Edward Anthony 'Tony' Ashton (1 March 1946 - 28 May 2001) was an English rock pianist, keyboardist, singer, composer, producer and artist, and in the opinion of the cognoscenti, he was one of the most criminally under rated British rock and rollers of all time. During the eighties Ashton co-hosted a TV show with Rick Wakeman called "GasTank". The show was aired every two weeks and, on each episode, there were guests ranging from Phil Lynott to Ian Paice who sat in with the show's in-house band led by Ashton and Wakeman (others were Tony Fernandez and Chas Cronk). In between performances, the guests were interviewed by Wakeman. In 1984, Ashton was given a very small[quantify] budget to record an album for EMI in Switzerland. The result was the album Live In The Studio, recorded in less than three days.