Roots & Shoots Streams: Taylor Ashton

Taylor Ashton and special guests, broadcast on YouTube. This concert is free, although tips are welcome via a virtual tip jar. Advance registration is not required. Watch and listen.

Taylor Ashton is a Canadian songwriter and singer living in Brooklyn, New York, who is influenced by the ways that traditional folk, pop, and R&B can live together on the clawhammer banjo. Born in 1989, he grew up surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and the old growth rainforests of Canada’s west coast. He says he draws inspiration for songs from the primeval crookedness of traditional old-time music, the humor and heartbreak of Randy Newman, the cosmic emotionality of mid-career Joni Mitchell, and the sage vulnerability of Bill Withers.

Ashton’s debut solo record, The Romantic, was released last year on Signature Sounds Recordings. Although it was his first proper solo album, it follows four albums as frontman of his former band, Fish & Bird, as well as a stripped-down duo record with guitarist and songwriter Courtney Hartman. His latest release is 2021’s Romanticize, an EP of remixes and new songs, and a companion to The Romantic.