You’ll never Guess Who I managed to track down: Manitoba music’s man of mystery, original Guess Who keyboard player Bob Ashley.
Following
his departure from the band in December 1965, Ashley virtually fell off
everyone’s radar screens here. Even his former band mates didn’t know
his whereabouts and royalties went unclaimed for years. Few knew that
the man behind those memorable clinkity-clink piano chops on Shakin’ All Over or the lavish grand piano flourishes in Hurting Each Other
enjoyed a widely-respected award-winning career in musical theatre and
cabaret in Toronto for some 47 years and is still performing. “I don’t
know why people think I’m mysterious,” laughs Ashley from his home in
Toronto. “If people wanted to find me they could. It wasn’t hard. I
wasn’t hiding from anybody.”
In
Toronto, Ashley was able to reinvent himself leaving his rock ‘n’ roll
past behind to carve out a prominent spot as an in-demand composer,
arranger, musical director and dance accompanist. Most of his associates
never knew he had been a member of Canada’s top band back in 1965,
touring the US in the company of many of the biggest stars of the day.
Born
and raised on Clonard Avenue in St. Vital, Ashley began piano lessons
at age four studying classical music. Blessed with perfect pitch, by his
teens he enjoyed playing pop music and came to the attention of
neighbour Jim Kale who played bass guitar. Kale was playing in The
Jaywalkers but with Ashley, now working as a clerk at the Canadian Wheat
Board, in tow the two joined promising East Kildonan band Allan’s
Silvertones. Fronted by Allan Kowbel, aka Chad Allan, on guitar and
vocals, various personnel changes eventually brought in guitarist Randy
Bachman and drummer Garry Peterson, both hailing from West Kildonan,
along with a new name: Chad Allan & the Reflections. “Bob was kind
of like our informal musical director,” states Chad Allan. “We learned
everything by ear and Bob would tell us if we were playing the wrong
chords. He was definitely the most musical member of the band.”
In
short order the quintet became the top group in the city. “We were the
best jukebox band in town,” states Ashley. “We were always very tight as
a band.”Their individual talents and versatility allowed Chad Allan
& the Reflections to play just about anything. The community club
dance scene was opening up and along with church basement soirees and
high school proms, the band worked every weekend. Allan bought a couple
of violin pickups that were thumb tacked to the back of pianos allowing
Ashley to be heard over the other instruments. However, using a
community club piano could be troublesome for Ashley. “With his perfect
pitch, Bob hated playing out of tune pianos at gigs,” recalls Allan. “It
would drive him crazy.” Even Bachman’s string bending was irritating.
“It was like fingernails scratching on a blackboard to him,” says
Bachman.
“Bob
could do all the [country music instrumentalist] Floyd Cramer piano
trill stuff superbly,” Bachman continues. “Nobody was doing that in the
city. In the early days of the Reflections, Bob was the star
instrumentalist in the band. He played more solos than me and could play
things like Bumble Boogie and Nut Rocker. When he got a little Hohner organ that expanded the sound and range of the group. We could do Telstar and songs like that.”
The flipside of Chad Allan & the Reflections’ first record, 1963’s Tribute To Buddy Holly, featured Ashley’s nimble piano playing on the group instrumental Back And Forth. In an effort to showcase the talents of the band, the following year their record label issued the instrumental single Inside Out featuring Ashley with Bachman’s Made In England on the B side under the name Bob Ashley & the Reflections. But it was their 1965 single Shakin’ All Over,
recorded at CJAY TV’s Polo Park studio that catapulted the Winnipeg
group to national attention making the top five in every region of the
country. Released in the States on New York-based Scepter Records, the
raucous recording rose to #22 on the Billboard charts.
In
June 1965 the band headed to New York to record and tour the Eastern
Seaboard as far down as Florida. “When we recorded in New York, for the
first time it felt like the real thing,” Ashley recalls. “They had
professional songwriters come in and pitch their songs to us.” Among
those were Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson of Ain’t No Mountain High Enough fame and Gary Geld and Peter Udell who offered the Guess Who Hurting Each Other. Later a hit for The Carpenters, the Guess Who were the first to record the song.
“I
remember touring with the Crystals,” states Ashley. “It was the first
time any of us had spent time with African-Americans from New York. It
was a totally different culture but we had a lot of fun. They were our
soul sisters.” Bachman recalls the time the Crystals dragged shy Ashley
onstage with them for He’s A Rebel. “He
was so embarrassed,” states Bachman. Ashley also witnessed the darker
side of American society travelling through the segregated south. “That
was very unsettling. It was so foreign to us coming from Canada. It made
me very uneasy.”
After
spending much of 1965 on the road Ashley grew weary of touring. “I
wasn’t enjoying it anymore,” he admits. “It wasn’t fun. I was thrilled
with the success we had but I had a lot of personal stuff going on at
the time. I wasn’t comfortable with the whole social aspect of being in a
band. I became very shy with the public. My headspace was not great. I
was suffering from depression.” A volatile situation at home coupled
with a growing realization of who he was led Ashley to leave the group.
“I was gay but didn’t act on it,” he admits. “I suppressed it at the
time.”
In
December, Ashley told his band mates he was leaving. “I was very
taciturn about it,” he recalls. “I didn’t give any notice, I just told
them I was done. In hindsight it wasn’t the most ethical thing to do but
I just couldn’t go on. They were quite surprised.” Surmises Jim Kale,
“Ashley just wasn’t cut out for the road.” Allan filled in on piano
until a permanent replacement was found. That new recruit was
seventeen-year-old Burton Cummings. “I was told by a friend that Burton
once said he thanked me for leaving the Guess Who and giving him his big
break,” chuckles Ashley.
For
the next two years Ashley played various low profile gigs around the
city including a stint with the house band at Pierre’s Restaurant (now
The Palomino Club) and working days at the Country Music Centre record
shop on Selkirk Avenue. “I was versatile and could play anything,” he
says, “Classical, jazz, Broadway, rock ‘n’ roll.” That versatility led
him to accompany dancers at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, a job that he
found very enjoyable. He also played briefly in pub perennial Wayne
Walker’s backing band.
In
the spring of 1968 Ashley was accompanying nightclub singer Annabelle
Allen when the singer decided to try her luck in Toronto. “It was all
very spontaneous,” Ashley remembers. “We just hopped into a car,
Annabelle, her husband, her child and me, and headed to Toronto.”
However soon after arriving, Ashley found himself abandoned by Allen.
Undeterred, he decided to stay in Toronto. “I did some club work because
I knew a couple of Winnipeggers who were playing clubs there. Because I
had played some classes for the RWB I called up the National Ballet
School in Toronto and got a job.” Ashley would be associated with both
Canada’s National Ballet School and the National Ballet of Canada on and
off for the next 47 years.
Ashley
also worked with the dance program at York University. That connection
led to musical theatre and cabaret work where he quickly found himself
in demand as musical director, arranger, accompanist and writer. “For
about 25 years theatre was my life,” he states. “I loved it. I was first
call for many productions.” “Bob was one of the most significant
musical theatre and cabaret music directors in Toronto for many years,”
notes theatrical composer Jim Betts. “As a collaborator he had the
ability to flesh out my sometimes simple ideas. He loves being involved
in exciting and different kinds of projects.” The pair’s credits include
three Cole Porter productions, On a Summer's Night for the Charlottetown Festival in 1979 (an adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream), and A Matter of Heart (2009) based on the life and music of legendary musician Stan Rogers. “We
had a wonderful musical partnership,” acknowledges Betts, “and Bob had a
great influence on any success I enjoyed.”Ironically, one of the
performers in the Stan Rogers production was Terry Hatty, who had been
singer in Kale and Peterson’s latter day Guess Who. “I knew that when I
auditioned him,” Bob admits.
Besides
finding a whole new career, Ashley also discovered a community that was
accepting of him as a gay man. “I finally admitted to myself that that
was who I was,” he states. “It was quite acceptable in the ballet and
theatre communities in Toronto.”
Ashley’s list of musical director and writing credits is extraordinary including Eight to the Barfor the Charlottetown Festival where he served as musical director for two years, The National Arts Centre’s production of A History of the American Film directed by John Hirsch, Aimee! inspired by the life of Aimee Semple McPherson, Cocktails for Two Hundred, Lies and Other Lyrics and The Family Wayfor the National Arts Centre Theatre Company, I’ll Tell You Mine If You Tell Me Yours, Has Anyone Here Found Love and Tonight at 8:30, 9:00 in Newfoundland for Toronto’s Teller’s Cage, America We Hear You Calling for Theatre-in-the-Dell in Toronto, and Puttin’ On The Ritz for the Firehall Theater. He had one of his songs included in Field of Stars,
a selection of the best songs from Canadian musicals published in 2005
and won a coveted Dora Mavor Moore award for musical direction on Piaf – Her Songs, Her Loves.
“Whatever
made Bob come to Toronto was certainly to our benefit in the musical
theatre community,” comments Betts. “Rock ‘n’ roll’s loss was most
certainly our gain.”
Ashley
has served as musical director and accompanist for well over 50
professional musical theatre productions for most of the major theatres
and producers in Canada. Ashley has been on the faculty at The Randolph
Academy, Sheridan College Musical Theatre Programs, The Cardinal Carter
Academy For The Arts, Queen Street’s Dance Teq and continues to be a
member of the artistic staff for Canada's National Ballet School.
“Bob
loves the combination of music and dance,” states Canada’s National
Ballet School Artistic Director and CEO Mavis Staines, who first met
Ashley when she was a student at the school. “His presence in the studio
is a powerful force. He is an enthusiastic contributor not only to the
school but also to our community programming for adults including our
outreach program for Parkinson’s sufferers. It is a privilege and an
honour to work with Bob.”
Now
in his 70s, Ashley is still actively involved in music. He is a
founding partner in Well Seasoned Productions dedicated to creating
works focused on the joys, challenges and celebration of life over 50
and also provides musical direction for PAL (Performing Arts Lodge). In
addition, he has partnered with former Second City member,
singer/comedienne Carolyn Scott, in the cabaret style topical revue duo
Cheap & Cheerful. “She is the funniest person on earth,” says
Ashley. “We just have fun and involve the audience. Our shows are a
hoot.” The duo recently appeared at Toronto’s Hugh’s Room.
“Everything
that has happened in my career I have fallen into,” reflects Ashley.
“I’ll get a call asking if I’d like to be involved with a production and
I’ll say ‘Sure!’ I never had to chase a career, it’s always just
happened.”
Former Winnipegger Peter Feniak recalls spotting Ashley in A Matter of Heart.
“Bob was one of the musical directors. So I asked him if he was the
same Bob Ashley who’d played with the Guess Who. He nearly fell off his
chair. He hadn’t been asked that in a long time.”
“I’m
proud to have been a member of the Guess Who,” Ashley admits. “That was
a time of such great innocence, not about the money or fame. But I
never put ‘Guess Who member’ on my resumé. Few people know about that.”
