← All Of It with Alison Stewart
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- [00:00]
Narrator/Announcer
All of it is supported by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In a small groundbreaking clinical trial, 100% of participants with a specific type of rectal cancer saw their tumors disappear using immunotherapy alone. Researchers at MSK are now studying this approach in cancers of the stomach, liver and more, and a majority of tumors are disappearing. For MSK Giving day, all gifts will be tripled. Learn more@msk.org all of it WNYC Studios is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at o d o o.com that's o d o o.com.
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Alison Stewart
This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart. Juneteenth is this Friday and on all of it, we'll be marking the day with two key civil rights figures. First, we'll speak to David Greenberg, author of the book John A Life. We'll talk about all the good trouble he made from the marches in Selma to the halls of Congress. And we'll talk about Constance Baker Motley, who worked on the argument against school segregation that was went before the Supreme Court and went on to become the first black woman to serve as a federal judge. We'll dive into the book Civil Rights Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality with author Tameka Brown Nagin. That's all for Friday. Juneteenth. Now let's get this hour started with music. Okay, everybody out there who remembers this song?
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Song Performer
Please lock me away and don't allow the day here inside where I hide with my loveliness.
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Alison Stewart
That's a World Without Love by Peter and Gordon, a duo that was part of the British invasion in the 1960s. The song went to number one on the charts and it was written by Paul McCartney. The Beatle gave away the song because 1 John Lennon didn't like and because 2 Paul McCartney had a personal relationship with Peter and Gordon. Paul was dating Peter's sister Jane. The Peter in question is Peter Asher. Asher went on to become a Grammy Award winning producer. He was known for putting together great bands that shaped music as well as working with James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, 10,000 Maniacs and more. A new documentary tells the story of Peter Asher from his childhood as an actor in London to becoming a Grammy winning producer and collaborator with some of the greatest music. It's called Peter Asher Everywhere Man. It's opening at the Quad tomorrow and expanding nationwide on June 19th. With me now are co directors Dan Geller and Dana Goldfine. It's nice to meet you both.
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Dan Geller
Thank you so much for having us.
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Alison Stewart
Thank you.
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Dana Goldfine
Thank you for having us.
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Alison Stewart
So Peter told the Guardian last week that he didn't exactly say no to the documentary at first, but he wasn't exactly eager to talk. Dan, why was he hesitant?
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Dan Geller
He is a. An interesting combination of an extrovert because he has a cabaret show, a musical memoir, which is part of our movie. He was a huge pop star, a child actor, but at the same time he is modest and does not like to call attention to himself in a kind of bragging ego way. And so when we approached him, part of what he said was, well, why would anyone really be interested in a movie about. And then he also went on to say that he knew we were making a movie at the time called Hallelujah. Leonard Cohen, A Journey, a song. We were in the middle of editing that and he said, and I quote, I know Leonard Cohen and that's good in my view.
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Alison Stewart
So how did you get him to. Yes, Dana?
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Dana Goldfine
You know, it wasn't that he ever said no. It was more that he was bemused. And I think part of it is, you know, he's a very demure in lots of ways, British gentleman of a certain era. So he was open to it. He really was open to it. But I think he didn't want to seem like he was jumping on it. And so it wasn't that hard to ultimately twist his little arm into doing it.
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Alison Stewart
This documentary is shaped around this show that he does, Dan. It's part music, it's part memoir. He tells stories about the past. What about that show interested you?
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Dan Geller
He is a charming, compelling storyteller and a storyteller who also communicates his own sense of amazement of how incredible his life has unfolded. I mean, he hadn't really gone looking for a lot of these things, but when they presented themselves as opportunities, he was able to understand what it could give him, the ride that he could take and the people he could start to work with. So it's to have a charming storyteller, a sense of presence because it's live, obviously we recorded it, and someone who is self aware enough to make this story charming to an audience and not a brag fest. I thought that's a really interesting way to limn someone's life rather than just talk about how great, how great how great someone is.
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Dana Goldfine
And I'd also say sort of the gobsmacking nature of the show. You know, the first time I think I saw it a few years before Dan did and I was given a ticket to go see it by Linda Ronstadt's housemate. I went because I wanted to meet Linda. I knew nothing about Peter Asher. Literally five minutes into his cabaret show, which he had just started doing. I, I can't believe Dan's not here because we always make films together. And it was so clearly, potentially at least a documentary waiting to be made again, just one jaw dropping moment after another and each one making you lean forward and want to know more about whatever it was that Peter was talking about.
- [06:36]
Alison Stewart
We are discussing a new documentary about Grammy winning musician and producer Peter Asher. It's called Peter Everywhere man, opening at the Quad tomorrow and expanding nationwide on June 19th. My guests are co director Dan Geller and Dana Goldfine. We'd also like to hear from you. Are you a Peter Asher fan? Do you remember listening to Peter and Gordon back in the day? 212-433-969-2212, wnyc, and this is New York. You might have worked with Peter Asher. So if you did, give us a call at 212-433-969-2212, wnyc. Let's go back to the beginning, Dan. Peter was a child actor along with his sisters Jane and Claire. They were described as three redheads with great promise. How did he end up being a child actor?
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Dan Geller
Because he was being pushed in a pram with his two sisters. I think they might have been walking, but they were very young. And his mother was accosted by a talent agent who thought, well, this could be an interesting little casting setup potentially. And the red hair, the red hair,
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Alison Stewart
they had crazy red hair.
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Dan Geller
And that was it. And Peter's mother, who was an exceptional woman, was a professor of oboe at the Royal Academy of Music and actually also an oboe performer in orchestras. She was open to it. I mean, it's sort of, I see the lineage there of just let's be open to something and see where it takes us. And so they were featured in a little casting directory advertisement, which was in black and white, so it had to say all over it, but that's how it started. And they were good, and Jane Asher especially was good and pursued it into an enormous career as an actor. And that's the whole McCartney connection.
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Dana Goldfine
And I have to say, Peter's very first acting role was with Claudette Colbert. So it's like he kind of started at the top.
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Alison Stewart
He met Gordon Waller when he went to school. How did they. How did they meet?
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Dana Goldfine
You know, the way Peter tells it, and Gordon, I've heard him say this when he was alive, I heard him say the same thing. They were both at this boys school in London called Westminster. And most of the boys there were pretty serious. And, you know, it was one of those schools where you wear suits as a, you know, first year student and the Queen might come to visit, but each of them noticed the other carrying guitars. And I think it was that light bulb moment when I think they looked across, I don't know, the school courtyard or something and said, who is that other boy with a guitar? And then they noticed that their voices harmonized together.
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Alison Stewart
What made them good musical partners.
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Dan Geller
They are, as John Dunbar, who is part of this whole story, an art gallerist and then some. He called them Chalk and Cheese. They look entirely different, short and tall. And Peter Effervest and Gordon Moody and a big drinker. But I think Dana touched upon this. The combination of their two voices made for something that was actually really beautiful. So you can have a singing partner, but there's some resonance that happens in the great singing combos. And I think that's what attracted them to each other, along with a common love of the Everly Brothers. If you have the same musical interest and musical taste, you're then more likely to form a lasting duo.
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Alison Stewart
When you think about them in their career, at their height, how popular were Peter and Gordon?
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Dana Goldfine
They were number one. I mean, they literally, with World Without Love, again written by Paul McCartney, they knocked the Beatles off the charts. And much to everyone's dismay, you know, much, much to the Beatles potential dismay. Although, as Paul says in the film, you know, it's our song, so as long as it's one of our songs, it's fine with me. But people were very bemused and it went to number one all around the world, including in the US.
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Alison Stewart
So explain how Paul McCartney wrote a song that Peter and Gordon ended up singing.
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Dan Geller
So Jane Asher was a contest or a panelist on a show called Hit or Miss, where they would look at the week's new singles and then the little panel of celebrities would predict if it's a hit or a miss. And so she was getting known as an actor, a young actor, and as a panelist. And they sent her backstage, a music person, a Music person. And so they sent her backstage to cover one of the first big concerts from this band that had just come down from Liverpool and met them backstage. And as Peter says, she liked all of them. All of them liked her. One of them liked her in particular, and that's McCartney. And they really formed an intense relationship. As Paul says, he made strenuous efforts to become her girlfriend. The family decided that Paul, who did not want to live in, I think, the dump that the rest of the Beatles had rented in London, that Paul was interested in the Asher family. Paul was fascinated by their cultural inheritance. And so they offered him a spare bedroom across from Peter's bedroom.
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Caller Steve
And.
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Dan Geller
And that's when Peter knew about a World Without Love, had heard Paul monkeying around, knew that John Lennon didn't prefer the song for a Beatles catalog. And so they began a quest to say, could you please finish the song? Because it didn't have a middle eight.
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Alison Stewart
It's so interesting. I don't know if you remember, if you saw the Brooklyn Museum had a show of Paul McCartney's photographs from 63 to 64, and you meet a lot of the Ashers.
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Dan Geller
Yes.
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Alison Stewart
It hit me as I was watching the film, like, wait, that's Jane Asher, who's in those photos that took over the Brooklyn Museum?
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Dana Goldfine
Well, in fact, the years that he lived with the Ashers, which was three years. And if you think about it. So he met Jane in, I think, the fall of. Or Spring of 63. He moved in with the Ashers that fall, stayed there for three years. And I think at that moment, Jane was almost more well known than the Beatles. It's probably blasphemy to say that right now, but she was a very famous actress. And I think the two of them became, you know, the talk of the town. They went out together, and he was very much a part of that family, which is incredibly artistic. It was just. They were really formative years for him.
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Alison Stewart
Let's talk to Peter. I mean, Steve calling from Armont. Hey, Steve, thanks for calling, all of it.
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Caller Steve
Hey, Alison. This is amazing, because I have to tell you, this guy. If you were gonna do, like, a rock and roll version, Forrest Gump or something like something like that, I think that. That Peter Ash would have to be at the top of the list for guys, and it wouldn't. You wouldn't have to superimpose. I mean, you. It would be true. Which is wild. That's the wild part of it. Never and never mind. You know what? In the. You know, when. When Linda Ronstadt was Knocking out all that incredible music in the 70s and everything. You know, his name is on all, you know, Peter Ash. I'm like, is that the guy from Peter and Gord?
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Alison Stewart
Thank you for calling in. You bet. You laugh at his description of him as a character from Forrest Gump.
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Dana Goldfine
Totally. Well, but you know what I always say so initially upon watching his show, that was my thought. It's like, wow, if there was ever a Forrest Gump walking the earth, this is Peter Asher. Then the more you get into it, the more you realize that unlike Forrest Gump, Peter was an active participant in all of these movements. So, you know, he wasn't just on the outside of the British Invasion, he was right in the center of it all. He wasn't just on the outside looking in at the incredible swinging 60s in London. He opened an art gallery and a bookstore. And then he moves to Laurel Canyon. And he's not again on the outside. He's sitting there in the Troubadour with James Taylor with, you know, Linda Ronstadt.
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Alison Stewart
While we're on the subject, halfway through the film and I'm looking at it, and I said, is there a movie based on him? Is he. And then you bring up Mike Myers. Was he indeed the archetype for Mike Myers?
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Dan Geller
Everything we've been told, although we haven't directly asked, Mike Myers is, yes, he was the archetype for Austin Powers. Not in his aspect of, shall we say, lunacy and sexual proclivities and spying, but in terms of the wardrobe, the hair, the glasses, and then the teeth. And he doesn't have those teeth anymore. He's got those fixed up a bit.
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Alison Stewart
We're discussing the new documentary about Grammy Award winning musician and producer Peter Asher. It's called Peter Everywhere Man. We're speaking with its co directors Dan Geller and Dana Goldfein. We'd also like to hear from you. Are you a Peter Asher fan? Do you remember listening to Peter and Gordon back in the day? Or if you happen to work with Peter Ashard, we'd love to know. Our number is 2124-3396-9221-2433. WNYC. We'll have more after a quick break. You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. We're discussing the new film Peter Asher, Everywhere man, opening at the Quad Tom, expanding nationwide until June 19th. It's about Peter Asher. My guests are co directors Dan Geller and Dana Goldfein. We got a text here that says, I was a teenager during the peak Beatlemania, all of these people, Peter. Peter and Gordon, they were everywhere. Especially teenage magazines.
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Dana Goldfine
Absolutely. I think we probably have some archival materials which are made up of those teenage magazines. It was incredible.
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Alison Stewart
Now, when did Peter and Gordon decide, no more, we're going to break up?
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Dan Geller
It evolved, as Peter said. There wasn't a definite moment where they just said, okay, we're done. They drifted apart. Gordon wanted to make a record on his own and do a little more rock and roll rather than the pop folk. Peter, the first time he went into EMI Studios, which we now know as Abbey Road Studios, and to record and saw these musicians and then a producer and thought, this is amazing. This is what I want to do. So he always had his eye on producing records and working with musicians that way. And so the drifting apart was organic, I would say. But there was never any moment where they had a big breakup or anything like that.
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Alison Stewart
He went to become a head of A and R at Apple Records. How successful was he, Dana?
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Dana Goldfine
At Apple? Yeah, well, if you look at the first person he signed, it was an unknown singer songwriter, actually, from America, ironically, because it was also. The first person signed by Apple Records was James Taylor. And, you know, basically James Taylor came knocking on his door. It's a really interesting story. I don't want to give away too much because it all comes up in the film. But, you know, Peter had these ears that were instantly obvious so he could hear this young kind of rough and tumble singer songwriter from America with a little demo tape and realize that maybe other people would fall in love with that sound as well.
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Alison Stewart
James Taylor, what did he tell you in your interview with him about the influence that Peter Asher had on his sound, had it on his career.
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Dan Geller
It's an interesting moment because both Peter and James, in analyzing that record that they made at Apple, felt like it was primitive, it was raw, and as Peter put it over, orchestrated. He didn't want people to look at James like just another folkie. He wanted to embellish it orchestrally and it got in the way of the songs and warmly reviewed, but didn't do all that well. And when Apple record was starting to crack open and fall apart and James went back to the States to actually to get into some rehab because he was a heroin addict, Peter decided leave Apple. Let's give it another shot. Let's find a record label for James and this time produced with incredible musicians and let the basically the singing artist and the guitar artist move forward, put that at the center of the recording. And that was brilliant. And it's something that Peter carries through. He had a number one hit with Luffay and Barbra Streisand a year ago. Summer. Listen to the artist, get that feeling of what are they trying to say and do, and then frame the musicians around them so that they can communicate to an audience or listenership in a way that really honors that person's talent.
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Alison Stewart
And they created Sweet Baby James.
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Dana Goldfine
They created Sweet Baby James. And the other thing that I think, Peter, again, he's got these amazing ears, and he can. He's open enough to envision, based on those ears, a musician or a singer, songwriter in a different role than maybe they've been in. So Peter heard the demo tapes of Carole King, a young Carole King who was playing piano and writing songs in the Brill Building. And Peter saw through his brilliant ears that maybe she could actually come off that, come out of the Brill Building and do piano behind James Taylor. He just saw her voice and her musicianship possibly working brilliantly with James. So he kind of brought her into that role. Yeah.
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Alison Stewart
Let's listen to Fire and Rain off of Sweet Baby James.
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Song Performer
Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone Suzanne, the plans they made put an end to you
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Narrator/Announcer
I
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Song Performer
walked out this morning and I wrote down this song. I just can't remember who to send it to. I've seen fire and I've seen rain I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end I seen lonely times When I could not find a friend But I always thought that I'd see
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Alison Stewart
you again Any excuse to play James Taylor. We're talking about Peter Asher everywhere, man. I'm speaking to its co directors Dan Geller and Dana Goldfine. This text says, mom, Bart bought Heart Like a Wheel for her five children. She and Peter brought Linda Ronstadt's voice into our lives. Nuff said. Thanks, Peter. Linda Ronstadt. That was an interesting story about how he ended up working with her, because he didn't initially, right?
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Dan Geller
He said, yes. And then about a week later, said to Linda, I can't do this. Because he was putting together Kate Taylor's career as a producer and as a manager. James sister Kate Taylor. And he thought it would be unfair to try to develop both of them at once. There was enough of an overlap, and it was crushing to Linda. She really had had her hopes up. She had been managed, I would say, ineffectively, before she really needed a new manager. And when Peter did come back around because Kate Taylor decided this life wasn't for her, at that moment, she was so young, she sensed she was going down the wrong path. I think she sensed that it would not be healthy for her. And so that's when Kate said to Linda, give Peter a call again.
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Alison Stewart
What did Peter Ascher see in Linda Ronstadt that maybe the average person wouldn't have seen at the time?
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Dana Goldfine
I think he saw something that everyone saw. I think he just. What he says in the film is because Linda had been performing for about eight years and she'd had a hit, but then she was kind of fumpering along, and she, you know, would sometimes do country and sometimes do rock. And I think the world wants you to be known for one thing. And also, she's gorgeous. Both, you know, her voice and her physicality and really opinionated. And I think people weren't listening to her. And one of the things that I find most moving, the moments in the film that I find most moving is Peter says it's not when people give me credit for, quote, unquote, discovering Linda Ronstadt or being a genius around Linda Ronstadt. It's like really all it was was listening to Linda, and no one had done that.
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Alison Stewart
I thought that was very interesting. That was one of my favorite moments in the film, that he just listened to her. You have to think of the time, yes, she was just a pretty girl, and she can sing. Go over there, little girl, and sing. And he said, wait a minute, listen to the artist.
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Dan Geller
And when he says she's brilliant, he's meaning well beyond just brilliant musically. We've gotten to be friends with Linda over the years, fellow San Francisco resident, and have been over at her house and had brunches and dinners. And she is extraordinarily bright, interested in everything, a reader, a phenomenal reader. So it's. I think. I mean, she's absolutely gorgeous. Still is. But I think in the day, because she looked so disarmingly beautiful, they weren't giving her the kind of credit as a brilliant mind that she deserved. And Peter did.
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Dana Goldfine
And I mean, really, as a woman, even today, how many times do we feel not listened to? So every single time that that sequence comes up, I don't care how many times I've watched it. And the background music is an instrumental version of Long, Long Time, which makes me cry anyway. But I always get tears in my eyes when Peter says, really the most brilliant thing I did was listen to Linda.
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Alison Stewart
I was curious about Peter's ability to be in a world full of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Primarily drugs. We knew that James Taylor had a heroin addiction. He Talks about engaging in certain behaviors, but it didn't take him down. After watching it, why do you think he was able to survive?
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Dan Geller
He's pretty self controlled. He's pretty wound tight is the truth too. When he's off stage, he's deep in his own mind and just very intense. But I think fortunately just doesn't have an addictive personality. And that combined with his self control and I think seeing the damage that was being done around him, knowing how difficult that is. And then there's a thread through the movie about his first wife, Betsy Asher, who is very much a business partner and an artistic partner with Peter. And she did succumb to to drug addiction at a terrible cost and a cost to Peter's own well being. You can see it in the movie. He gets physically uncomfortable when asked about this.
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Alison Stewart
Yeah, that was kind of interesting. He sort of does not want to talk about that part of his life. Why was that important for you, Dana, to include in the film?
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Dana Goldfine
Well, many reasons. One, a lot of people don't know about how important Betsy Asher was that, you know, 13 year period that they were together. First of all, they met and she was already in the music business, right. And she introduced him, he introduced her maybe to the British Invasion and she introduced him to the Village Sound and the Folkies and they really became kind of partners in terms of their musical ears meshing. And you know, you see her in the archival stills with the James Taylor group and you know, they all hung out in their house. So it was important to tell that story. And then, you know, also Peter didn't. It wasn't all, you know, roses and happiness like no life is. And we felt like it was really important to not gloss over some of the downs that someone like Peter always have in their lives. And Betsy was one of the ups and one of the downs.
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Alison Stewart
The name of the documentary is Peter Everywhere man. It's opening at the Quad tomorrow and expanding nationwide on June 19th. Thank you to Dan Geller and Dana Goldfine. Thank you for being with us.
- [27:51]
Dan Geller
Thank you, Alison.
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Dana Goldfine
Oh, it was so much fun. Thank you.
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