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