Peter Asher's Life, in Concert

Songs and Stories, at My Father's Place in Roslyn, NY. June 29, 2025

It's not often that you see a show by an 81-year-old musician, who could have been a near-forgotten relic of the 1960s British Invasion, who could hold the stage for two hours of first-rate entertainment.

Peter Asher, first known as half of the soft-rock duo Peter & Gordon, has lived no ordinary life. Starting in 1964 with hits such as "A World Without Love" (written by Paul McCartney, whose presence is so essential that he could have been called "the third Peter & Gordon); "I Go to Pieces" (written by Del Shannon of "Runaway" fame); Buddy Holly's "True Love Ways"; and a trifle I had forgotten called "Lady Godiva," the act broke up in 1968. Asher's partner, Gordon Waller, died in 2009 at age 64. Not only did they remain on good terms: Asher did a tribute to Waller, using photographs and film stills, as part of his show at My Father’s Place yesterday afternoon.

Peter Asher, 81, telling tales and singing songs at My Father’s Place, Roslyn, NY, June 29, 2025. Photo by Maureen Picard Robins.

The storytelling, full of almost Pythonesque self-deprecation, was about half the show. The rest was music, played and sung by Asher with a full band of two guitars, bass, keyboard, and a fiddle/mandolin player, with harmony singing that complemented Asher, still in fine voice. There were plenty of tributes, especially to the duo that influenced them most: the Everly Brothers, who most certainly did not split on good terms. They weren't even speaking to each other when they were together. Asher said the Everlys were Peter & Gordon's greatest musical influence.

"We idolized them," he said from the stage. He thought it odd that they always began their shows entering from different sides of the stage, and later discovered that they left performances in different cars and stayed in separate hotels, because "they couldn't stand each other." Asher, perhaps wanting to condense the show, sang as his Everly Bros. song their minor 1962 hit "Crying in the Rain." It was meant to also recognize Carole King, though I don't believe he noted that her co-writer was not her partner Gerry Goffin, but Howard Greenfield, best known as Neil Sedaka's lyricist. A case of early Brill Building musical chairs, I guess. I was hoping Asher and band would do the Everlys’ "Bird Dog," or at least the very suitable "All I Have to Do is Dream."

The show opened with film clips and an announcer in the film reeling off Asher's accomplishments, and there were many. After Peter & Gordon's career ended, Asher became A&R head of the Beatles' Apple Records, where his essential signing was James Taylor. Because the Beatles were having their own difficulties, Taylor's Apple Records debut underachieved. Asher moved to Los Angeles, and produced and managed Taylor through the the golden years of "Sweet Baby James," and well as Linda Ronstadt through her most productive years, and managed Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and Randy Newman, among many others. He was named a Commander of the British Empire (to be brief about it), or C.B.E., by Queen Elizabeth in 2015.

After the short video bio, the singer added in sotto voce, self-deprecatingly as possible, if that's possible, [he] "shagged Marianne Faithfull."

Peter and his sisters Jane and Clare had all been successful actors in British movies from childhood. He was featured in the 1952 film "Outpost in Malaya" aka "The Planter's Wife," as the son of stars Jack Hawkins and Claudette Colbert. If I'd chatted with Asher, I would have asked if he had shagged Claudette Colbert, as they are shown doing mommy and child hugging and kissing in the film clip that was shown. It might have been inappropriate, as Asher was just eight at the time.

The still red-headed Asher had plenty of material to work with besides his own duo’s material. He acknowledged his upper class family background, attending the Westminster School (as in Westminster Abbey). His mother played oboe, his dad was a doctor who played piano, and the family grew up performing Gilbert & Sullivan material at home. In a paper in a 1951 issue of the British medical journal The Lancet, Dr. Richard Asher was the first to name the psychiatric malady "Munchausen's Syndrome" and "Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy," in which a parent projects their ailments on to another, often a child, for sympathy and attention.

If you know anything about the Asher family, though, it is probably through Jane
Asher, the actress, model, and girlfriend of Paul McCartney when the Beatles became stars. And yes, Asher had Beatles stories. He and McCartney had adjoining bedrooms for two years in the Asher family home when McCartney, already dating Jane, a TV celebrity in her own right, needed a place to live when the Beatles moved from Liverpool to London.

McCartney had a piano in the basement of the house and according to Asher, John Lennon came over one day for a writing session. Two hours later, they invited him down to hear the tune they had just knocked out: "I Want to Hold Your Hand."

At other times, even then, McCartney and Lennon wrote separately, but the songs were always credited to the duo, Lennon-McCartney. One of those early tunes by McCartney was "World Without Love," Peter & Gordon's first number one song. The song ended the show as an audience singalong, but there was an interesting reason the Beatles did not keep it for themselves.

The opening line is "Please, lock me away." Lennon disliked that line, and whenever Paul would play it for John, Lennon would interrupt and say something like "I'm gonna lock you away." Beginning their career with a number one record had its pluses and minuses. It's a great start, Asher said, but he then suffered some anxiety about being a "one-hit wonder."

He need not have worried.

Honor roll supporters: Jamie Nicholson, Peter Himmelman, the Pitt-Stoller Family