Grace & Grit: An Interview with Three-Time Grammy Winner Ashley Cleveland
Ashley Cleveland is a three-time Grammy award-winning musical artist who has released nine albums to critical acclaim. She was the first woman nominated for the Best Rock Gospel Album Grammy, and she’s the only person to win the award three times. Her memoir Little Black Sheep details her journey to rock bottom with alcohol and drugs and how she continues to recover with grace and grit. Additionally, Ashley Cleveland was part of the team that helped the H. E. Butt Foundation develop our faith convictions (available online). We enjoyed our conversation for The Echoes Podcast so much that we wanted to share a print adaptation with you here.
Camille Hall-Ortega: Your memoir covers difficult times. Can you share some of the obstacles you faced?
Ashley Cleveland: I was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, to two alcoholic parents. On the surface, everything looked beautiful and accomplished. But children absorb the feeling of a household and blame themselves sometimes. At least I did.
My family was something of an alcoholic dynasty, so it was definitely in the blood. Late in my teens, I picked up the mantle and started drinking and using. But at the same time, I discovered music. I just had a hard time finding any value in myself. In the rooms of AA, they say that drinking kind of kept us alive until we were ready to get sober. As bizarre as that sounds, it’s true. It’s like the destructive behavior is kind of how you keep yourself on the planet. For me, that was music and drinking.
Marcus Goodyear: In your book, you talk about replacing the voices in your head. When you’re writing a book, though, the vulnerability has to come from you.
Ashley: I have no problem being transparent. I’m almost transparent to a fault. Like, I could definitely leave a few things out. You know what I’m saying?
But vulnerability is really hard for me. That’s risking love or rejection. I’m sure people judge me, but by the time I wrote the book, I’d been sober for a while. Still, the stigma remains. People still see addiction through a moral lens. Like, if you were a better human being, you wouldn’t be behaving this way.
Camille: You eventually got sober. Can you tell us about that turning point?
Ashley: I got pregnant. I wasn’t married. I knew I was in bad shape, and I also knew I didn’t have the slightest idea how to parent or be a mother. I had grown up in a family that went to church, but even that is complex, especially in the South where it is as much a social construct as it is anything. I surrendered to God, and I thought He might kill me.
Marcus: You thought God would kill you?
Ashley: I realized I didn’t know who I was dealing with. And I thought I was just a crummy excuse for a person, you know?
But when my daughter was born, my mother comes in and says, “She is so beautiful. She’s perfect.” And I’m laying there thinking, “How can that be? How can she be perfect?” It just didn’t even make any sense to me. That was my first experience of the God that I belong to now. He pulled back the curtain and said, “See, I’m not who you think I am.” I wish I could say I never drank again—it was another two years—but when I left the hospital I knew I was loved. I was finally able to surrender.
Camille: Can you tell us a bit more about how you see good coming from those obstacles? How has God used your brokenness?
“There’s this call to meekness. People think that means weakness … but it’s the strongest posture there is.”
Ashley: One of the things I do now is spiritual direction. I go to a monastery in Kentucky for silent retreats. The nuns are cloistered, praying for people and connecting with Jesus in his suffering and death. We got to meet them once, and they were so joyful. They were funny and kind of rascally. And that really connects with that whole idea of grit. There’s this call to meekness. People think that means weakness—being a wimp or a baby or whatever—but it’s the strongest posture there is. Jesus had all the strength in the world and yet chose to set it aside. He identifies with me in my brokenness, and I identify with other people in their brokenness. Whatever compassion I have—that’s because of the brokenness in me.
Camille: You’ve said that one way you experienced brokenness is losing your singing voice.
Ashley: About eight years ago, my voice just completely started failing on me. I’d only ever had one career. The stage—the place that I had felt most comfortable and most happy—became dangerous.
That’s how I fell into spiritual direction. I didn’t even know what it was at first. But it was something I wanted to learn more about. Eventually, I figured out how to sing again. Not with all the bells and whistles. I don’t have the range, but I still have the emotion and power. And I started having fun again. Then the phone started ringing and people started booking me. So I thought, “Well, I guess I can do this.”
“Eventually, I figured out how to sing again….And I started having fun again.”
Camille: Ashley, what’s on the horizon for you? Is there anything that we could look for?
Ashley: I’m not sure I’ll continue recording. That ship may have sailed. But I have found my favorite thing right now is writing sermons. It’s another way to get lost in writing, you know? All I ever wanted was to live a creative life. I’ve always been an outlier in the church world. So now I’m up in the middle of it—and it’s hilarious and very unexpected, and it’s wonderful too.
My Grandmother’s Grit
As I planned for our time on the podcast with Ashley Cleveland, I reflected on what I knew about resilience and what examples I saw of it growing up. I quickly turned to thoughts of my grandmother. I believe she exemplified grit in innumerable ways. So, I shared the following story about her at the beginning of the podcast episode.
My grandmother, Laurene Loretta Simpson Tennial, was born in the Deep South area of Pickens, Mississippi, in 1930. She watched as the whites-only school bus passed by her home as she made the trek to school on foot with her brother and sister each weekday.
She loved helping others, so when she got older she decided to be a nurse. She applied and got into a nursing program several states away, and she moved to complete the program. But it wasn’t long before the school told her that there had been a change. They could no longer accept her as a student because they felt the Black students were bringing the school down.
Undeterred, she returned to the South and decided to pursue a career in education. She studied at Rust College, one of the oldest historically Black colleges, and she became an elementary school teacher. She had discovered her passion. During her career, she taught at a pair of Memphis, Tennessee public schools, grades second, third, and fifth, and worked until retirement.
My grandmother marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Sanitation Workers Strike. She sat at Mason Temple in 1968 and listened to Dr. King’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech the night before he was killed. She fought and clawed and overcame obstacles too numerous to name.
My grandmother had grit. This sometimes seemingly indefinable quality that drives those who have it to persevere. To be courageous. And to pursue their desires with passion. May her resilient spirit that brought her through life against all odds live on for generations to come.
