Peter Asher tells stories ahead of The Fixx and Zombies singer Blunstone
From lending Paul McCartney his family’s piano to write “I Want To Hold Your Hand” to discovering James Taylor and later staking his career on the future star, to later producing Linda Ronstadt and helping turn Laurel Canyon into a sound as well as a place, Peter Asher has earned a nickname in rock history: Everywhere Man.
Gratefully, the 82-year-old Asher loves to talk about his time as a performer, producer, manager, record company executive and A&R man. At an upcoming Tupelo Music Hall appearance he’ll tell stories and play songs he made with Peter & Gordon like “World Without Love” and “I Go To Pieces,” along with others he helped bring to life.
The Sept. 8 show touches on three separate rock eras: the 1960s British Invasion that Asher helped launch, and the rush of acts that came after, which included The Zombies; their lead singer, Colin Blunstone, is on the bill. Finally, New Wave is represented by The Fixx, who had hits like “Red Sky At Night” and “One Thing Leads To Another.”
As to how the trio of acts ended up touring together, Asher doesn’t have a tidy answer.
“We hope it fits,” he said. “It wasn’t my idea … by the time it reached me, someone was saying, ‘What do you think about this?’ and I went, ‘That sounds pretty cool — and odd.’” Rehearsals were due to start a few days after the interview.
Blunstone will play a solo set drawing on “She’s Not There,” “Time of the Season” and his early ’70s solo album One Year. The Fixx headlines, with the Reach the Beach catalog that made them MTV stars. Asher hasn’t seen them live until now. “I remember the records, and obviously the hits most of all,” he said. “I’m very excited about it.”
He and Blunstone have crossed paths, appearing on the same British television shows when both had hits in the ’60s, but this 19-date tour is their first together.
“I was a big fan of the Zombies,” Asher said. “Their songs are great, but also [Blunstone’s] voice is spectacularly good. I heard him sing not that long ago, and he sounded amazing.”
Asher’s set is divided between music and stories, the latter with plenty of sidebars.
“I often apologize for digressing too much on stage,” he said, but he receives the deference due to his vaunted history. “When I talk to the audience, they always kind of go, no, go ahead, digress — we’re interested.”
Some stories are never too old to tell, like the one about “You’ve Got a Friend,” famously poached from Carole King by James Taylor for Sweet Baby James after he saw her do it at L.A.’s Troubadour. Recently the story got an update, when King revealed that she’d written it in response to Taylor’s “Fire and Rain.”
“We had no idea,” Asher said, recalling the lyric that sparked King. “‘I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend’ … Carole was basically saying, ‘No, you can find one. I’m here.’ Which changes the song immensely. When things like that happen, you go, ‘Wow, that’s a key improvement on the original story.’”
Peter & Gordon’s initial smash also makes for a fun yarn. McCartney wrote “World Without Love” solo and Lennon hated it. “John thought the opening line ‘Please lock me away’ was a ridiculous way to start a song, so I asked Paul if we could have it, and he said yes,” Asher recalled. “The Beatles were never going to record it.”
McCartney lived in the Asher family home at the time and was engaged to Peter’s sister Jane. Asher dismissed the idea that songs were a form of rent on his London room.
“They were fans of Lieber & Stoller, Mann & Weil, Goffin & King,” he said. “They didn’t think it was giving away songs … [it was] one of the roles they wanted to play.”
When Peter & Gordon’s first hit bumped “Can’t Buy Me Love” from the top of the charts, it delighted McCartney. “Eventually someone’s going to replace you at No. 1 because it’s an inevitable fact,” he told a journalist who’d asked if he was annoyed at being displaced. “It might as well be a song that you wrote. You’re still making money.”
Asher talks about moving to the U.S. solely based on his belief in an unknown Taylor — “I bet my career on James entirely with confidence” — and insisting, against the norms of the era, that Ronstadt’s own ideas about her music be taken seriously, rather than managed around.
The latter notion set Asher apart almost as much as his golden ear, and it helped give the world Heart Like A Wheel.
“She was allegedly ‘difficult’ for an artist, which only meant that she kind of insisted on things, or at least that her point of view and her ideas for a song be considered,” he said. “Some people thought it was their job to make those decisions for her … my instinct was that it was my job to make her decisions work.”
The Fixx, Colin Blunstone of The Zombies, and Peter Asher’s Songs & Stories
When: Tuesday, Sept. 8, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Tupelo Music Hall, 10 A St., Derry
Tickets: $75 and up at tupelohall.com
Featured photo: Courtesy photo.
