The Gibson Interview:
Peter Asher Talks '60s, Beatles and Apple Records
http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Features/peter-asher-1119/
Russell Hall
11.19.2010
No one occupied a more front-and-center seat during the '60s British
Invasion than Peter Asher did. Having formed the duo Peter and Gordon
with partner Gordon Waller, Asher accumulated nine Top 20 singles in
the mid-'60s, among them the Paul McCartney-penned pop smash, "World
Without Love." Following his tenure with Peter and Gordon, Asher
became head of A&R for The Beatles' Apple Records, where his duties
included listening to the avalanche of demo tapes submitted to the
label. Most notable among Asher's "discoveries" during this time was
James Taylor, whose career Asher continued to manage for years after
Apple Records crumbled.
On October 25, Apple Corps Ltd. and EMI Music reissued 15 key albums
from the Apple Records catalog, including landmark releases by
Taylor, Badfinger, Mary Hopkin and Billy Preston. All the discs have
been remastered, and many feature bonus tracks. The timing is
fortuitous, as Asher recently put together a multimedia stage show
composed of film footage, photos, storytelling and music
performances. Titled Peter Asher: A Musical Memoir of the '60s and
Beyond, the show brings to life one of the most remarkable eras in
contemporary music.
In the following interview, Asher talks about his days at Apple
Records, his friendship with McCartney, and the experience of being
the first non-Beatle to hear "I Want to Hold Your Hand."
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Please tell us about the multimedia show you're staging.
Not long before Gordon died, in July of last year, he and I got
together and did some benefit shows. I had some reservations about
doing that, but it went well, and it seemed to mean a lot to people.
So, I realized that, even with Gordon gone, I didn't want to never
sing those songs again. At the same time, I had been doing some
lectures about the '60s and '70s, with stories, and video clips, and
odds and ends, which people seemed to find fascinating. I decided to
combine all of that. It's been great fun putting this together.
How did you and Gordon come to record McCartney's "World Without Love"?
Paul had played Gordon and me that song at some point, just in
passing. It was really just half a song. It didn't yet have a bridge.
Gordon and I were working at clubs in London at that time, and we got
offered a record deal by EMI, who saw us as an English version of The
Kingston Trio, or a Peter, Paul and Mary type of thing. We did the
American folk song "500 Miles," and that was the song they were
thinking would be our first single. Anyway, we signed the record deal
with EMI, and set the date for our first recording session. At that
point I went to Paul and asked him if that orphaned song was still up
for grabs, since we needed three or four songs to record on that
first day in the studio. Paul said we could have it, so I asked him
to finish the bridge. And he did. As I recall, the bridge came in the
nick of time for us to record "World Without Love" at that first session.
At the time, McCartney was sometimes staying at the Asher family
home. Is it true that he and Lennon wrote "I Want to Hold Your Hand"
in the basement, while you were there?
Yes. My mother had a practice room that she used to give private oboe
lessons when she wasn't teaching at The Royal Academy, where she was
a professor. There was just a piano, and an upright chair and a sofa.
Paul used that room to write in, from time to time. One afternoon
John came over, while I was upstairs in my room. The two of them were
in the basement for an hour or so, and Paul called me down to listen
to a song they had just finished. I went downstairs and sat on the
sofa, and they sat side by side, on the piano bench. That's where
they played "I Want to Hold Your Hand" for the first anywhere. They
asked me what I thought. I said, "I think it's very good." [laughs]
How close did it sound to what was released as a 45?
It was the exact same song, except that it hadn't yet become a
"guitar" song. Obviously the piano made it sound different, but it
was certainly the same song, the same tempo, and the same vibe. I
wish I had a tape of it.
What was your sense of the relationship between McCartney and Lennon?
That's very hard to delve into. They were great friends, and had
great mutual respect, but they were also quite different from one
another. I don't know. Human relationships are tough to analyze. It's
like trying to talk about someone else's marriage.
Later, of course, you became head of A&R at Apple Records. What was
a typical day at Apple like?
I would arrive at a fairly normal time in the morning. I had an
office on the top floor, where there were three or four  and, at one
point, five  people working for me. As you probably know, Apple took
out an ad, saying "Send us your tired and huddled tapes, and we will
listen to them." And that's what we did. We would go through them,
and listen, and make notes, and write people polite "thank you"
notes. Unfortunately, to be honest, out of all that stuff nothing
really emerged. The people we actually signed came through
connections with people we knew.
There were also normal record company meetings, about what was going
to be released, and what needed to be finished, and how various
projects were going. And then there was the unpredictable layer,
which might involve the sudden arrival of Hare Krishnas, or the
arrival of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, or Hell's Angels. People
like that would often just arrive without warning. It was a mixture.
More is written today about the chaos factor, but actually there was
a pretty reasonable balance between some fun, some chaos, and a lot
of hard work involving records getting made.
It's well-known that you discovered James Taylor, and signed him to
Apple. Was your enthusiasm for Taylor shared by Lennon and McCartney?
Paul certainly shared my enthusiasm for James. I think John was keen
on him as well, but John was tied up with his own projects at the
time. Ringo and George liked him as well. But then again, who
couldn't like him? Those songs were phenomenally good.
And when you left Apple, Taylor went with you?
That's right. I suggested to James that the circumstances at Apple,
with Allen Klein coming in, and with The Beatles being in
disagreement about whether or not Klein should come in, were
deteriorating. I knew Klein from before and I felt he was the wrong
man for the job. For those reasons I suggested to James that we
should slip away in the night and go to America. And that's what we did.
Did you sense trouble brewing within The Beatles, that maybe a
breakup was imminent?
Well, the arrival of Allen Klein didn't just precipitate the
question, "Is this going to be good for the company?" It also
precipitated the fact that John felt Allen Klein could be the answer
to their prayers, and Paul very specifically felt he was not. That
disagreement accentuated a wedge that had already come to exist, in
some respects, between Paul and John. It formed part of an ugly
picture that led to the breakup.
Do you think a company like Apple could be a viable entity today?
Yes, absolutely. You could actually do it more easily, and cheaper,
now, because it could be "online only." A label like that, if it had
the attention and reputation that Apple was fortunate to have, could
be a huge success. I think it would be super-cool.
Were Peter and Gordon always Gibson guitar players?
Gordon and I were Gibson artists from day one. The company made
Gordon and me each a J-200, in 1965 Â custom-made guitars. I still
have mine, and it's fantastic. Not only have I played it a lot, but a
lot of records I've produced, where there's a big pounding acoustic Â
such as Linda Ronstadt's "Poor Poor Pitiful Me," and songs like that
 it's all that guitar. That guitar never went on the road, so it's
survived, intact. The J-160E I play now is a reissue. It actually
sounds better than the old ones, to me. My old J-160E disappeared
somewhere in the mists of time. Gibson had the leading
acoustic-electric at the time, which is what Gordon and I needed. The
J-160E was the guitar, as far as having an acoustic you could plug
in. The one I have now has a different pickup put in, in addition to
the original one. If you wanted to play two acoustic guitars, and be
folk-y, but also be able to plug in, that guitar was the one to have.
I also have a gorgeous Gibson 12-string  another great custom guitar
 that the company made for me about 10 years ago. Gordon and I were
always Gibson guys.
.
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