Life & Work with Ashley Sofia of Nashville, TN

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Sofia

Hi Ashley, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up watching my dad play guitar. I’d sit on the floor in front of him and study his hands, singing harmonies to Neil Young and The Eagles and old folk songs. I was mesmerized and I knew he was traveling great distances sitting still in our living room, and I wanted to go too. He taught me a few chords and told me if I wanted to be any good at all I’d have to play until my fingers bled. I took that directive seriously. Eventually, I went off to college. When he moved me into my dorm room he handed me his 1970 Parlor Martin Guitar that he’d sailed the whole world with. I knew it meant he was passing the torch. I started writing songs. Eventually, the girls on my hallway come started showing up at my door, asking me what they were hearing and if they could hear it again. They encouraged me to sing and pushed me to perform out, though I had no aspirations to pursue anything in music. Their excitement was contagious and got me thinking about my life in a completely different way. After college, I got very sick. I wrote a record about the pain I was going through and knew I had to find a way to record it. I made it with a friend. Another friend passed it to a radio station, and then it ended up on more radio stations, and eventually it was in rotation in a lot of the north country. Soon, I found myself in Nashville doing all the things I’ve always loved in a way I never dared to even dream about. I put out another record. The lead single hit two million streams on spotify.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
One night I had a strong feeling about downloading an emergency weather app. That kind of quick, fierce urge you don’t understand, but you don’t question. I downloaded it and went to sleep. I woke up to it going off a few hours later. An EF3 tornado was bearing down on top of us. I grabbed a scarf to wrap around my face and tried to steady my hands to fill a water bottle incase we ended up being stuck in rubble. I turned the radio on and the broadcaster’s voice I was so familiar with was shaking and full of terror. “Run to your safe spots. People will die in this storm.” The whole building was swaying like a ship that was going down. The mass of concrete felt liquid underneath me. Windows on the floor beneath me blew out. Dust seemed suspended in the air. I’d dreamt of powerful storms my whole life, often tornadoes and my father used to tell me, “Don’t worry, it isn’t an omen, you live in the mountains.” I think somehow my subconscious mind had always been preparing for a great storm that would upend my life. Thankfully, me and others who didn’t have the alarms on their phones, but awoke later to the building alarm going off made it to the stairwell. It was March of 2020. Not long after, I had to move. We had no electricity, there was moisture and mold, no refrigeration, and in the middle of the move I caught Covid very badly. There were no hospital beds at Vanderbilt. There were patients they were putting on the roof and in the parking garage. I convalesced with one sock on (I couldn’t find my things in the move) on a mattress on the floor for many many weeks. I honestly didn’t know if I was going to live. For months I would look at my guitar and weep. Slowly, I turned a corner. It took me more than six months before I was strong enough to even sing again. I made a promise to myself I would never forget how bad my life felt on those days I could not sing and that every day forward, for as long as I lived, I would sing.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I have two records available to stream online, or, to purchase a physical copy, you can head to my website and order an autographed CD.

Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
Days before the tornado hit, I got an email from Ken Coomer, the drummer in Wilco who played on the records I grew up on. Someone had sent him my music and he wanted to make a record together. He stayed patient while I healed and found my footing again. He would call me from time to time and say “just take care of yourself. I’m here. I’m waiting and I’m ready when you are.” It took longer than I wanted to straighten my life out again, but he stayed so kind and patient. When I finally sat in front of him with my guitar and played him the songs I’d written through everything that had gone on he shook his head. “You wrote all these songs?” I told him I did. “All alone?” I nodded. He showed me the goosebumps on his arms. We got to work. We recorded ten songs together in East Nashville using some of the best players in town. These songs are the stories of hardship and triumph. Love and loss and starting again. I know I’m not only one who might need them and I’m so honored to be putting them out in 2025.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ashleysofia.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashleysofiamusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ashleysofiamusic/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV-fO7fXYuLCKp9H9akBQiQ