Johan Asherton

Johan Asherton, a singer and songwriter, has drawn listeners across his native France and even in Japan through his distinctive take on alternative pop and folk-rock. Born in Paris in 1958 into a household of classically trained musicians, he began with violin and piano as a child and joined his school choir, yet the late-1960s and early-1970s sounds of Jimi Hendrix, T. Rex, and Creedence Clearwater Revival soon redirected his path. He turned to guitar, at first favoring the electric model, and absorbed further impetus from Rory Gallagher and American bluesman Johnny Winter alongside Hendrix and Marc Bolan.

During the first half of the 1980s Asherton founded and fronted the French garage punk band the Froggies, whose two albums appeared as Hour of the Froggies in 1984 and Get Frogg'd in 1985; he also joined the blues-rooted Belgian group Liquid Gang for their album Showdown. In the latter half of the decade his attention moved unexpectedly toward acoustic music. Immersed in Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, and Nick Drake, he launched a solo career centered on acoustic guitar. Although his debut single had appeared in 1981 and introduced him to producer Patrick Chavalot, who would later work on the album Under the Weather, his first full-length release arrived only in 1988. By then thoroughly steeped in American and British folk and folk-rock, he held particular admiration for Tim Buckley, Dave Van Ronk, and Townes Van Zandt. The resulting record, God’s Clown, offered a retro-styled folk approach that proved both commercially viable and critically praised, later viewed as a landmark release on the French music scene.

His 1995 album The Moon paid tribute to Nick Drake, one of his central influences, while more recent years have seen an extended series of musical and literary homages to Marc Bolan. Asherton has collaborated with Nikki Sudden, guitarist/singer Dominique Laboubée, Tim Buckley alumnus Jeff Eyrich, bassist/keyboardist John Greaves, and the late Canterbury prog rock/jazz-rock drummer Pip Pyle. He has also partnered with folk figures such as Charlotte Greig and Julian Hayman, yet he has additionally explored electronic music. Painting, literature, and film occupy further attention; as an author he wrote a French-language biography of Marc Bolan and issued several collections of poetry.