October 6, 2020 • 36 mins
As a singer, guitarist, producer, and manager, Peter Asher has been at the center of some of the most important music - and moments - of the rock era. In 1964, he was just 19 when his London-based duo Peter and Gordon released its first single, “A World Without Love.” It reached number 1 on the charts on both sides of the Atlantic -- and was written by his sister’s then-boyfriend, Paul McCartney. Later, after Peter and Gordon fizzled, Asher joined forces with the Beatles to launch Apple Records, where he discovered and signed folk icon James Taylor. Asher moved on from his role at Apple to become a full-time producer, working with legends like Diana Ross, Cher, and Neil Diamond, and producing multi-platinum albums with Diamond and Linda Rondstadt. More recently, Asher put all these stories into his book The Beatles A to Zed, An Alphabetical Musical Tour. He also hosts a weekly show about the band called From Me to You on Sirius XM.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
As a singer, guitarist, producer and manager, Peter Asher has
been at the center of some of the most important
music and moments of the rock era. In nineteen sixty four,
he was just nineteen when his London based duo Peter
(00:23):
and Gordon released its first single, A World Without Love.
It reached number one on the charts on both sides
of the Atlantic. That's quite a feat, but not that
surprising when you learned that it was written by his
sister's then boyfriend, a young man by the name of
Paul McCartney and Ray I don't care that coincidence. Didn't
(01:04):
just score him a hit song. It was Asher's entree
into beatles land. After Peter and Gordon fizzled, he joined
forces with the Beatles to launch Apple Records. Paul and
I had conversations about Apple long before it started. I
would spend evenings over at his house, Cavinish Avenue. By
(01:24):
this time we moved out both of us family home,
and you know, talking about what Apple was supposed to
be and all that stuff. And then when it became real,
he asked me to be a head of Anna. As
a music exact at Apple, Asher discovered and signed folk
icon James Taylor I've Seen Far and I've Seen Rain.
(01:47):
He moved on from his role at Apple to become
a full time producer, working with legends like Diana Ross
Share and Neil Diamond and producing multi platinum albums with
Diamond and Linda Ronstad. More recently, Asher put all of
(02:09):
these stories into his book The Beatles A to Z
an Alphabetical Musical Tour, and he hosts a weekly show
about the band, called From Me to You on Sirius
x M. Indeed, when they called me and said would
you be interested in my first goal was to Apple
and and to Ringo to make sure that it was,
you know, Beatle approved. As associated as Peter Asher now
(02:33):
is with rock and roll, his early musical formation was
something else entirely. I grew up in a very classical background.
My mother was a classical musician. She bade Yebo. She
played in various major orchestras and ended up being ober
professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London. So
that's what I grew up with. This was a lot
of classical musical and My father was an eminent physician
(02:56):
but also an amateur pianist, big Gilbern Sullivan fan. So
I grew up with all of that. How many kids
in your family? Three two sisters, your sister Jane. Yes,
when you grew you grew up where in London, in
the middle of London. You in the middle of London
and Wimpole Street, you know that medical area, that's Winpole Street,
Harley Street where where you we began in a flat,
(03:17):
not not there, but but as you advanced in the
medical profession, eventually you're entitled to move to What kind
of music did you listen to as a child or
even as a teenager. As a teenager, um, I discovered jazz.
I was a big bebop fan, and eventually discovered rock
and roll, Elvis, Elvis, Um. But first of it was
that we had our rock and roll as we lived Richard,
(03:40):
Tommy Steele. The first record I ever bought was Tommy
Steele record called Rock with the Caveman and and the
song was written by lionel Bart went on to write
of the musical So yeah, and of course we all
bought Rock around the Clock, and we later discovered Elvis. Now,
when you decide you're going to form You you played
(04:01):
an instrument, you taught yourself to play. Yes, got a guitar.
We all had skifful groups, learned a few chords and
so on. Yes, how did you get representation and get
a recording deal? I started up with a skifful group
with a couple of friends. Uh the a one skillful group,
not very reason um, deeply unoriginal. And then at school
I met Gordon Waller and who also played the guitar
(04:23):
and sang, and we started seeing together and decided to
become a Westminster school And for what it's a very
potsh English public school. What do you want to study?
Would you think? What do you think you wanted to be? Well?
I wasn't sure then an engineer was something like stable No, no.
Oddly enough, the day we were doing this interview, it
would have been a significant profession because I wanted to
be an MP. See if I'd take him that career path,
(04:46):
I would by now have been prim I'd be Prime
Minister and the whole mess would have been I would
have solved everything. But if only, but sadly no, that
was my other ambition was to be an MP. And
of course every MP's ambition is to be prime minister.
But anyway, we met at Westminster, we started singing together.
Um we got you know, we started seeing at school
(05:07):
events and parties and so on, and you start to
find yourself getting invited to a lot of parties by
people you don't know, and they say, oh, by the way,
bring your guitars, and it dawns on you. Eventually you
just got booked for a free gig, which is what happens,
and of course you do it because the more you play,
the better you get. Finally we started getting pubs and
(05:28):
clubs and coffee bars that we could do a couple
of sets and just acoustically, just the two of us.
We ended up in a place called the Pick Quick Club,
which was a more upmarket late night eating and drinking club,
a lot of actors, a lot of musicians. First time
I ever met Michael Caine was in there. Um Joan
Collins I became friends with back then and still am
so is that kind of a slightly glamorous place and
(05:51):
we would do two or three sets a night, sitting
on bar stools, singing folks songs, everly brothers songs, everything
we can think of and One night, a man in
a very shiny suit came up to us after the
show and asked if he could buy us a drink.
We said yes, and he explained that he was Norman
Newell and and our guy from E M I Records,
and he wanted to to come an audition for E
(06:11):
M I. So we went up to the em I Studios,
which is what became Abbey Road. They just changed the
name about a week later, recorded a bunch of songs
and they phoned us up and told us we we
they'd like to sign us so and they said, you
know that we'd um they picked normally picked some songs
out are the ones we've been doing the night he'd
(06:33):
seen us that he wanted us to record. At the time,
I think he was imagining us being kind of folky,
kind of Britain's answer to the folk boom in America
as it were, well, yeah, a little bit, a little
a little slicker than that, probably the Kingston duo as
it were, or Peter and Paul without Mary. But we
went we were going to be a folk duo and uh,
(06:54):
and we'd love to have been Dylan, but that's you know,
that's an overweening ambition. So so that was that, and
then he said, look, if you know any any other
songs that you might like to bring to the table
other than the ones that I've already heard, you do,
feel free to bring them to this first session. And
that's where the song that we were going to talk
about comes in World Without Love. Now, in my understanding
(07:18):
through different interviews with different people, um that the United
States was the goal. It seemed for everybody like that
was the market like they were. You know, the Londoners
and Brits are very proud of being Brits, but boy,
they wanted to go sell records over there. Was that
true for you as well. Were not just selling records.
It was an overall huge ambition to go to America
and and we idolized America. I mean musically, of course
(07:41):
we did, when you think about it. The Beatles until
they started writing their own songs, which they turned out
to do rather well, but until that time they never
sang a British song. Everything was based It was a
tribute to American music, you know. And the same with us.
We were doing Everly Brothers American folks songs. We didn't
do any English songs at all. And and that was
(08:02):
also tied in with our huge admiration for America as
a whole. You know, we'd grown up after the war
in the fifties exactly, it was post war gloom and doom,
black and white, you know, everywhere, bomb sights all over
the place. We had rationaling till the nineteen fifty six,
and we could look across the Atlantic and it looked
to us like everything in America was shiny and new
(08:22):
and colorful, and they all had perfect teeth and big,
amazing cars, and you know, it was like, whoa, that's
the place and this incredible music. So one thing I
remember distinctly is that when um well with that lot
went to number one and we got the phone call,
one of the biggest aspects of that call was that
now we get to go. It was not only that
(08:44):
sheer number oneness of it. It was they cannot stop us.
Now we're going to America. You know, I had copies
of Downbeat with the jazz clubs I wanted to go
to already circled, had a poster of New York on
my wall, you know. So it was it was I
knew I was going, I just know how and when
now before we get to the song itself, How did
(09:05):
you meet McCartney? Well, you're you're the beneficial McCartney handing.
You are reject from the Lennon McCartney catalog. Lenna didn't
want to record. You'll tell us that story. But where
did you meet him? I met him because he had
met my sister and I was there out, um meet
your sister. U. They met because Jane at that time
was and still is a very successful actress in London
(09:28):
and well known. And we both actually started as child
actors um when I was eight and she was six.
We both got our first movie pots. You did your
first film, The Planter's Wife, playing the son of Clinic Colbert. Yes,
the shot that in the UK. Yes, it was period
when she moved to the UK and was working there.
My father was played by Jack Hawkins of you might
(09:50):
remember beautiful actor Stern military man Bridge on that required movies.
He was my father and called him much more exciting
played my mother and I got to kiss Coute with
great enthusiasm. Um, it was Pinewood. Yes, did several films. Yeah.
Was there ever a kind of a conflict for you
(10:13):
or anything where you thought, do I want to be
an actor. Do I want to be a musician? Why
did you then do one? Well? It's interesting, yes, I
mean I think what happened is that the acting, my acting,
the offers diminished and my ability to do them finished.
And I started to take school seriously. As I mentioned,
I was at Westminster, which was a school. It did
not give you time off to go and be in
a film. Jane, on the other hand, I was super
(10:35):
enthusiastic about it and extremely good at it and became
immediately successful. Quit school at fifteen. My tolerant parents he
had again going okay, and and became a full time actor,
which she still is and and does very well. And
and it was in that context as a celebrity actor
Movi saw beautiful person that she was invited to go
(10:56):
and see the Beatles when they first came down to
London by magazine who wanted her to write peace about
you know what was all the fuss about? What did
she write? Um? Was she favorable? She was extremely favorable.
I don't know if we've got a copy of the
actual piece, but I remember talking about it and saying
how great they were. And of course as the visiting
celeb she was taken backstage to meet them all afterwards, like, yes,
(11:20):
she was famous and she was a bit more well
done than they were. They were about to become immensely
more well known than anyone in the universe. But at
the time Jane was she was on television quite a
lot and that stuff. So she met them and liked them.
They liked her. One of them liked her in particular
and asked her out. So that's how it began. And
I how long were they together? Uh? Several years? Well,
(11:44):
because he ended up moving into our house. You know,
I don't know that part of the story. He lived
He lived in your house for about two years. You
shared a room with him? No, she had a floor
tune and the next door rooms. We had do separate bessos. Then, yes,
we had about yes, although we've been thrilling if you
were the same, could be laying there at nights smoking
steaming training lyrics. This, Yeah, maybe I could have got
(12:08):
it right. Maybe should play this. He could have given
you a little pointers, a couple of words and one
McCarty and asher, I'd be rich exactly and then and
then so then he gives you the song what happened?
I'd heard the song you guys were recording. No, you
were you had made No. Here's what happened. Cut back
to what I was telling you, the story about Norman
Neil spots us in the club signs Us chooses some
(12:31):
songs from our existing repertoire sixty three and says Joan,
if there are any other good songs you want to do,
let me know. And the reason I kind of went,
maybe there is is because a few months earlier I
had heard this song well without Love. Paul was just
sing it in his room and I said, that's really good,
and and he'd explained to me that it was unfinished
(12:54):
because because John didn't like it, they weren't going to
record it. But what also is that he would actually
kind of laugh. The opening line he thought, please locked
me away was a ridiculous open to a song. So
apparently when Paul would try to sell John on the song,
he would get no further than that line, and John
would stop him and go, okay, I will lock your way.
The song is over. That's amazing. Then then nothing happened
(13:15):
until we got our record deal, and I went back
to Paul and said, look, this amazing thing has happened.
We are going to make a record. We've got a
studio date booked in a month or whatever it was,
and he's booked and musicians. We picked a few songs,
but I wondered, could we possibly have a go at
that world with our love song that that we I
liked so much? And he said yes, and he wrote
(13:36):
out the chords and the words for me on a
piece of paper which is safely locked and a fire
proof safe back. And that's when I did. As the
session date grew near, I did have to prevail upon
him to finish it. So finally I said, you know,
we really need a bridge. This is too short, you know,
even by pop standards, it's about a minute, and uh
(13:57):
so and so so he he finally took his guitar
and went into his bedroom for you know, of course,
an infuriatingly short like eight minutes or so, and came
out exactly, came out with the so I wait and
in a while I will see my true love smile,
which is the beautiful bridge of the song. And we
were done, and so we we recorded it a week later,
(14:21):
along with about four or five other songs. This was
not an album deal. This was a deal to see
if we could make a single, and and by the
end of the session all that folky plan was out
the window because well, with our Love sounded like a hit.
So that was no there's no question anyone's mind that
was going to be our first single, and it was
and it went to number one, first in England and
then all over Europe and finally America. Now, how long
(14:44):
do you ride the Peter and Gordon thing before you
transition into becoming a full time you know? That then
ends you stopped doing that when we we never broke
up as such. It's interesting we never had a big
Everly Brothers level row or anything like that. We agilely drifted,
I guess in about sixty eight into doing other things.
I knew I wanted to produce records. Why the first
(15:07):
time I was ever in the recording studio, I went,
this is so cool. And when I saw what it produced.
It does that you could try out ideas, imagine arrangements
and sounds. To fact, you can have musicians much better
than yourself and tell them what to do. That that
was really something I share that passion with you. I
went to a recording studio a couple of times in
my left not often. I went to watch people record
(15:28):
and it was one of the most thrilling experiences of mine. Yeah,
but all of a sudden, now you're in the world
where you're helping other people get where they want to go.
You're a service to them. Yes, you're you're working for them.
What was that like for you? Well, there are two
completely different aspects of it. The production thing, as I say,
was a deliberate, unconscious ambition. I said, I wanted to
do this, and of course the thing was that in
order to prove whether or not you could produce the record,
(15:50):
you had to find somebody who wanted you to produce
them and me and a budget. You know, now it's
a lot different. Now if you want to be a
record producer, you can sit at your laptop and come
up with a groove and to beat and some music
and you know, go, look, this is what I can do,
and every will go great. You can do this record
for us. But that, of course didn't exist without a
studio with real people in it. There was no way.
(16:11):
How did you get in there? Um? I persuaded a
friend of mine UM called Paul Jones, and if you
remember him, he was the lead singer of Manfred Many,
great voice, you know that she was just to walk
into that brilliant singing and one of the best harmonica
players in the world. And he did me a huge favor.
He was going to make a solo album of He
(16:32):
watched me in the studio on a couple of Peter
and Gordon records and and said, you know, do you
want to produce some tracks with me? And I said yes.
So the first record I ever produced was one song,
a B G song called and the Sun Will Shine,
sung by Paul Jones. And what I did it's only
notable now and in many respects because I wanted today
no chances on getting a great rhythm section. Um, so
(16:55):
I have some friends to play on it, so that
that record has Nicky Hopkins on piano and if you
know Nicks and piano, Paul Samwell Smith on bass, who
was the bass player in the Yardbirds and went on
by the way to produce Carlie Simon's record and Cat
Stevens records, um, Jeff Beck on guitar, and Paul McCartney
on drums, so legend drums, crazy great drummer. And so
(17:18):
that was the rhythm section the song is only a
minor hit, but I got into the production business and
then so that was the first example of advising other people.
The second one was James Taylor, where I became his
manager only because I believe so strongly in him and
we didn't know who else we trusted to do it.
I found James, discovered him and show biz Vernacular where
(17:42):
the King Bees, featuring Danny Kuchma on lead guitar, accompanied
Peter and Gordon on a couple of tours. We were
assigned the backup band. Usually they were very good. Danny
and I became firm friends. I loved his playing. He's
a big Steve Cropper fan as I am, and on
and and so uh. He and I became friends, remained
(18:03):
friends after the Peter and Gordon era was over. Danny
was then in a band called the Flying Machine with
his childhood friend James Taylor. They'd known each other since
they were ten or eleven years old and and remained
great over here to this day. Over here then I
think in North Carolina and Martha's vineyond, and so Danny
was in this Flying Machine band. Flying Machine was a
(18:25):
New York band, suffering all of assisted UDEs in New
York can possibly offer um. They were broke. Then their
record company made half a record and disappeared, and uh,
there were several of them. Was strung out on drugs,
including James, and it was all miserable. So band broke up.
James decided to go to London, mostly because I think
he had a girlfriend over there he thought he could
stay with. And Danny said, oh, if you're going to London,
(18:47):
I have an old friend who lives in London who
I used to play with. He's okay, here's his number,
So he gave me gave James my name and number.
So James, having come over to London, called me up
out of the blue, without any idea of what I
was up to at that time, and introduced himself as
Danny's friend. I invited him over to dinner. He played
me a little demo tape he'd made a few days before,
(19:09):
and I was completely stunned and blown away and amazed.
That would have been late sixties seven, I think, or
at least sixty eight, and and you know everything about him.
I couldn't believe I was hearing this him for the
first time, his guitar playing at the precision of a
classical musician, but the chords of a jazz musician, you know,
and this finger picking, beautiful style. His singing, you know,
(19:33):
he had. His voice was this sort of rich, folky
kind of American voice, but the phrasing was all Sam
Cook and Ray Charles. You know. It was a brilliant mixture.
And of course these incredible songs. This tape he played
me had something in the way she moves and something's
wrong and knocking around the zoo on that tape, picked
up my guitar, played me a couple of more songs,
and I we had this odd conversation, right and said, look,
(19:56):
it so happens. I've just got this job as head
of A and R for a new record Labe. You know,
I can sign people. Would you like a record deal?
And he kind of went, yes, I love one, and
that was it. And of course I had to explain
him whose label it was and and so on. So
within days of how often did they interact well within
with the band? Gotcha when in days of this conversation,
(20:17):
I brought him into the office to meet everybody. He
sat and he played a couple of songs for George
and Paul. As I recall and they shared my enthusiasm.
We signed him up and they intimidated to play for them. Yes, yes,
we Two interesting things actually in in the In the
lyrics to Fire and Rain, Um, there are a couple
(20:37):
of things that are often misinterpreted. Um. One is is
um flying machines in pieces on the ground. People think
it's about a plane crash. That's the band breaking up.
And the other is holy host of others standing around me.
That's the Beatles. Wow, that's so cool. So they were
the Holy Host. And yes he was intimidated. And I
(20:57):
didn't really think to think that through in terms of
how because I mean, I'm sure that the Bold was
full of Americans jumping on a plane going I'm gonna
go to London and meet the Beatles, you know, And
there was James doing exactly that and and meeting them
within days of arrival. Another man like Peter Asher, with
(21:17):
a front seat to music history, is New York's biggest
concert promoter of the past fifty years. Ron delsoner, So
you have to be a diplomat where most people aren't.
They don't know how to But after you learn this,
as you do in you akryft how to make everybody happy,
sit down at the table. Not it's this way, we're
gonna bomb you. You're gonna see fire and fear. We're
(21:39):
gonna burn your house and your kids and the dog.
I don't do that. For my full interview with Ron
Delsoner text Ron to seven zero zero one. Peter Asher
on living with Paul McCartney coming up next. This is
(22:05):
Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the thing.
Peter Asher was at the center of everything that was
happening in British music in the sixties. I remember going
to see the Stones with Poul quite early on and
they were playing the Scene Club in London, and it
was on the way there. He was pretty disgruntled about
the fact he said. The only thing he said the
(22:26):
really eight He said that their manager lets them wear
whatever they like and Brian makes his well, these stupid suits.
Is that what he said? Now, um, this is in
the New York Times. I want to I want to
launch this section of our conversation. Describe reading this thing,
which I read to McCartney one time. I don't think
he ever read this. Of course he can't be. He
can't track every single reference to the Beatles as cultural material.
(22:48):
But this is from the New York Times, when the
Beatles make their iTunes deal in two thousand ten. This
is in November of two thousand ten. And uh in
the New York Times, ben Cesarreo and Miguel Health to
other writers, and they're right. What is perhaps one of
my favorite paragraphs there right, one of the last major
(23:09):
holdouts against selling its music via digital downloads, The Beatles
or the ultimate prize for any music company. The groups
held on to blockbuster sales. Four decades after breaking up.
It has sold more than one d and seventy seven
million albums in the United States alone, according to the
Record Industry Association of America. And here's the line that
I've read to McCartney and held onto untouchable cultural prestige.
(23:34):
Why do you think that is? Why? What is it?
I mean I can give. I want to do your
show one day. So I did the Beatles show here
and it wasn't your show. I did one of the
other Beatles shows for serious series I love. Do you
have guests come on? My god? Well if you if
you've got to cover them, don't work. I came on
the plate all my stuff. But what I want to want,
but we can do this now. In a sense which
(23:56):
he said, what is it about them? They made them
on their own planet. I think you referred to some
of it before. It was that the coming together, this
perfect storm, you know, where every element was perfect. You
cannot imagine any better combination. A better manager could have been,
a producer exactly, could better studio musicians exactly. And the
(24:19):
depth the distinction, it's as if you know, when the
spice cirlls created the spice calls, trying to give, trying
to get deliberately give each one, okay, your sporty, your posh,
your whatever it was, and whatever it was, you know,
and it was artificial and it was incomplete. That happened
by the will of God or whatever. With the Beatles,
there was it was just something we could There was one.
(24:41):
There was a beatle for everyone to love. There was
music for everybody to love, because the songs varied between
full out, full on rock and roll and then suddenly
a beautiful show tun or an amazing ballad or bloody yesterday.
You know it was that. And and the other thing
is they were just better than everybody else. Better, right
is you know, not better players necessarily as individual virtuosos,
(25:03):
but better players as a combination. You know, the people
would say, well, Ringer is not a great drummer, George,
someone else can play faster guitarics than George, and it
was that was wrong because what they were playing. That's
an unfair statement to say that Ringo wasn't a great drummer.
I love Ringers, don't. I may continually say that Ringo
is still underrated to this day because Ringo was a
(25:23):
brilliant I mean, he was a restrained drummer. There was
a period where being a great drummer or even John
Bottom or Buddy Rich and I mean that was the
time when or a brilliant drummer is someone who can
just go crazy and be flashy. And that's why it's
so great that there's no Ringo drum solos really, I
mean as such full on solos. And you know, and
(25:44):
he he would work out almost a written part for
each song where it exactly fit not just what everyone
else was playing, but the lyric and and everything. No,
I think Ringo was utterly brilliant and and and you know,
and and George too. You know the fact there's other
people who can play flash here and faster is not
the point. He would pick the right guitar, like, the
(26:05):
right guitar tone to fit the song, and you know
it was all perfect. How did you know, Epsine? Where'd
you meet him? I didn't know him terribly well. I
liked him very much. I met him, you know, as
I got to hang out with the Beatles. Obviously he
was around from time to time. And I remember playing
poker with him on a train across Germany. Um we
were it was the only time we toured with the Beatles.
(26:27):
They were in this fancy train and we were all
sitting there playing poker with a couple of Beatles and
Brian and and he won, by the way, and and
the Beatles loved them dearly. I mean. And what is
clear from conversations with Brian and from learning about Brian,
is that you know he he would have thrown thrown
himself in front of a train to save them. This
(26:47):
was his life. His love and admiration for the Beatles
was total. Describe for me, you know something I did
not know, because I mean I would never pretend to
know everything, but something I did not know that he am.
I became happy roach today know, it's weird, isn't that
Because how did that happen? Um they just bought it
from them? No, no, no, they just changed the name.
Nothing happened, Nothing happened. Um, you know it's em It's
(27:08):
always been em I Studios and the Beatles don't own it. No, right,
we'll be interesting to look at what year had happened.
But at some point, and I think it was connected
with at one point, there was a suggestion it might
be for sale and there was talking about maybe it
should be saved. You know, there's a British heritage site
and all that kind of stuff. Andrew the Webber got
involved and he was talking about buying it. I remember
(27:30):
all that. And somewhere before that happened, somebody had the
obviously brilliant idea of changing the name of the studio
from EMI Studios to Abbey Road Studios, and they changed
the logo of the studio to be the Zebra crossing.
You know, people think that the that you know, the
the album was named after the studio, which it wasn't.
(27:52):
The album was named after the street they happened to be.
It was like, well, people have a tendency myself included
to two GLORI five the Beatles, and to mythologize everything
about the Beatles inappropriate but exactly, I'm the first person
to say that I thought the Beatles owned Abbey Road
Studio other than I thought they bought it for me.
It was theirs, It's their kingdom, it was all their
(28:13):
whole thing, not at all, not in any way, And
and it's it's just that, you know, they were sitting
around arguing about album titles, kind of went well, going
to Beta, We're you know, the studio is in Abbey Road,
let's just call it the album abby Road. And let's
just go into a photo outside inn abbey Road right now,
which is what they did. So, which is why, like
the whole crazy Paul is Dead thing and all that
(28:34):
is so ridiculous. Can I tell you how many Paul
is Dead conspiracy videos I've watched, Oh no, no, and
and the range of that, if you no, no, no no.
I mean when I can't sleep, I'm I'm a I'm
a Hall of Fame insomniac, and I lay and be
My wife is dead asleep, my kids are a sleeping
on my computer until midnight or two in the morning,
(28:55):
tumbling down the corridors of YouTube where they're doing the
vocal comparisons and measuring the length of his ear lobes
and the symmetry of his eye sockets and all the speed.
And I'll tell you how how silly it is. They
literally kind of went, let's go and shoot a patro
outside in the road, you know. So the idea when
people start describing significance to the life of the VW
that's parked by zebra crossing, as if there was any
(29:18):
instinct or time or ability to decide what that. There's
a lot more than that, I know, the boy. I
understand the documentary. I read a great one the other day, UM,
which which you could probably find. My father was assistant,
brilliant doctor and worked in a lot of different fields.
He's the guy who identified Munchausen syndrome and interesting doctor
(29:41):
um he also used my father because you know, most
conventional doctors name a disease they identify after themselves. My
father was more eccentric and named it after Baron Munchausen.
Storytelling is the major symptoms aspect. Interesting. But he also
used hypnosis in his practice, which was quite unusual at
the time, and he wrote a very brown breaking article
(30:04):
about the proper clinical use of hypnosis. But anyway, I
read a thing that my father was in on it,
and he used hypnosis as part of the plot of
when Paul When, when they replaced Paul with Billy Ships,
Your dad was responsible, My dad was, and also the switch.
It also said in that article that I knew the
(30:25):
whole story, that I was the only person who knew
it all. I wasn't talking, So I wish to be
treated with the appropriate respect. But for now I'm still
pretending that it's all completely My favorite, my favorite clip
was of this ocean of clips I've watched in the pen.
Not now, but you know, a while back. My favorite
was the one guy said he shed. He did split
(30:45):
screen comparisons between McCartney before the accident and McCartney after
the accident. It was compelling. When you see McCartney before
the accident never looks at the fret and never looks
at the fingering on the guitar right, He looks straight ahead.
He sings every song in the pre sixty six era
looking straight at never looks at his hands, and the
post sixties six McCartney looks at his hands regularly and
(31:07):
looks at the fingering. I'm assuming maybe because because the
fingering was more difficult than the world when when when
you watch this stuff, it is really, you know, it's bullshit.
But of course McCartney's on Letterman and and he says,
you know, and they know, they say I'm dead, and
then Letterman goes, well you're not. You know, it's like
mccarding the smiles and kind of slufts it off. But yeah,
(31:29):
I mean, it's it's it's it's insane. Imagine somebody you
knew something. It's being told that the person you still
know now is not the same one when it just
is did you think less? I do the like, how
much can four guys be in each other's lives? Seven?
Even if you cut it back, there was a period
where they were always together. Yes, yes, Jagger makes that
comment in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction,
(31:50):
And they're and they're constantly together, and that eases up.
They all get married, they start to have families, they
have houses. They come together a little bit more slowly,
a little bit more reluctantly, but eventually, like you know,
every red band is going to break up and go
and go solo. And were constituted all find a way
to make it work. I mean, making Keith Miraculus. They've
always found a way to make it working. And and
(32:10):
even in spite of the things, everything that they've been
said in books by one, they come back together. Why
do you think they do? Do you know them? Yes?
But just and again to make that you want to say,
why do they What did they have that they've kept
this coming? Do they really believe that the toe the
sum is greater than the part? I think so. I
(32:31):
think they believe, deep down, I believe. I think that
they both believe they need each other, and they wish
they didn't. And they never had as much success together
the word the Beatles thought that the parts were the
equal of the sum up on their own, and it
was just as great a time make would leave and
make a solo record and go, now I've got a
really great bass player, and really whatever you know, and
(32:51):
because even the sell bill Wine, and and because you'd
have some incredibly great American bas and and then you
make a record that no one liked, you know, and
and and and deep down, he's of course extremely spot
So I think I think they're both clever enough to
know that they need each other, and that the best
work they've ever done was when they worked together and
will be in your career over the last several years,
(33:15):
I mean, you've produced J. D. Souther, Andrew Gold, Bonnie
Rate Share, ten thousand Maniacs. In nineteen seventy seven, you
won the first of three Grammys you won for Simple
Dreams with j T and seventies seven Crying like a Rainstorm.
How I a win with Linda Ron's that Best Comedy
with Robin Williams And how did that come together? Um?
(33:36):
Robin and I were great friends. UM. I met him
originally through my wife actually knew him before before I did,
and we all became very fun friends. And he was
going out on the road and wanted to make an
album of it, um and asked me if I would
like to help, and I was thrilled to do so. Essentially,
we just filmed, I mean, recorded every show and and
(33:57):
I made notes of which Betsy did best, which night
and stuff like that, would go over stuff with with
him and even make suggestions of additions or whatever, and
uh and and then put the whole record together. So
so that's it's very different than producing a music album,
except in the one thing they have in common is
you're trying to pick the best take of every particular segment,
(34:19):
and that's what we did. So then in two thousand
fifteen you get the c B. Yes, what was that like? Oh,
it's brilliant. I mean, it's exciting, it's very English. Doesn't
really mean anything, you know. But but the best part
is the is the phone call you get, you know
when they tell you, because it's all super secretive. I
I got a call and this is you know that,
(34:40):
this is so and so the assistant to the Magicist
Consul general and Los Angeles and and all this. And
I thought they were gonna ask me something because I've
I have helped them out before. We could you help
us get tickets to a show? Now? It would be
like a kind of it. It would almost it would
be like we're trying to get put a benefit together
exactly exactly so I can s you know. And he said,
(35:01):
you know, are you alone? Yes? Well, um, because that's
something I'm want to tell you. How Majesty has has
decided to offer you the commander of the British em
com the British Empire, and we wanted to enquires to
whether you would be inclined to accept, and I said
yes immasically. As you know, some people do turn it down.
(35:21):
Bowie turned down a nighthood apparently. Um, some people think,
you know, there's those people who think that the British
Empire is an evil enterprise and which was. But but um, yeah,
and I got Prince William. You never know who you're
gonna get because they come from the Queen overall. Uh.
This she is, as they so charlingly describe it, the
(35:42):
Fountain of all on a but it can be given
to you by any member of the royal family. That's
another time for your book, The Fountain exactly. I'm gone that,
you know, to find people and then and there there
are many of them that they're not that hard to find,
but ones like you who have the back and to
talk about this endless, endless love I have for the
(36:04):
music of this one group. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
What a great pleasure. This is really fun. Thank you
so much much. Enjoyed it. If you want more stories
from Peter Asher, you can listen to his show From
Me to You on Serious Channel eighteen every Thursday night
at nine. His book is called The Beatles, a to
(36:26):
Z and Alphabetical Musical Tour. This is here's the thing.
I'm Alec Baldwin
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
As a singer, guitarist, producer and manager, Peter Asher has
been at the center of some of the most important
music and moments of the rock era. In nineteen sixty four,
he was just nineteen when his London based duo Peter
(00:23):
and Gordon released its first single, A World Without Love.
It reached number one on the charts on both sides
of the Atlantic. That's quite a feat, but not that
surprising when you learned that it was written by his
sister's then boyfriend, a young man by the name of
Paul McCartney and Ray I don't care that coincidence. Didn't
(01:04):
just score him a hit song. It was Asher's entree
into beatles land. After Peter and Gordon fizzled, he joined
forces with the Beatles to launch Apple Records. Paul and
I had conversations about Apple long before it started. I
would spend evenings over at his house, Cavinish Avenue. By
(01:24):
this time we moved out both of us family home,
and you know, talking about what Apple was supposed to
be and all that stuff. And then when it became real,
he asked me to be a head of Anna. As
a music exact at Apple, Asher discovered and signed folk
icon James Taylor I've Seen Far and I've Seen Rain.
(01:47):
He moved on from his role at Apple to become
a full time producer, working with legends like Diana Ross
Share and Neil Diamond and producing multi platinum albums with
Diamond and Linda Ronstad. More recently, Asher put all of
(02:09):
these stories into his book The Beatles A to Z
an Alphabetical Musical Tour, and he hosts a weekly show
about the band, called From Me to You on Sirius
x M. Indeed, when they called me and said would
you be interested in my first goal was to Apple
and and to Ringo to make sure that it was,
you know, Beatle approved. As associated as Peter Asher now
(02:33):
is with rock and roll, his early musical formation was
something else entirely. I grew up in a very classical background.
My mother was a classical musician. She bade Yebo. She
played in various major orchestras and ended up being ober
professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London. So
that's what I grew up with. This was a lot
of classical musical and My father was an eminent physician
(02:56):
but also an amateur pianist, big Gilbern Sullivan fan. So
I grew up with all of that. How many kids
in your family? Three two sisters, your sister Jane. Yes,
when you grew you grew up where in London, in
the middle of London. You in the middle of London
and Wimpole Street, you know that medical area, that's Winpole Street,
Harley Street where where you we began in a flat,
(03:17):
not not there, but but as you advanced in the
medical profession, eventually you're entitled to move to What kind
of music did you listen to as a child or
even as a teenager. As a teenager, um, I discovered jazz.
I was a big bebop fan, and eventually discovered rock
and roll, Elvis, Elvis, Um. But first of it was
that we had our rock and roll as we lived Richard,
(03:40):
Tommy Steele. The first record I ever bought was Tommy
Steele record called Rock with the Caveman and and the
song was written by lionel Bart went on to write
of the musical So yeah, and of course we all
bought Rock around the Clock, and we later discovered Elvis. Now,
when you decide you're going to form You you played
(04:01):
an instrument, you taught yourself to play. Yes, got a guitar.
We all had skifful groups, learned a few chords and
so on. Yes, how did you get representation and get
a recording deal? I started up with a skifful group
with a couple of friends. Uh the a one skillful group,
not very reason um, deeply unoriginal. And then at school
I met Gordon Waller and who also played the guitar
(04:23):
and sang, and we started seeing together and decided to
become a Westminster school And for what it's a very
potsh English public school. What do you want to study?
Would you think? What do you think you wanted to be? Well?
I wasn't sure then an engineer was something like stable No, no.
Oddly enough, the day we were doing this interview, it
would have been a significant profession because I wanted to
be an MP. See if I'd take him that career path,
(04:46):
I would by now have been prim I'd be Prime
Minister and the whole mess would have been I would
have solved everything. But if only, but sadly no, that
was my other ambition was to be an MP. And
of course every MP's ambition is to be prime minister.
But anyway, we met at Westminster, we started singing together.
Um we got you know, we started seeing at school
(05:07):
events and parties and so on, and you start to
find yourself getting invited to a lot of parties by
people you don't know, and they say, oh, by the way,
bring your guitars, and it dawns on you. Eventually you
just got booked for a free gig, which is what happens,
and of course you do it because the more you play,
the better you get. Finally we started getting pubs and
(05:28):
clubs and coffee bars that we could do a couple
of sets and just acoustically, just the two of us.
We ended up in a place called the Pick Quick Club,
which was a more upmarket late night eating and drinking club,
a lot of actors, a lot of musicians. First time
I ever met Michael Caine was in there. Um Joan
Collins I became friends with back then and still am
so is that kind of a slightly glamorous place and
(05:51):
we would do two or three sets a night, sitting
on bar stools, singing folks songs, everly brothers songs, everything
we can think of and One night, a man in
a very shiny suit came up to us after the
show and asked if he could buy us a drink.
We said yes, and he explained that he was Norman
Newell and and our guy from E M I Records,
and he wanted to to come an audition for E
(06:11):
M I. So we went up to the em I Studios,
which is what became Abbey Road. They just changed the
name about a week later, recorded a bunch of songs
and they phoned us up and told us we we
they'd like to sign us so and they said, you
know that we'd um they picked normally picked some songs
out are the ones we've been doing the night he'd
(06:33):
seen us that he wanted us to record. At the time,
I think he was imagining us being kind of folky,
kind of Britain's answer to the folk boom in America
as it were, well, yeah, a little bit, a little
a little slicker than that, probably the Kingston duo as
it were, or Peter and Paul without Mary. But we
went we were going to be a folk duo and uh,
(06:54):
and we'd love to have been Dylan, but that's you know,
that's an overweening ambition. So so that was that, and
then he said, look, if you know any any other
songs that you might like to bring to the table
other than the ones that I've already heard, you do,
feel free to bring them to this first session. And
that's where the song that we were going to talk
about comes in World Without Love. Now, in my understanding
(07:18):
through different interviews with different people, um that the United
States was the goal. It seemed for everybody like that
was the market like they were. You know, the Londoners
and Brits are very proud of being Brits, but boy,
they wanted to go sell records over there. Was that
true for you as well. Were not just selling records.
It was an overall huge ambition to go to America
and and we idolized America. I mean musically, of course
(07:41):
we did, when you think about it. The Beatles until
they started writing their own songs, which they turned out
to do rather well, but until that time they never
sang a British song. Everything was based It was a
tribute to American music, you know. And the same with us.
We were doing Everly Brothers American folks songs. We didn't
do any English songs at all. And and that was
(08:02):
also tied in with our huge admiration for America as
a whole. You know, we'd grown up after the war
in the fifties exactly, it was post war gloom and doom,
black and white, you know, everywhere, bomb sights all over
the place. We had rationaling till the nineteen fifty six,
and we could look across the Atlantic and it looked
to us like everything in America was shiny and new
(08:22):
and colorful, and they all had perfect teeth and big,
amazing cars, and you know, it was like, whoa, that's
the place and this incredible music. So one thing I
remember distinctly is that when um well with that lot
went to number one and we got the phone call,
one of the biggest aspects of that call was that
now we get to go. It was not only that
(08:44):
sheer number oneness of it. It was they cannot stop us.
Now we're going to America. You know, I had copies
of Downbeat with the jazz clubs I wanted to go
to already circled, had a poster of New York on
my wall, you know. So it was it was I
knew I was going, I just know how and when
now before we get to the song itself, How did
(09:05):
you meet McCartney? Well, you're you're the beneficial McCartney handing.
You are reject from the Lennon McCartney catalog. Lenna didn't
want to record. You'll tell us that story. But where
did you meet him? I met him because he had
met my sister and I was there out, um meet
your sister. U. They met because Jane at that time
was and still is a very successful actress in London
(09:28):
and well known. And we both actually started as child
actors um when I was eight and she was six.
We both got our first movie pots. You did your
first film, The Planter's Wife, playing the son of Clinic Colbert. Yes,
the shot that in the UK. Yes, it was period
when she moved to the UK and was working there.
My father was played by Jack Hawkins of you might
(09:50):
remember beautiful actor Stern military man Bridge on that required movies.
He was my father and called him much more exciting
played my mother and I got to kiss Coute with
great enthusiasm. Um, it was Pinewood. Yes, did several films. Yeah.
Was there ever a kind of a conflict for you
(10:13):
or anything where you thought, do I want to be
an actor. Do I want to be a musician? Why
did you then do one? Well? It's interesting, yes, I
mean I think what happened is that the acting, my acting,
the offers diminished and my ability to do them finished.
And I started to take school seriously. As I mentioned,
I was at Westminster, which was a school. It did
not give you time off to go and be in
a film. Jane, on the other hand, I was super
(10:35):
enthusiastic about it and extremely good at it and became
immediately successful. Quit school at fifteen. My tolerant parents he
had again going okay, and and became a full time actor,
which she still is and and does very well. And
and it was in that context as a celebrity actor
Movi saw beautiful person that she was invited to go
(10:56):
and see the Beatles when they first came down to
London by magazine who wanted her to write peace about
you know what was all the fuss about? What did
she write? Um? Was she favorable? She was extremely favorable.
I don't know if we've got a copy of the
actual piece, but I remember talking about it and saying
how great they were. And of course as the visiting
celeb she was taken backstage to meet them all afterwards, like, yes,
(11:20):
she was famous and she was a bit more well
done than they were. They were about to become immensely
more well known than anyone in the universe. But at
the time Jane was she was on television quite a
lot and that stuff. So she met them and liked them.
They liked her. One of them liked her in particular
and asked her out. So that's how it began. And
I how long were they together? Uh? Several years? Well,
(11:44):
because he ended up moving into our house. You know,
I don't know that part of the story. He lived
He lived in your house for about two years. You
shared a room with him? No, she had a floor
tune and the next door rooms. We had do separate bessos. Then, yes,
we had about yes, although we've been thrilling if you
were the same, could be laying there at nights smoking
steaming training lyrics. This, Yeah, maybe I could have got
(12:08):
it right. Maybe should play this. He could have given
you a little pointers, a couple of words and one
McCarty and asher, I'd be rich exactly and then and
then so then he gives you the song what happened?
I'd heard the song you guys were recording. No, you
were you had made No. Here's what happened. Cut back
to what I was telling you, the story about Norman
Neil spots us in the club signs Us chooses some
(12:31):
songs from our existing repertoire sixty three and says Joan,
if there are any other good songs you want to do,
let me know. And the reason I kind of went,
maybe there is is because a few months earlier I
had heard this song well without Love. Paul was just
sing it in his room and I said, that's really good,
and and he'd explained to me that it was unfinished
(12:54):
because because John didn't like it, they weren't going to
record it. But what also is that he would actually
kind of laugh. The opening line he thought, please locked
me away was a ridiculous open to a song. So
apparently when Paul would try to sell John on the song,
he would get no further than that line, and John
would stop him and go, okay, I will lock your way.
The song is over. That's amazing. Then then nothing happened
(13:15):
until we got our record deal, and I went back
to Paul and said, look, this amazing thing has happened.
We are going to make a record. We've got a
studio date booked in a month or whatever it was,
and he's booked and musicians. We picked a few songs,
but I wondered, could we possibly have a go at
that world with our love song that that we I
liked so much? And he said yes, and he wrote
(13:36):
out the chords and the words for me on a
piece of paper which is safely locked and a fire
proof safe back. And that's when I did. As the
session date grew near, I did have to prevail upon
him to finish it. So finally I said, you know,
we really need a bridge. This is too short, you know,
even by pop standards, it's about a minute, and uh
(13:57):
so and so so he he finally took his guitar
and went into his bedroom for you know, of course,
an infuriatingly short like eight minutes or so, and came
out exactly, came out with the so I wait and
in a while I will see my true love smile,
which is the beautiful bridge of the song. And we
were done, and so we we recorded it a week later,
(14:21):
along with about four or five other songs. This was
not an album deal. This was a deal to see
if we could make a single, and and by the
end of the session all that folky plan was out
the window because well, with our Love sounded like a hit.
So that was no there's no question anyone's mind that
was going to be our first single, and it was
and it went to number one, first in England and
then all over Europe and finally America. Now, how long
(14:44):
do you ride the Peter and Gordon thing before you
transition into becoming a full time you know? That then
ends you stopped doing that when we we never broke
up as such. It's interesting we never had a big
Everly Brothers level row or anything like that. We agilely drifted,
I guess in about sixty eight into doing other things.
I knew I wanted to produce records. Why the first
(15:07):
time I was ever in the recording studio, I went,
this is so cool. And when I saw what it produced.
It does that you could try out ideas, imagine arrangements
and sounds. To fact, you can have musicians much better
than yourself and tell them what to do. That that
was really something I share that passion with you. I
went to a recording studio a couple of times in
my left not often. I went to watch people record
(15:28):
and it was one of the most thrilling experiences of mine. Yeah,
but all of a sudden, now you're in the world
where you're helping other people get where they want to go.
You're a service to them. Yes, you're you're working for them.
What was that like for you? Well, there are two
completely different aspects of it. The production thing, as I say,
was a deliberate, unconscious ambition. I said, I wanted to
do this, and of course the thing was that in
order to prove whether or not you could produce the record,
(15:50):
you had to find somebody who wanted you to produce
them and me and a budget. You know, now it's
a lot different. Now if you want to be a
record producer, you can sit at your laptop and come
up with a groove and to beat and some music
and you know, go, look, this is what I can do,
and every will go great. You can do this record
for us. But that, of course didn't exist without a
studio with real people in it. There was no way.
(16:11):
How did you get in there? Um? I persuaded a
friend of mine UM called Paul Jones, and if you
remember him, he was the lead singer of Manfred Many,
great voice, you know that she was just to walk
into that brilliant singing and one of the best harmonica
players in the world. And he did me a huge favor.
He was going to make a solo album of He
(16:32):
watched me in the studio on a couple of Peter
and Gordon records and and said, you know, do you
want to produce some tracks with me? And I said yes.
So the first record I ever produced was one song,
a B G song called and the Sun Will Shine,
sung by Paul Jones. And what I did it's only
notable now and in many respects because I wanted today
no chances on getting a great rhythm section. Um, so
(16:55):
I have some friends to play on it, so that
that record has Nicky Hopkins on piano and if you
know Nicks and piano, Paul Samwell Smith on bass, who
was the bass player in the Yardbirds and went on
by the way to produce Carlie Simon's record and Cat
Stevens records, um, Jeff Beck on guitar, and Paul McCartney
on drums, so legend drums, crazy great drummer. And so
(17:18):
that was the rhythm section the song is only a
minor hit, but I got into the production business and
then so that was the first example of advising other people.
The second one was James Taylor, where I became his
manager only because I believe so strongly in him and
we didn't know who else we trusted to do it.
I found James, discovered him and show biz Vernacular where
(17:42):
the King Bees, featuring Danny Kuchma on lead guitar, accompanied
Peter and Gordon on a couple of tours. We were
assigned the backup band. Usually they were very good. Danny
and I became firm friends. I loved his playing. He's
a big Steve Cropper fan as I am, and on
and and so uh. He and I became friends, remained
(18:03):
friends after the Peter and Gordon era was over. Danny
was then in a band called the Flying Machine with
his childhood friend James Taylor. They'd known each other since
they were ten or eleven years old and and remained
great over here to this day. Over here then I
think in North Carolina and Martha's vineyond, and so Danny
was in this Flying Machine band. Flying Machine was a
(18:25):
New York band, suffering all of assisted UDEs in New
York can possibly offer um. They were broke. Then their
record company made half a record and disappeared, and uh,
there were several of them. Was strung out on drugs,
including James, and it was all miserable. So band broke up.
James decided to go to London, mostly because I think
he had a girlfriend over there he thought he could
stay with. And Danny said, oh, if you're going to London,
(18:47):
I have an old friend who lives in London who
I used to play with. He's okay, here's his number,
So he gave me gave James my name and number.
So James, having come over to London, called me up
out of the blue, without any idea of what I
was up to at that time, and introduced himself as
Danny's friend. I invited him over to dinner. He played
me a little demo tape he'd made a few days before,
(19:09):
and I was completely stunned and blown away and amazed.
That would have been late sixties seven, I think, or
at least sixty eight, and and you know everything about him.
I couldn't believe I was hearing this him for the
first time, his guitar playing at the precision of a
classical musician, but the chords of a jazz musician, you know,
and this finger picking, beautiful style. His singing, you know,
(19:33):
he had. His voice was this sort of rich, folky
kind of American voice, but the phrasing was all Sam
Cook and Ray Charles. You know. It was a brilliant mixture.
And of course these incredible songs. This tape he played
me had something in the way she moves and something's
wrong and knocking around the zoo on that tape, picked
up my guitar, played me a couple of more songs,
and I we had this odd conversation, right and said, look,
(19:56):
it so happens. I've just got this job as head
of A and R for a new record Labe. You know,
I can sign people. Would you like a record deal?
And he kind of went, yes, I love one, and
that was it. And of course I had to explain
him whose label it was and and so on. So
within days of how often did they interact well within
with the band? Gotcha when in days of this conversation,
(20:17):
I brought him into the office to meet everybody. He
sat and he played a couple of songs for George
and Paul. As I recall and they shared my enthusiasm.
We signed him up and they intimidated to play for them. Yes, yes,
we Two interesting things actually in in the In the
lyrics to Fire and Rain, Um, there are a couple
(20:37):
of things that are often misinterpreted. Um. One is is
um flying machines in pieces on the ground. People think
it's about a plane crash. That's the band breaking up.
And the other is holy host of others standing around me.
That's the Beatles. Wow, that's so cool. So they were
the Holy Host. And yes he was intimidated. And I
(20:57):
didn't really think to think that through in terms of
how because I mean, I'm sure that the Bold was
full of Americans jumping on a plane going I'm gonna
go to London and meet the Beatles, you know, And
there was James doing exactly that and and meeting them
within days of arrival. Another man like Peter Asher, with
(21:17):
a front seat to music history, is New York's biggest
concert promoter of the past fifty years. Ron delsoner, So
you have to be a diplomat where most people aren't.
They don't know how to But after you learn this,
as you do in you akryft how to make everybody happy,
sit down at the table. Not it's this way, we're
gonna bomb you. You're gonna see fire and fear. We're
(21:39):
gonna burn your house and your kids and the dog.
I don't do that. For my full interview with Ron
Delsoner text Ron to seven zero zero one. Peter Asher
on living with Paul McCartney coming up next. This is
(22:05):
Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the thing.
Peter Asher was at the center of everything that was
happening in British music in the sixties. I remember going
to see the Stones with Poul quite early on and
they were playing the Scene Club in London, and it
was on the way there. He was pretty disgruntled about
the fact he said. The only thing he said the
(22:26):
really eight He said that their manager lets them wear
whatever they like and Brian makes his well, these stupid suits.
Is that what he said? Now, um, this is in
the New York Times. I want to I want to
launch this section of our conversation. Describe reading this thing,
which I read to McCartney one time. I don't think
he ever read this. Of course he can't be. He
can't track every single reference to the Beatles as cultural material.
(22:48):
But this is from the New York Times, when the
Beatles make their iTunes deal in two thousand ten. This
is in November of two thousand ten. And uh in
the New York Times, ben Cesarreo and Miguel Health to
other writers, and they're right. What is perhaps one of
my favorite paragraphs there right, one of the last major
(23:09):
holdouts against selling its music via digital downloads, The Beatles
or the ultimate prize for any music company. The groups
held on to blockbuster sales. Four decades after breaking up.
It has sold more than one d and seventy seven
million albums in the United States alone, according to the
Record Industry Association of America. And here's the line that
I've read to McCartney and held onto untouchable cultural prestige.
(23:34):
Why do you think that is? Why? What is it?
I mean I can give. I want to do your
show one day. So I did the Beatles show here
and it wasn't your show. I did one of the
other Beatles shows for serious series I love. Do you
have guests come on? My god? Well if you if
you've got to cover them, don't work. I came on
the plate all my stuff. But what I want to want,
but we can do this now. In a sense which
(23:56):
he said, what is it about them? They made them
on their own planet. I think you referred to some
of it before. It was that the coming together, this
perfect storm, you know, where every element was perfect. You
cannot imagine any better combination. A better manager could have been,
a producer exactly, could better studio musicians exactly. And the
(24:19):
depth the distinction, it's as if you know, when the
spice cirlls created the spice calls, trying to give, trying
to get deliberately give each one, okay, your sporty, your posh,
your whatever it was, and whatever it was, you know,
and it was artificial and it was incomplete. That happened
by the will of God or whatever. With the Beatles,
there was it was just something we could There was one.
(24:41):
There was a beatle for everyone to love. There was
music for everybody to love, because the songs varied between
full out, full on rock and roll and then suddenly
a beautiful show tun or an amazing ballad or bloody yesterday.
You know it was that. And and the other thing
is they were just better than everybody else. Better, right
is you know, not better players necessarily as individual virtuosos,
(25:03):
but better players as a combination. You know, the people
would say, well, Ringer is not a great drummer, George,
someone else can play faster guitarics than George, and it
was that was wrong because what they were playing. That's
an unfair statement to say that Ringo wasn't a great drummer.
I love Ringers, don't. I may continually say that Ringo
is still underrated to this day because Ringo was a
(25:23):
brilliant I mean, he was a restrained drummer. There was
a period where being a great drummer or even John
Bottom or Buddy Rich and I mean that was the
time when or a brilliant drummer is someone who can
just go crazy and be flashy. And that's why it's
so great that there's no Ringo drum solos really, I
mean as such full on solos. And you know, and
(25:44):
he he would work out almost a written part for
each song where it exactly fit not just what everyone
else was playing, but the lyric and and everything. No,
I think Ringo was utterly brilliant and and and you know,
and and George too. You know the fact there's other
people who can play flash here and faster is not
the point. He would pick the right guitar, like, the
(26:05):
right guitar tone to fit the song, and you know
it was all perfect. How did you know, Epsine? Where'd
you meet him? I didn't know him terribly well. I
liked him very much. I met him, you know, as
I got to hang out with the Beatles. Obviously he
was around from time to time. And I remember playing
poker with him on a train across Germany. Um we
were it was the only time we toured with the Beatles.
(26:27):
They were in this fancy train and we were all
sitting there playing poker with a couple of Beatles and
Brian and and he won, by the way, and and
the Beatles loved them dearly. I mean. And what is
clear from conversations with Brian and from learning about Brian,
is that you know he he would have thrown thrown
himself in front of a train to save them. This
(26:47):
was his life. His love and admiration for the Beatles
was total. Describe for me, you know something I did
not know, because I mean I would never pretend to
know everything, but something I did not know that he am.
I became happy roach today know, it's weird, isn't that
Because how did that happen? Um they just bought it
from them? No, no, no, they just changed the name.
Nothing happened, Nothing happened. Um, you know it's em It's
(27:08):
always been em I Studios and the Beatles don't own it. No, right,
we'll be interesting to look at what year had happened.
But at some point, and I think it was connected
with at one point, there was a suggestion it might
be for sale and there was talking about maybe it
should be saved. You know, there's a British heritage site
and all that kind of stuff. Andrew the Webber got
involved and he was talking about buying it. I remember
(27:30):
all that. And somewhere before that happened, somebody had the
obviously brilliant idea of changing the name of the studio
from EMI Studios to Abbey Road Studios, and they changed
the logo of the studio to be the Zebra crossing.
You know, people think that the that you know, the
the album was named after the studio, which it wasn't.
(27:52):
The album was named after the street they happened to be.
It was like, well, people have a tendency myself included
to two GLORI five the Beatles, and to mythologize everything
about the Beatles inappropriate but exactly, I'm the first person
to say that I thought the Beatles owned Abbey Road
Studio other than I thought they bought it for me.
It was theirs, It's their kingdom, it was all their
(28:13):
whole thing, not at all, not in any way, And
and it's it's just that, you know, they were sitting
around arguing about album titles, kind of went well, going
to Beta, We're you know, the studio is in Abbey Road,
let's just call it the album abby Road. And let's
just go into a photo outside inn abbey Road right now,
which is what they did. So, which is why, like
the whole crazy Paul is Dead thing and all that
(28:34):
is so ridiculous. Can I tell you how many Paul
is Dead conspiracy videos I've watched, Oh no, no, and
and the range of that, if you no, no, no no.
I mean when I can't sleep, I'm I'm a I'm
a Hall of Fame insomniac, and I lay and be
My wife is dead asleep, my kids are a sleeping
on my computer until midnight or two in the morning,
(28:55):
tumbling down the corridors of YouTube where they're doing the
vocal comparisons and measuring the length of his ear lobes
and the symmetry of his eye sockets and all the speed.
And I'll tell you how how silly it is. They
literally kind of went, let's go and shoot a patro
outside in the road, you know. So the idea when
people start describing significance to the life of the VW
that's parked by zebra crossing, as if there was any
(29:18):
instinct or time or ability to decide what that. There's
a lot more than that, I know, the boy. I
understand the documentary. I read a great one the other day, UM,
which which you could probably find. My father was assistant,
brilliant doctor and worked in a lot of different fields.
He's the guy who identified Munchausen syndrome and interesting doctor
(29:41):
um he also used my father because you know, most
conventional doctors name a disease they identify after themselves. My
father was more eccentric and named it after Baron Munchausen.
Storytelling is the major symptoms aspect. Interesting. But he also
used hypnosis in his practice, which was quite unusual at
the time, and he wrote a very brown breaking article
(30:04):
about the proper clinical use of hypnosis. But anyway, I
read a thing that my father was in on it,
and he used hypnosis as part of the plot of
when Paul When, when they replaced Paul with Billy Ships,
Your dad was responsible, My dad was, and also the switch.
It also said in that article that I knew the
(30:25):
whole story, that I was the only person who knew
it all. I wasn't talking, So I wish to be
treated with the appropriate respect. But for now I'm still
pretending that it's all completely My favorite, my favorite clip
was of this ocean of clips I've watched in the pen.
Not now, but you know, a while back. My favorite
was the one guy said he shed. He did split
(30:45):
screen comparisons between McCartney before the accident and McCartney after
the accident. It was compelling. When you see McCartney before
the accident never looks at the fret and never looks
at the fingering on the guitar right, He looks straight ahead.
He sings every song in the pre sixty six era
looking straight at never looks at his hands, and the
post sixties six McCartney looks at his hands regularly and
(31:07):
looks at the fingering. I'm assuming maybe because because the
fingering was more difficult than the world when when when
you watch this stuff, it is really, you know, it's bullshit.
But of course McCartney's on Letterman and and he says,
you know, and they know, they say I'm dead, and
then Letterman goes, well you're not. You know, it's like
mccarding the smiles and kind of slufts it off. But yeah,
(31:29):
I mean, it's it's it's it's insane. Imagine somebody you
knew something. It's being told that the person you still
know now is not the same one when it just
is did you think less? I do the like, how
much can four guys be in each other's lives? Seven?
Even if you cut it back, there was a period
where they were always together. Yes, yes, Jagger makes that
comment in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction,
(31:50):
And they're and they're constantly together, and that eases up.
They all get married, they start to have families, they
have houses. They come together a little bit more slowly,
a little bit more reluctantly, but eventually, like you know,
every red band is going to break up and go
and go solo. And were constituted all find a way
to make it work. I mean, making Keith Miraculus. They've
always found a way to make it working. And and
(32:10):
even in spite of the things, everything that they've been
said in books by one, they come back together. Why
do you think they do? Do you know them? Yes?
But just and again to make that you want to say,
why do they What did they have that they've kept
this coming? Do they really believe that the toe the
sum is greater than the part? I think so. I
(32:31):
think they believe, deep down, I believe. I think that
they both believe they need each other, and they wish
they didn't. And they never had as much success together
the word the Beatles thought that the parts were the
equal of the sum up on their own, and it
was just as great a time make would leave and
make a solo record and go, now I've got a
really great bass player, and really whatever you know, and
(32:51):
because even the sell bill Wine, and and because you'd
have some incredibly great American bas and and then you
make a record that no one liked, you know, and
and and and deep down, he's of course extremely spot
So I think I think they're both clever enough to
know that they need each other, and that the best
work they've ever done was when they worked together and
will be in your career over the last several years,
(33:15):
I mean, you've produced J. D. Souther, Andrew Gold, Bonnie
Rate Share, ten thousand Maniacs. In nineteen seventy seven, you
won the first of three Grammys you won for Simple
Dreams with j T and seventies seven Crying like a Rainstorm.
How I a win with Linda Ron's that Best Comedy
with Robin Williams And how did that come together? Um?
(33:36):
Robin and I were great friends. UM. I met him
originally through my wife actually knew him before before I did,
and we all became very fun friends. And he was
going out on the road and wanted to make an
album of it, um and asked me if I would
like to help, and I was thrilled to do so. Essentially,
we just filmed, I mean, recorded every show and and
(33:57):
I made notes of which Betsy did best, which night
and stuff like that, would go over stuff with with
him and even make suggestions of additions or whatever, and
uh and and then put the whole record together. So
so that's it's very different than producing a music album,
except in the one thing they have in common is
you're trying to pick the best take of every particular segment,
(34:19):
and that's what we did. So then in two thousand
fifteen you get the c B. Yes, what was that like? Oh,
it's brilliant. I mean, it's exciting, it's very English. Doesn't
really mean anything, you know. But but the best part
is the is the phone call you get, you know
when they tell you, because it's all super secretive. I
I got a call and this is you know that,
(34:40):
this is so and so the assistant to the Magicist
Consul general and Los Angeles and and all this. And
I thought they were gonna ask me something because I've
I have helped them out before. We could you help
us get tickets to a show? Now? It would be
like a kind of it. It would almost it would
be like we're trying to get put a benefit together
exactly exactly so I can s you know. And he said,
(35:01):
you know, are you alone? Yes? Well, um, because that's
something I'm want to tell you. How Majesty has has
decided to offer you the commander of the British em
com the British Empire, and we wanted to enquires to
whether you would be inclined to accept, and I said
yes immasically. As you know, some people do turn it down.
(35:21):
Bowie turned down a nighthood apparently. Um, some people think,
you know, there's those people who think that the British
Empire is an evil enterprise and which was. But but um, yeah,
and I got Prince William. You never know who you're
gonna get because they come from the Queen overall. Uh.
This she is, as they so charlingly describe it, the
(35:42):
Fountain of all on a but it can be given
to you by any member of the royal family. That's
another time for your book, The Fountain exactly. I'm gone that,
you know, to find people and then and there there
are many of them that they're not that hard to find,
but ones like you who have the back and to
talk about this endless, endless love I have for the
(36:04):
music of this one group. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
What a great pleasure. This is really fun. Thank you
so much much. Enjoyed it. If you want more stories
from Peter Asher, you can listen to his show From
Me to You on Serious Channel eighteen every Thursday night
at nine. His book is called The Beatles, a to
(36:26):
Z and Alphabetical Musical Tour. This is here's the thing.
I'm Alec Baldwin
Host
Alec Baldwin
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