Nostalgia and Nuance: Dan Ashley’s “Small Town Nights” Captures a Bygone Era with Enduring Relevance
In an age saturated with digital noise and constant connectivity, there’s a certain yearning for simpler times, for moments where the world felt a little less complicated. Americana, rock, and country artist Dan Ashley taps directly into this sentiment with his upcoming single, “Small Town Nights.”
Dan Ashley has spent nearly 30 years as a news anchor at ABC7 in San Francisco—but did you know he’s also a rock musician who’s opened for legends like REO Speedwagon, Cheap Trick, and Eddie Money?
In this episode of Come And Pick It, Dan sits down with Anthony Bonnette to talk about:
How he balances broadcast journalism and a thriving music career
The story behind his latest single, “Outside Looking In”
What it’s like performing on stage with music icons
His songwriting process and collaborating with Bill Bentley
The power of storytelling in both music and news
I remember being about nine years old when, on one Christmas Eve, I woke up to the sound of sleigh bells over the house. It was so vivid and so clear that I had no doubt about what it was.
Dan has so many fond memories of Christmas as a kid and, thankfully, just as many as an adult. This song is about the excitement and anticipation of the approaching holiday season and he hopes it fills everyone’s heart with the joy of the season.
Veteran singer-songwriter Dan Ashley has a musical career spanning decades sharing the stage with Dione Warwick, Cheap Trick and Mellissa Etheridge, performing at notable sporting events, and gaining an international following across generations. Even with the accolades and experiences, his songs are, at their core, a slice of his reality. The latest addition to his discography is the single ‘Outside Looking In’.
For more than 25 years, Ashley has worked for ABC7 news station where he has won numerous awards. His experience as a journalist gives him a unique perspective of the Bay Area. For the past decade, he became more involved in the musical world and recently released an album with 11 original songs. He said writing music and journalism isn’t that much different because it is the art of storytelling, which is his passion.
Plenty of famous faces have performed at Club Fox, but followers of Bay Area news might find the frontman for the Dan Ashley Band to be particularly familiar. That’s because Ashley, a journalist, has anchored the weeknight news for San Francisco’s ABC7 for over three decades.
As a singer and guitarist, Ashley’s sound blends country, Americana and rock ‘n’ roll.
Episode 584: Dan Ashley and his remarkable professional Americana Rock band that just goes by his name, Dan Ashley. Dan is also the long-time award-winning anchor of ABC7 News at 5, 6 and 11 pm weekdays in San Francisco. He is a highly respected philanthropist who serves on several charitable boards and is involved with local foundations and charities as a performer and also as an emcee/host. Dan produces his own annual charity event, Rock the CASA.
As a professional communicator, Ashley finds much the same thought process is necessary to effectively deliver an important news story over the airwaves as crafting a song to engage listeners.
“I always tell young reporters that clear writing is the product of clear thinking, and the same is true of songwriting,” he says. “You have to know what you’re trying to say before you say it. You could start throwing lyrics down on paper, and those words might even sound good, but what’s your point? If you’re not sure about that, it’s going to be difficult to deliver a truly well-written song that resonates with people.”
Dan Ashley Interview on KZSU Stanford 90.1 FM
Live interview by Sarah Bellum with Dan Ashley on KZSU Stanford 90.1 FM.
Click below to download and listen to the full 46 minute show with interview and music.
The performance proved to be more than the delightful Dad Rock many might have expected from their set. While their set may have featured some covers of classic throwbacks including Bryan Adams’ “Summer of ‘69,” it also showcased many of the band’s original pieces, covering a variety of topics with lyrical depth that highlighted Ashley’s decades of looking for meaning and nuance in his reporting.
On August 12, 2023, Dan Ashley and his band helped kick off the weekend performances at Outside Lands with a set delivered from the Panhandle stage that has drawn rave reviews as well as new fans from festival goers, some of whom were only familiar with Ashley’s role as one of the lead anchors at ABC7 News.
As we begin to bring you our set recaps from Outside Lands, we would like to start off with one of our favorites. Dan Ashley performed at the Panhandle stage on Saturday and we were glad we caught the set. Dan brought his Americana Rock and Original Roll band to the festival and it was quite a fun time. Dan comments, “We had a terrific experience performing at Outside Lands this year. What a privilege to play such a major music festival, not just in San Francisco, but one of the biggest in the country”.
Dan has a lifelong passion for music and expresses his love for the art through performances and creating new music.
He just released his new solo album “Out There.” Search Dan Ashley Music. It’s the 15th year for Outside Lands and there was already a lot of activity even though, there’s still a few hours before the big names take the stage..
Saturday was mostly socked in with fog out in Golden Gate Park, with the sun only barely threatening to break through early in the afternoon. The day began with ABC 7’s Dan Ashley and his band, called Dan Ashley, doing the opening rock-and-roll set on the Panhandle Stage just after noon.
ABC7’s very own Dan Ashley hit the stage Saturday at Outside Lands.
Dan has a lifelong passion for music and expresses his love for the art through performances and creating new music.
He just released his new solo album “Out There.” Search Dan Ashley Music for more information.
Dan and his band are slated to perform on Saturday, Aug. 12 in the early afternoon.
Some of the other big musicians that will take the stage Saturday include the Foo Fighters, Lana Del Rey and Maggie Rogers.
The other headliners for the music festival are Kendrick Lamar and ODESZA.
TV viewers know Dan Ashley as the handsome, silver-haired dude comfortably poised in a chair, anchoring three KGO-TV newscasts each weekday.
But the 59-year-old can be kind of a human scooter, periodically whizzing to a gig where he’ll sing in front of his eponymous Americana-country-rock band.
Unless he’s off to yet another philanthropic appearance.
Dan Ashley’s new album Out There mixes topical issues with classic rock-n-roll riffs. Joyous melodies accompany every track, making each song easy to digest and something you want to listen to again and again.
Dan Ashley delivers track after track of Americana on his new album Out There. The eleven track album is a deep dive into Ashley’s personal life, his views on life in America, and the current cultural zeitgeist.
The album (Out There) is beautifully produced with an emphasis on rich and timeless instrumentation. Acoustic and electric guitars are used to great effect, complementing Ashley’s quintessential rock baritone.
On an instrumentation level, the production feels good. It combines the twang of the country but with the roaring sounds of electric guitar to create a seamless blend of the two.
I love the dual acoustic and electric guitar attack in “We Stayed Home” most of all, and that’s nothing against the chips Ashley stacks on the table with his inviting lead vocal.
Ashley gets a little aggressive with his execution in the chorus, but personally I really like the pumped-up attitude he throws in our direction around this point in the track.
The vocal is the showcase here, but this isn’t to say the instrumentation is leaving something to be desired.
“Could this all be true? / Did I really find you?” asks Dan Ashley in one of the more memorable junctures of his new single “Lucky Stars,” his vocal interwoven with the fabric of the background melody seamlessly.
Dan Ashley’s “Lucky Stars” begins in a fog of instrumentation but slowly transforms into a potent ballad as powerful as an ocean tidal wave and almost entirely driven by its singer’s dynamic vocal range.
Dan Ashley has certainly been making some great music in the last year, and with the release of his new single, titled “Lucky Stars,” he returns to the spotlight in 2020 with what might be his most distinctive sound yet.
Love waits for no one in this life, and when you find the person that you’re supposed to be with, there’s no sense in holding back from confessing your feelings to the whole world around you.
Released this past February 3rd, the new release from Dan Ashley, “Lucky Stars,” starts off modestly, with nothing more than a single piano leading us through the dark silence, its melody seeming to reach out to anyone listening in hopes of finding a friendly soul.
The San Francisco Bay Area singer-songwriter delivers an emotional track with his patented positivity emanating straight from the heart. Lucky Stars” will be available on all digital platforms including Apple Music, iTunes, Spotify, Google Play and Amazon Music.
Meet Dan Ashley! On February 3rd, he released his newest single called “Lucky Stars.” When asked about the song, Ashley explains, “This track is about that undeniable feeling of love, connection and gratitude that comes with being with the perfect person for you- someone with whom there is an undeniable and unshakable bond. It also reflects that sense of gratefulness all of us should have for the many blessings in our lives. ‘Lucky Stars’ is what I count every day.”
Dan Ashley and his band’s music is all about life experiences; they are the best storytellers of joy, heartbreak, love, loss, and shared humanity.
Through buoyant beats and a supple melody that grows all the more sterling with each and every verse, “What Really Matters” does everything that its title would imply it should inside of a simple, four-minute jam.
Ashley’s honey-sweet singing isn’t the only spark to behold in “What Really Matters;” on the contrary, it’s probably one of the more understated examples of grandiosity that you’ll discover when taking a closer look at the track’s most refined details.
…deeming Mr. Dan Ashley’s work as anything other than splendid would be dismissive of his remarkably adept talents.
Dan Ashley’s track (What Really Matters)….. delivers one crushingly free-wheeling blow after another, both on the lyrical and instrumental fronts….
In this colorful, guitar-powered rookie release, texture and tonality are as important as lush lyricism and a sensational lead singer’s vocal is.