Date of birth: November 27th 1960

In 1985 Imagination celebrated their
5th anniversary by a special concert at
the Royal Albert Hall in London.
A special concertbrochure was put together as a special memento for this occasion.
In it Ashley recalls how it all began for him... 

"Although I was born and brought up in Northampton my parents retained much of their Jamaican culture, with Jamaican food, dialect and manners. One of my fondest childhood memories was travelling fifty miles every Sunday to a gospel church in Bedford where the pure vitality ane excitement of those powerful gospel voices used to thrill me.

Whilst I was totally enthralled singing along with the rest of the congregation I can remember often sneaking along the aisles to get a closer look at the group of musicians at the front of the church, and became fascinated by the drummer. I must have been about five at this time and after pestering my father week after week he eventually bought me a drum kit.

From that moment on the house echoed with me hammering the drums, and I think it was the constant din that prompted my father to pay for me to have piano lessons! Not that it stopped me playing drums but it did give the family some respite when I practised piano instead. After a few years of piano lessons I took up guitar, and whenever the opportunity occurred at the gospel church, I found myself sitting in either on drums, piano or guitar.

Whilst I was at school -Northampton Trinity Grammar-,
I founded and disbanded several groups, and shortly after leaving school decided that I wanted to be a professional musician. I started applying for anything and everything and nearly every day I seemed to audition for some outfit or other. It was during this auditioning phase that I constantly met up with another aspiring young vocalist. Yes, you've guessed it, Mr. Leee John! At first we didn't really get on, probably seeing each other as rivals for whatever job was going, but gradually we became good friends. We even got to the point when we would ring and let each other know what auditions were going that week. It was at one of the auditions for backing vocalists that we turned up as a duo and got the job as backing vocalists for The Velvettes. That was to be the start of many times Leee and I were to work together, but not as backing vocalists! I was playing guitar and acting as musical director for Chairmen Of The Board and Leee was doing vocals, and we both worked with American outfits. The Elgins and The Delfonics.

This period of my life gave me invaluable experience and made me very adaptable. It gave me an opportunity to constantly experiment with a number of instruments and sounds and it has certainly proved a bonus now that I have my own recording studio at home. It means that I can lay down my own tracks and experiment with my own sounds, and when Imagination do have free time I like nothing more than locking myself away in the studio and forgetting completely about the world outside! It's my release valve to the sometimes hectic schedules the group have to undertake."

In 1990, Ashley decided to leave Imagination and broaden his horizon in the USA. Unfortunally it also meaned that fans were left without any information about Ashley's projects from that moment on. Luckily now and then he does seem to pop up again by, with among others: his producing and musicianwork for Desrée. His work with Quincy Jones and others... The best news of all was when he won the Global Award for best song/writer ("You gotta be").