Factory Underground Records country artist Ashley Jo, known to many as the "singing hockey goalie of TikTok," is well on her way to having a viral hit with her original country song "Hand Me Down." The infectiously catchy song has been streamed over 300,000 streams on Spotify, and it's still going.
The song was premiered by WKCK Kickin' Kountry 101 on iHeart Radio last month, and it has since been added into rotation on Backyard Country on iHeart Radio, with DJ Jessica Callahan, the largest independent country program in New England. It has also been added to over 400 playlists on Spotify.
"Hand Me Down" was released worldwide by Norwalk, CT-based record label Factory Underground on July 5, 2024, which signed the 17-year old singer-songwriter to a recording and publishing deal earlier this year. The song was exclusively licensed for distribution by SRG/ILS, a Norwalk, CT-based aggregate to Virgin Music/Universal Music Group.
The streaming breakthrough of "Hand Me Down" comes nearly a year after Ashley Jo began working with producer Ethan Isaac of Factory Underground Studio. "Hand Me Down" is the first of several songs that they plan to release. Isaac chose engineer John Shyloski to mix and master "Hand Me Down," and who will be at the helm of a music video planned for late summer 2024.
"I'm both thrilled and happy for Ashley and her family, as well as the incredible team we put together to produce, record, mix and release the song - a massive team effort. To think - she started writing this song when she was 14 years of age. Everyone who has heard it down the line has said, "That's a hit song!" So we needed to hit it out of the park," said Marc Alan of Factory Underground Records.
Ashley is hugely talented, as a singer, and a songwriter. But it takes a certain person to pursue music as a professional career, and Ashley has those qualities you need to be successful. Not the least, her tremendous composure under pressure," he said.
That level of composure explains a lot about Ashley Jo's performance in the recording studio, as well as on ice as the goalie for the Ridgefield High School Tigers (Ridgefield, CT). It was on December 7, 2022, when Ashley was asked to perform a vocal rendition of the Star Spangled Banner before a hockey game in memorial to fallen teammate Nia Simpson. Simpson had recently passed from a brief, undiagnosed illness that baffled doctors at Yale Children's Hospital, rocking friends and schoolmates.
Standing at the center of the Winter Garden Ice Arena, in her Ridgefield hocky uniform and her goalie pads, she began to sing, and the wireless microphone suddenly cut out. Undeterred, Ashley kept going, and never missed a beat. Her powerful voice filled the arena.
"I was not going to stop in that moment," the 15-year old sophomore had said. "I wanted to make sure that it was good, especially for my teammate and that my team knew I'd keep going and persevere through anything."
It was a touching moment for the crowd who roared in approval at her performance. A phone video of the performance was shown on News12, and later picked up by ESPN. Posted to the teen's own Tik Tok @AshleyJoMusic the video has since been viewed 3.6 million times.