in Italy for my year-abroad international study program via UC Berkeley. All year long, I watched singers work hard to make their voices higher, broader, more controlled, more dexterous, and to “sound operatic.” I returned to California determined to work in the opposite direction - What was my most natural sounding voice? What sound came out of me that was effortless and unforced? How could I sound my most authentic? Instead, I focused on identifying and ridding myself of any blockages.

Emma:

How has your creativity changed since you started and would you change the order of anything you have done?

Ashley:

I have a photograph above my desk of myself in an LA studio, recording my first album decades ago … with the 2 inch tape in the background … and I basically see the same person as I am now: headband, sweatshirt, jeans, hoop earrings, no make-up, just totally in love with making music. I was in a deluxe studio then, paid for by Virgin UK, with LA’s TOP musicians, out of my mind with happiness. And yet, even without a record deal, I have been blessed to work with my absolutely favorite musicians in Paris, London, Los Angeles, and Dakar … scraping together money along the way, doing trades, collaborating and making the music happen even while raising children and working to pay the rent.

Looking back and imagining how things might have been different is fun, but ultimately we can never know how any other path would have worked out. If my career had been more lucrative, busy, and “successful” in conventional terms, how would that have impacted my kids? Would I have missed the crucial lessons I have learned on this path? Would I have met the wonderful people I have worked with? Everything happens the way it does. While we cling to our illusion of directing and controlling our lives, the universe plays with us as she will … often with a fair amount of humor, I have found. Best to dive in with faith and courage and enjoy whatever way direction the road takes us.

Emma:

Individuality for singers is, in my view, key. Do you think that forging a personal unique path is easier for a singer in this era?

Ashley:

Teaching at LA College of Music, I notice how every single singer has his / her own distinct vibe. Even if we describe them as composites of artists who have preceded them (“Taylor Swift crossed with Cat Stevens”) no one sounds exactly like someone else. Yes, there are broad genres that people fall into … and I see young aspiring singers trying to sound like Billie Eilish or Beyoncé. However, the true artists that last a lifetime catch our hearts with their authenticity. Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Ed Sheeran, Amy Winehouse. They articulate feelings and experiences in their words and music that reflect our own.

Emma:

Are you affected by light and weather? Do you work and sing better in the sunshine?

Ashley:

I actually adore and miss Britain’s miserable winters. I love rain and cold weather. Must be my Celtic blood. That being said, California’s weather is glorious, too. Global warming has made our summers hot and dangerous these days, though. Senegal’s weather is the same. I try to avoid summers over there. Tooooo hot for me.

Emma:

Do the colours of Senegal stay in your mind when you are not there?

Ashley:

Interesting you say that. There really ARE colors and textures that are specific to Senegal. Just as British painter, David Hockney fell in love with California’s light, Senegal’s colors are magical and intoxicating. Hold up a camera there, at any time of day, at any angle, in any direction, and you will capture beauty.

Ashley has taken so much time and care and offered such great insight in her interview and I am in her debt for her generosity of time.

SO much of what she has written here resonates with me, particularly in echoing the need to find one’s uniqueness, cherish it and be guided by it. May we all celebrate that!

If you'd like to visit Ashley's web site, here is the link:

https://www.ashleymaher.com

Return to Emma's Voiceblog

24th. January, 2021