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Kevin Ashcroft (Musician)
Kevin Ashley Ashcroft ( Born 17 June 1966 ) is an English guitar & keyboard player and songwriter who rose to prominence in 2008 as keyboard player for one of the UK’s top Roy Orbison artists Barry Steele touring theatres all over the UK.

Early Life
Ashcroft was born in Dudley  West Midlands England on 17 June 1966 to Paul and Pamela Living in Dudley, Langley Green and then Oldbury, all being towns based in the  Black Country. He studied music at school and learned classical piano being taught after school by his music teacher. However, after seeing a guitar hanging in his local music shop Ashcroft knew that this was the instrument for him. Although mainly self taught, he has had professional tuition and was once a pupil of jazz guitarist Adrian Ingram

Music Career
Ashcroft’s early career involved playing in function bands around the Midlands and Crewe / Stoke regions playing guitar and driving the band van as well as teaching guitar. One of his bands included bass player Pete Rowland brother of Dexy’s Kevin Rowland  before  Dexys Midnight Runners  hit the big time – with Kevin Rowland attending a gig in  saying he was advertising for brass players when everybody else was looking for guitar players ! By coincidence, a few years later Dexy’s used to rehearse at the same rehearsal studio as Ashcroft.



theKAB

Ashcroft stopped playing for a long period to concentrate on bringing up his children ( added to his apathy about the music business in general ) but as soon as his children had grown up he decided to resurrect his music career. He got together with his friend and bass player from his school days and recruited a drummer to form The Kevin Ashcroft Band later shortened to theKAB. The music was a mix of original blues and rock n roll with a few ballads thrown in, mainly written by Ashcroft. They gigged around the West Midlands and recorded an album written by Ashcroft called ‘You Gave Me The Blues’3 on Defamation Records4 which contained 11 original tracks. However, every time Ashcroft auditioned a singer he was never happy when they would change the song or add notes that weren’t there so he decided to do the vocals himself after taking vocal training but a vocalist he is not and in the end, unhappy with his own vocals,  Ashcroft ended the band and decided not to promote the album and removed it from sale at all the digital sites and destroyed most of the CD’s. – CD Unsigned still have the CD on sale and as well as iTunes5 although you cannot find it by a direct search. Before ending the band Ashcroft took his music over to Hamburg Germany playing various venues, played a live acoustic slot on West Midlands radio station BBC Radio WM hosted by Jimmy Franks as well as playing in the middle of  Birmingham   prior to a live broadcast by the BBC of Tosca on the big screen that used to be in  Chamberlain Square Birmingham. After Ashcroft played his live set on BBC Radio WM, one of the songs 'Aint No Rehearsal' was later featured on playlists as part of Radio WM's 'Introducing'6 series under the name The Kevin Ashcroft Band rather than theKAB. Aint No Rehearsal was one of the tracks from the You Gave Me The Blues album.

Barry Steele – Roy Orbison Tribute

A series of coincidences led to Ashcroft joining Barry Steele as keyboard player for Barry’s Roy Orbsion Tribute backing band. Ashcroft went to see Rockin’ On Heavens Door, a tribute show to the early pioneers of rock n roll and at the end of the show Ashcroft met Barry Steele at the ‘Meet and greet’ and found out they lived in the same area. At the time, Ashcroft was actually working on a second never to be released album ‘Fated Love’ when he heard a Roy Orbison song being sung in the rehearsal room next door and during a break Ashcroft went to take a look and it was Barry Steele rehearsing with his own band. Barry Steele was in the throws of changing his band and taking a new band on the road as a Roy Orbison Tribute act. Ashcroft later auditioned and got the role of keyboard player in his band.

Ashcroft was keyboard player for over 2 years from 2008 – 2010 playing at theatres all over the UK playing a 23 song set, always starting with ‘Only The Lonely’ and ending with ‘Oh Pretty Woman’.

The other members of the Roy Orbison Tribute band were also members of a now defunct tribute band called ‘The Complete Beatles’ who used to open as a support act for Barry. Gigs were played all over the UK and Barry Steele was determined that they would only play theatres and large venues and sometimes Barry Steele would support other acts such as Dozy Beaky Mick And Tich  as well as being top of the bill at a   Children In Need concert1 in Leamington Spa along with  Vince Hill   Occasionally, Barry Steele used to use a second band when The Complete Beatles were not available and on a couple of songs by   The Travelling Wilburys  ‘End Of the Line’ and ‘Handle With Care’  Ashcroft used play acoustic guitar instead of keyboards. The band were always 100% live and Ashcroft would try and re-create the original orchestrations and piano sounds as accurately as possible to the original with his personal favourites being ‘Too Soon To Know’ and ‘In Dreams’. Ashcroft used 2 digital keyboards, a Yamaha digital piano and a Yamaha Motif ES both routed via DI to the stage monitors and Front Of House mixing desk.

In 20xx Ashcroft recorded a live album with Barry Steele recording the Roy Orbsion show at Batley Variety Club Leeds  called xxxxxxx

It was a hard slog for Ashcroft who also had a full time job and towards the end it was obvious that Barry wanted fulltime members ( the drummer also had a fulltime job ) as another tribute act for  joined the act so thereby increasing Ashcroft’s work load and in October 2010 after nearly two and a half years, Ashcroft parted company with Barry Steele as did the drummer and were replaced with fulltime musicians.

Barry Steele still tours with his successful Roy Orbsion theatre show

The Beat Robbers

After exhaustive travelling with the Roy Orbison Tribute band Ashcroft decided to keep travelling restricted to the West Midlands area and auditioned as a keyboard player for wedding and function band The Beat Robbers and after a successful audition Ashcroft started gigging again. The Beat Robbers were a fairly successful up tempo and gutsy function band within the West Midlands and were often booked to play Missoula Bar Solihull on a Friday night hosted by local radio presenter Phil Upton. However, booking agents were started to send them further afield within the UK and The Beat Robbers played holiday camps in Somerset but this was taking its toll on a couple of the members of the band family wise and it was decided that they would call it a day after a private gig on New Years Eve 2014. In October of 2014, Ashcroft played his last gig with The Beat Robbers at Walsall beer festival which was also recorded – this was The Beat Robbers final public gig and Ashcroft did not play the final New Years Eve gig thereby ending a 2 year association with the band.

The Future

After a years break, Ashcroft has now reverted back to playing guitar, stopped playing keyboards and is currently looking at playing guitar in a band again – either blues, rock n roll or 1960/70’s music

Personal Life
Kevin Ashcroft has 3 children and lives with his partner in Halesowen, West Midlands UK and works in the IT industry when not playing guitar.

Equipment
Ashcroft is big fan of PRS Guitars but also plays a Gibson Les Paul and a Fender Telecaster amongst others. Amp wise, Ashcroft uses either Orange or a VOX.AC30   A BOSS GT100 is his pedal of choice.

Keyboard wise, Ashcroft uses a Nord Stage 2 and a Roland Jupiter 50.