Ashley Cleveland
Ashley Cleveland says the best thing about her is that she is broken. This seems an odd statement for someone who has won three Grammy awards and two Dove awards, is a published author and the subject of a forthcoming documentary. But Ashley has found that it is the low road of the gospel, the path of decrease that defines us as followers of Christ. She knows from experience that out of the ruined places come genuine faith, freedom, relationship, understanding, compassion, and service to others. In other words, life itself. This is the message of her music and her memoir, Little Black Sheep.
With eloquence, disarming candor, and humor, Ashley recounts her story saying that she and her sister ‘…unwittingly came tumbling into a well-designed household that had already begun to reek of alcohol and silence’. She is the child of highly accomplished parents from Knoxville, Tennessee, who were both alcoholics. Her father was a deeply closeted gay man. After divorcing him, her mother took a career in sales, uprooting her daughters to the San Francisco Bay Area. Combined with a powerful genetic predisposition, the collapse of her family and ensuing displacement set Ashley on a path of self-destruction that resulted in severe alcoholism and drug addiction.
In the midst of repeated failures and devastation she was brought to a standstill through a crisis pregnancy. She encountered a merciful God whose message to her was: “I am not who you think I am.” He lifted her out of despair and rebuilt her life, stone by stone, filling it with purpose, relationship, usefulness, and recovery—all things she did not believe possible for herself.
Her musical career has been a critical success. Ashley was the first woman nominated for a Grammy in the rock gospel category and the only woman to win the award three times. She easily travels between Christian and secular venues. She has played the Austin City Limits Festival on a Saturday and a large Austin church on Sunday.
Ashley says she goes everywhere, belongs nowhere, and that her set list remains the same—regardless of venue. She is acclaimed for her distinctive songwriting, her love of hymns and traditional gospel music, and her powerful singing, which have routinely landed her albums on year-end top ten lists.
Ashley appears regularly at conferences, women’s retreats, and other events, speaking on topics including:
Addiction Recovery
The Writing Life: Metaphor and the Path of Faith
Receiving and Extending Forgiveness—In That Order
The Gospel Versus the Heroic Journey
Ashley’s current retreat topic is: The Treasure of Our Stories
All Ashley’s appearances include music—individual and collective. She accompanies herself on guitar and sometimes includes her husband, Kenny Greenberg, a renowned Nashville session guitarist and The Academy of Country Music guitar player of 2012.
Ultimately her message is one of hope, or as she puts it in the closing paragraph of her book:
“I am ever reminded that I am the little black sheep who was rescued by the One who is the Shepherd and the Lamb of God, the Redeemer who lived in human frailty and easily inhabits mine. To live is Christ; to love is Christ. Christ is all and in all.”
Here's what people are saying about Ashley!
““ Ashley Cleveland...has a way with words and the plain story of sin and mercy she tells here (Little Black Sheep) is hauntingly powerful. Some readers will undoubtedly find her to be broken bread for their starving souls.””
““...Ashley shows us how God Works in one life at a time and through us to the whole world.””
““...Ashley Cleveland Confronts us with her honesty and pain so deeply that we cannot help but face ourselves. But she does this in such a soft and tender way...that it will leave all of us nudged toward change.””
““I had barely started the first chapter of “Little Black Sheep,” and I already knew that the lump in my throat and the teary laughter that oddly accompanied it would be with me for the entire read . They were. I laughed and cried the whole way through, so grateful for Ashley’s honesty and for God’s hold on her. I’m glad we are family...Ashley spoke a lot of truth into my life during those rag-legged years before her sobriety. Thank you, Ashley, for writing all of this down. Your narrative voice is compelling, and your story begs for the answer we are all asking: can we be loved...and if so, will we be changed by it?””
