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Musician/producer Peter Asher brings his stories of Paul McCartney and the Beatles to Naperville
By DAVID SHAROS
NAPERVILLE SUN
JAN 16, 2020
Singer, manager, producer and Grammy Award-winner Peter Asher promoted his new book, "The Beatles from A to Zed," during a Wednesday appearance attended by more than 100 people at Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville. (David Sharos / Naperville Sun)
It was a walk down memory lane for many who came out Wednesday night to meet 1960s musician Peter Asher of Peter and Gordon fame, a close friend of Paul McCartney who was promoting his new book, “The Beatles from A to Zed," at Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville.
Asher’s band found success with such songs as “A World Without Love” and “I Go to Pieces,” but his career went far beyond that, with stints as the head of A&R for Apple Records, manager of 1970s recording stars James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt, recipient of Grammy Awards as producer of the year and host of a SiriusXM radio show on the Beatles Channel.
Speaking before his appearance, 75-year-old Asher said his book offers an insider’s perspective on the Beatles stemming from his long relationship with the group and, particularly, Paul McCartney, who lived on lived on the upper floors of Asher’s family home in London, dated Asher’s sister, Jane, and gave him songs he’d written for Peter and Gordon to record.
“The radio show led to the book. The publisher Henry Holt was pursuing me, gratifyingly, and I just figured it was somebody wanting me to write my autobiography, which I’m not doing," Asher said.
"When they explained the radio show I was doing based on the alphabet would make a good book, I thought, ‘Well, that sounds quite easy. I’ll just write what I said on the radio.’ When you do that, you realize it needs a gigantic rewrite and you really do have to write a bloody book. It took about a year.”
Producer and Grammy Award-winner Peter Asher talks about the Beatles, who were such close friends in the 1960s that they gave his group, Peter and Gordon, songs to record and chose him to be their A&R man for Apple Records. He was at Anderson's Bookshop Wednesday to sign copies of his new book, "The Beatles from A to Zed." (David Sharos / Naperville Sun)
Asher said he doesn’t think “there are any new facts or revelations" in the book but his reflections cement what he and others know about the Beatles.
“I think the more time goes by you realize this is music that will live forever," he said. "It was the perfect storm in so many respects. My biggest takeaway was how good they were. The more you watched them work, (the more you saw) how good they were together.”
Asher also spoke about his own success being part of a duo.
“The sound of two voices together has always been great. That’s your basic harmony singing and it’s a particular art,” he said. “As good or fun as it might be singing on your own, singing with another person is still the basis of duos and even a lot of bands. John and Paul were a duo essentially. Three-part harmony is lovely but it’s less universally applicable.”
Asher did a lot of production work for other acts as well.
“Working with them was all different — Cher was completely different from Diana Ross — but I do treasure the records I made with Linda (Ronstadt) because I think she’s one of the finest singers in the world,” he said.
More than 100 fans wait inside Anderson's Bookshop Wednesday night to see Peter Asher, who once lived with Paul McCartney and produced many top pop artists including James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, and Neil Diamond. He was also one half of the 1960s recording duo Peter and Gordon. (David Sharos / Naperville Sun)
The crowd of more than 100 at Anderson’s was predominantly Beatles fans interested in hearing more about the band.
“I heard about this (event) on the radio and I have always been a big fan,” Vicki Vetang, of Geneva, said. “To me, their music and that of others like the Rolling Stones is timeless.”
“It was not just the music — they got their message out,” Vetang’s husband, Tim, added. “It was the love generation. I remember buying my first Beatles’ record at the grocery checkout line.”
Julie Denham, of Marengo said she knew of Asher from the albums he produced with James Taylor but found his Beatles stories “fun.”
“I saw Peter (in Chicago) and when I saw he was coming, I wanted to be here,” she said. “The Beatles are forever so why not try and find out more?”
Naperville resident Chuck Rehor accompanied his 15-year-old son, Charlie, who said he loves researching rock history.
“I started reading about all this classic rock stuff at an early age and I feel Peter is amazing and one of the unsung heroes in the industry,” Charlie Rehor said.
Robbie Grabowski, 11, of Naperville, was one of the few young Beatles fans to attend a book signing Wednesday by producer and pop singer Peter Asher at Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville. (David Sharos / Naperville Sun)
“I’ve got three books that I bought for myself, my son and my brother, and we’ve seen so many of the people Peter produced in concert,” Chuck Rehor said. “Peter made stuff happen, he put people together.”
Another young fan was Robbie Grabowski, 11, of Naperville, who sported a Beatles’ jacket and T-shirt for the event.
“I listen to the Beatles’ Channel and two years ago I saw Paul McCartney. Since then, I was hooked,” Robbie said. “In 2018, I was dressed as John Lennon for Halloween and I got extra candy.”
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.
www.dailyherald.com
Ahead of Naperville appearance, Peter Asher shares his long and winding road with The Beatles
Katlyn Smith
Tuesday 01/14/2020
John Lennon, George Harrison, Peter Asher and George Martin in Studio Two at EMI Studios. Asher is coming to Naperville Wednesday night to talk about his new book, "The Beatles From A to Zed: An Alphabetical Mystery Tour."Courtesy of Keith Putney Productions
Peter Asher always was
the exception to a hard-and-fast rule: If you spent any time with The Beatles,
you had to write a book.
Groupies, roadies, nearly everyone associated with the band has written
about the Fab Four.
Asher is just as much a Beatles insider, with an
overlapping career that has taken him here, there and everywhere. He had hit
records in the 1960s as half of the pop duo Peter and Gordon. He lived with
Paul McCartney in the early days when Paul was dating Asher's sister and helped
start Apple Records.
But Asher shied away from book offers until a
publisher approached him with an idea inspired by his weekly hosting gig on the
Beatles channel for SiriusXM radio.
The result is Asher's "The Beatles From A to Zed: An Alphabetical
Mystery Tour." It isn't a memoir, but a guide using letters of the
alphabet as jumping-off points into the Beatles universe.
"I'm writing about music as much as I am,
or more in fact, than I am about people and places and things, and I enjoy
that," Asher said.
On Wednesday, he'll be in Naperville to talk about the
book at 7 p.m. at Anderson's Bookshop. Before the visit, Asher spoke with the
Daily Herald about his memories of John, Paul, George and Ringo.
Q: What was Beatlemania like from your perspective?
A: Peter and Gordon certainly experienced a mini
version of it as we all did because, particularly in America, the British
Invasion became sort of conflated as one big thing. I think in reality it was
90% the Beatles and 10% the rest of us put together in the sense that the
Beatles opened the door -- not to diminish the contribution of terrific bands
like The Kinks and the Stones and the genuinely important bands of the British
Invasion.
Q: You got to know McCartney through your sister,
Jane, an actress and his muse. He spent so much time at your parents' house,
they let him use the guest room for a couple of years as his London residence.
How did your parents deal with fans?
A: There was a time that the fan buildup outside the
house got a bit much, and my father, who's a brilliant and quite eccentric man,
enjoyed the challenge of finding a way for Paul to get out of the house ... And
there was a way over two roofs and out through a neighbor's house who
collaborated in the scheme.
Q: You co-owned the Indica art gallery where John
Lennon and Yoko Ono met in 1966. Do you get blamed for that from Beatles fans?
A: I do get blamed. We're on the road now doing shows,
and a couple of nights in Cleveland, when I told that story ... somebody in the
audience did in fact yell out, "It's you! You broke up the Beatles!"
I had to explain that I politely rejected that theory.
Q: At Apple Records, the label founded by the Beatles,
you discovered James Taylor and signed him to his first record deal. What was
it like for him to meet the band?
A. He played me his tape, and I went crazy and told
him how wonderful I thought it was and explained that I got this new job as
head of A & R for Apple and I could sign people and "would you like a
record deal?" And he said, "Yes please, I'd love one," and I
didn't really think through how odd it must be because there were probably a
lot of Americans jumping on planes, going, "I'm going to go to London and
meet The Beatles." Oh sure you are.
In James' case, that wasn't even the reason for the
trip, but within days I had him in the office meeting them and playing a couple
of songs for George and Paul, I think.
In the song, 'Carolina In My Mind,' there's a
reference to a "a holy host of others standin' around me," and that
is a reference to The Beatles.
Q: Taylor wrote "Something in the Way She
Moves." George Harrison's "Something" has the same line. Was
Taylor bothered by that?
A: Obviously, there's a point where you may initially
kind of go, "Oh look, he stole a bit of a song." But he certainly
wasn't upset and, in a way, was flattered that George had fallen in love with
the song enough that the lyric stuck in George's head.
Q: As a producer and manager, what were your fondest
memories when you were trying to find the right arrangement, and you nailed it?
A: I think those moments would actually be sort of the
hits. "You're No Good" with Linda Ronstadt, when Andrew Gold, who was
a genius musician, and I came up with the final arrangement idea for that song.
We felt very good about it ..."Fire and Rain," another hit, same
thing.
We were working on the drum fills with Russ Kunkel,
which he worked out at my house. We played them with brushes partly because it
would be too loud with sticks. It would have gotten in the way of the fact that
we were rehearsing with just a piano and neighbors and all that.
And the brushes sounded so good, we tried it in the
studio, and other than the brilliance of the song, and James' singing of
course, I think those drum fills are one of the things that make that
particular arrangement so clever.
Q: An enduring Beatles question: What's going on in
"Norwegian Wood?"
A: The end of the song is arson. I keep getting people
going, "No, no he's just going to light a fire in the fireplace or have a
cigarette or smoke a joint" or all kinds of explanations. No. The idea is
that he's (angry) and he's going to set fire to this woman's house.
"Norwegian Wood," Paul says, is a reference
to paneling I put in my bedroom, but I can't remember putting up paneling. I
did put some shelves up that were sort of white pine ... It's a John song
mostly, anyway, but I think Paul contributed the wood factor and John probably
contributed the arson.
Q: What were their personalities really like?
A: The cliché Beatles descriptions, of course, like
all cliches, are based in reality. Paul is the friendly, diplomatic one. George
was the quiet one. John didn't brook disagreement. Ringo was the one everyone's
kids and mothers loved and was the funniest.
... The Beatles, through some magical confluence of
circumstances, like the perfect storm, formed a group with personalities that
provide someone for everybody to be in love with, and everybody was.
If you go
What: Peter Asher, a British guitarist, manager, record
producer, and one half of the pop duo Peter and Gordon, promotes his book,
"The Beatles From A to Zed: An Alphabetical Mystery Tour"
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Anderson's Bookshop, 123 W. Jefferson Ave., Naperville
Cost: Free admission, but book purchase required to enter the book-signing
line.
Info: (630) 355-2665 or andersonsbookshop.com
