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She attended Wayne State University in Detroit where she studied piano and music education. After she graduated, she began playing the piano in the jazz scene in Detroit, though by 1952 she had made the harp her main instrument. At first her fellow jazz musicians were resistant to the idea of adding the harp, which they perceived as an instrument of classical music and also somewhat ethereal in sound, into jazz performances. So Ashby overcame their initial resistance and built up support for the harp as a jazz instrument by organizing free shows and playing at dances and weddings with her trio. She recorded with Ed Thigpen, Richard Davis, Jimmy Cobb, Frank Wess and others in the late 1950s and early 1960s. During the 1960s, she also had her own radio show in Detroit.

Ashby’s trio, including her husband John Ashby on drums, regularly toured the country, recording albums for several different record labels. She played with Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman, among others. In 1962 Downbeat magazine’s annual poll of best jazz performers included Ashby. Extending her range of interests and talents, she also worked with her husband on a theater company, the Ashby Players, which her husband founded in Detroit, and for which Dorothy often wrote the scores.

In the 1960s Dorothy Ashby, together with her husband, John Ashby formed a theatrical group to produce plays that would be relevant to the African American community of Detroit, Mich. This production group went by several names depending on the theater production. The group was most commonly called the Ashby Players or the Ashby’s, but the production company also went by the names Aid to Creative Arts, Artists Productions, and the Ashby Players of Detroit.

They created a series of theatrical musical plays that Dorothy and John Ashby produced together as this theatrical company, The Ashby Players. In the case of most of the plays,John Ashby wrote the scripts and Dorothy Ashby wrote the music and lyrics to all the songs in the plays. Dorothy Ashby also played harp and piano on the soundtracks to all of her plays. Dorothy even starred in the production of the play “3-6-9″ herself. Most of the music that she wrote for these plays is available only on a handful of the reel to reel tapes that Dorothy Ashby recorded herself. Only a couple of the many songs she created for her plays later appeared on LPs that she released. Later in her career, she would record records and perform concerts primarily to raise money for the Ashby Players theatrical productions.

The theatrical production group The Ashby Players” not only produced Black theater in Detroit, Mich. and Canada against stiff odds but they provided early theatrical and acting opportunities for actors such as Ernie Hudson (of Ghostbusters 1 and 2). Ernie Hudson (credited as Earnest L. Hudson) was a featured actor in the Artists Productions version of the play 3-6-9.

In the late 1960s, the Ashbys gave up touring and settled in California where Dorothy broke into the studio recording system as a harpist through the help of the soul singer Bill Withers, who recommended her to Stevie Wonder. As a result, Dorothy was called upon for a number of studio sessions playing for such popular recording artists as Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Barry Manilow. Her harp playing is featured in the song “Come Live With Me’ which is on the soundtrack for the 1967 movie, Valley of the Dolls. One of her more noteworthy performances in contemporary popular music was playing the harp on the song “If It’s Magic” on Stevie Wonder’s 1976 album Songs in the Key of Life. She is also featured on Bill Withers’ 1974 album, +’Justments.

Ashby died from cancer on April 13, 1986 in Santa Monica, California.

The High Llamas recorded a song entitled ‘Dorothy Ashby’ on their 2007 album Can Cladders.

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Lyrics:

There’s a leafless tree in Asia
Under the sun there’s a homeless man,
There’s a forest fire in the valley,
Where the story all began.

What will be our last thought?
Do you think it’s coming soon?
Will it be of comfort,
Or the pain of a burning wound.

All we are trying to say is
We are all we’ve got
You and me just cannot fail
If we never ever stop.

You’re an ocean full of faces,
And you know that we believe
We’re just a wave that drifts around you,
Singing all our hopes and dreams.

We look around in wonder
At the work that has been done,
By the vision of our father,
Touched by his loving son.

All we are trying to say is
We are all we’ve got
You and me just cannot fail
If we never ever stop.

All we are trying to say is
We are all we’ve got
You and me just cannot fail
If we never ever stop.

You and me just cannot fail
If we never ever
Never ever
Stop.

Duration : 0:4:23

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1. Bud Light (With Spuds MacKenzie!)
2. Promo for “Cannonball Run II” (Call me sir?)
3. “Top Gun” on VHS (For the unbelievable price of $26.95!)
4. Tender Chops Dog Treats
5. Promo for “Night Court”
6. Alpha Beta Supermarket (Damn these prices make me feel old! Can you buy anything for 89 cents anymore?)
7. Kodak Batteries (The music of Stevie Wonder finds lost kittens! I didn’t even know Kodak made batteries…)
8. Chevrolet (With Aretha Franklin!)
9. Tropicana Orange Juice (Well if Old Crowley loves it, it has to be good!)
10. Kellogg’s All Bran Cereal (Ah, the fiber cereal wars of the late 80’s)
11. Promo for “Unsolved Mysteries” (Scariest show ever! Except for the ones where they look for Cowboy Treasure. Those were awesome.)
12. PSA for Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital (With Robby Benson!)
13. Dial Soap (Germophobes unite!)
14. Coca-Cola Classic (Featuring Art Carney and Brian Bonsall from “Family Ties” and “Blank Check”!)
15. Nissan (With Joe Montana!)
16. TV Spot for “And God Created Woman” (Wow, that movie’s rated R? I wonder why?)
17. Yuban Coffee (Cue Pretentious British Announcer…)
18. Promo for KMEL 106 FM (Monkey!)
19. Circuit City (I love that animation at the end)
20. Summer’s Eve Douche (Hey! Stop Laughing!)
21. Salsa Rio Doritos (With Jay Leno!)
22. Promo for “Fraternity Row” (Looks really low budget and awful)
23. Sizzler (With Jodie Sweetin from “Full House”)

Duration : 0:10:16

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OK, if that’s really the question, then the ven diagram would be two circles, with the same radius and center. I hate to tell you to be a smart ass, because that will probably not get you any credit.

Good Luck.