Ashley Cleveland
Since her major-label debut on Atlantic Records in 1991, Ashley Cleveland has become one of the most respected voices at the intersection of rock, blues, and gospel music. Over a career spanning more than three decades, she has released ten critically acclaimed albums and earned three Grammy Awards for Best Rock Gospel Album—for Lesson of Love (1995), You Are There (1998), and Before the Daylight’s Shot (2007). She remains the first woman nominated in that category and the only artist to win it three times.
Cleveland’s gritty, soulful voice has drawn praise from some of contemporary music’s most admired artists. Bono has called her “one of the great voices of our time,” while Emmylou Harris has described her as “a singer of deep conviction.” Billboard placed several of her albums—including Big Town, Bus Named Desire, and Men and Angels Say—on its year-end best lists. Christianity Today named her Female Vocalist of the Year in 2007, citing the “raw honesty and power” of her work.
In addition to her solo career, Cleveland has contributed vocals to more than 300 recordings across multiple genres, earning a reputation as a musician’s musician. She has also received six Dove Award nominations, winning twice for compilation projects including Songs From The Loft and The Jesus Record. In 2010, she received a fourth Grammy nomination for God Don’t Never Change, a collection of traditional spirituals.
Cleveland is also an author, speaker, and trained spiritual director. Her memoir, Little Black Sheep (2013), and her second book, Learning Burney: A Map of My Mother and Me (2021), reflect the same honesty and spiritual depth that mark her songwriting. She currently serves as a pastoral associate and spiritual director at Church of the Redeemer in Nashville, Tennessee, where she lives with her husband, Kenny Greenberg.
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?””
