Concert Review: Peter Asher at the Dakota Jazz Club: "A Musical Memoir of the 1960's and Beyond"

Peter Asher at the Dakota Jazz Club, Minneapolis, January 14, 2020. (Photo taken by my better half.)

Peter Asher and Gordon Waller, 1960's.

Last week my wife and I saw Peter Asher at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis. He was performing his show, “A Musical Memoir of the 60’s and Beyond.” I’ve seen Asher perform this show twice before, once in 2012 and again in 2017. I also saw Asher perform at the Dakota with Albert Lee last summer. (However, I missed seeing him and Lee open for Leo Kottke at the Guthrie in November.) 

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Peter Asher, I’ll give you a brief rundown on his musical career. Asher was part of a successful pop duo, Peter & Gordon, with his schoolmate Gordon Waller. Peter & Gordon scored 10 Top 40 singles in the US, including the number one smash “A World Without Love,” and the top ten hits “I Go to Pieces” and “Lady Godiva.” After Peter & Gordon split up, Asher moved into record production, becoming head of A&R at the Beatles’ Apple Records. Asher discovered a talented young American singer/songwriter. Asher became this guy’s manager and produced his first album for Apple Records. His name? James Taylor. Asher also managed Linda Ronstadt, and has been one of the most in-demand record producers since the 1970’s. He has twice won the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year. 

Asher may not be a household name himself, but he has connections with anyone who’s anyone in music. In his show, he tells his life story, and how he went from child actor to pop star to mega-producer. Peter & Gordon mixed many different musical influences, and they were originally envisioned as a sort of folk duo. But while recording their first album, they came in with “A World Without Love,” a Lennon/McCartney song that the Beatles weren’t going to record. How did this unknown vocal duo score such a coup? Well, Paul McCartney, the song’s author, happened to be dating Jane Asher, an up-and-coming young actress who happened to be Peter’s sister. Asher had heard McCartney play the song and asked him if he and Gordon could record it. McCartney said sure, and after some badgering by Asher, finished off the bridge of the song “in something like seven minutes,” according to Asher. “A World Without Love” went to Number One in both the UK and the US, and it was the first British Invasion single by a group other than the Beatles to hit the top spot in the US. 

Asher was involved in many other Beatle-related adventures during the 1960’s, including the Indica bookstore and art gallery. Asher helped organize a show at the Indica art gallery in November of 1966. It was a show by a Japanese American artist named Yoko Ono. And, of course, it was at a party for the opening of this exhibit that Yoko met a certain Beatle named John. 

If you’ve listened to Asher’s radio show From Me to You, on the Beatles’ Sirius XM channel, you know that Peter Asher is a highly engaging storyteller, and his tales are full of British self-deprecating humor. I’ve listened to Asher’s show a lot, partly because I’m a huge Beatles fan, and because my 5-year-old son only wants to listen to the Beatles every time he’s in the car. Asher even addresses his physical appearance in the 1960’s being an influence on Austin Powers’ signature look. (Red hair, thick Buddy Holly glasses, bad teeth.) I also appreciated that at the end of the show Asher made a plug for contemporary music—he basically said, there’s still lots of good music being made today. I appreciated hearing that coming from a 75-year-old who has been in the music industry since 1964. The point of his show isn’t to tell us about how wonderful everything was back in the day, and how everything now is just crap. 

On a slight digression, I think it’s amazing how much the music and culture of the 1960’s is still with us today, 50 years after that decade ended. Sure, that’s partly due to the continuing influence of the Baby Boomer generation on pop culture. But think about how prevalent the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan, to name just three artists, are in pop culture today. Now think about going back 50 years into the past, and if the same thing were happening then. It would be as if the musical stars of the 1910’s were still household names in the 1960’s. That wasn’t the case. It’s remarkable that this music has lasted for so long. Obviously, it’s a testament to the quality of that music, but I think it’s fascinating how this music and culture has survived and thrived through the decades. 

Back to the show! Asher performed with Jeff Alan Ross on piano and Jennifer Jo Oberle on bass guitar. They did a great job of making the songs sound good. I didn’t miss not having drums at all. Ross, a former touring member of Badfinger, got a solo spot when he sang the group’s lovely song “Day After Day.” Oberle soloed on “Blue Bayou,” the Roy Orbison song that Linda Ronstadt had a big hit with, and she did a great job, offering up a soulful vocal. 

If you go see Peter Asher, be warned that there’s a lot of talking in between the songs, and he doesn’t really play that many songs during the evening. Still, you’ll get to hear some great Peter & Gordon songs and some fantastic stories. The show we saw was the last one of the tour, and Asher held court for about 2 ½ hours!

Concert Review: Peter Asher and Albert Lee at the Dakota Jazz Club

Peter Asher

Albert Lee

On Wednesday night, I saw Peter Asher and Albert Lee at the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis. I’ve seen Peter Asher a couple of times before, and I’ve always enjoyed hearing his music and his stories. Peter was half of the 1960’s British Invasion duo Peter and Gordon, and he later became a top record producer, working with James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt, among many, many others. Peter and Gordon have always been one of my favorite British Invasion groups. I was less familiar with Albert Lee. My Mom had seen Lee at the Dakota before, and she was very impressed with his guitar playing. 

Together, Peter and Albert put on a very fun show. Both of them are big fans of the Everly Brothers, and Albert played guitar with the Everlys for more than twenty years. They opened the show with two Everly Brothers songs, “Bye Bye Love” and “Crying in the Rain.” Of course, the songs provided opportunities for Peter and Albert to weave together the stories of their musical lives. Asher related how he introduced James Taylor to Carole King, and convinced King that she should perform her own songs when she opened for Taylor at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. That story led into the next song, “Handy Man,” Taylor’s cover of the Jimmy Jones hit. Asher encouraged us all to sing along on the “Come-a, come-a” backing vocals, which was fun. 

Asher and Lee then traded off songs performed by the “British Elvis,” Cliff Richard, and the actual Elvis, with Asher singing Cliff’s 1961 hit “A Girl Like You,” and Lee singing “That’s All Right,” Elvis’ first record. Lee also provided excellent guitar solos on “That’s All Right.” Lee then sang “Sweet Little Lisa,” a song he played the guitar solo on for Dave Edmunds’ 1979 LP Repeat When Necessary. (That album featured Rockpile, with the wonderful Nick Lowe on bass.)

Other highlights of the evening included Peter and Gordon’s hit single “I Go to Pieces,” written by Del Shannon, and a lovely version of Buddy Holly’s “Well All Right.” Asher remarked that the style of glasses he wore in the 1960’s was an homage to Holly’s own black framed glasses. 

Lee performed his version of the Green Day hit “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” which Lee knew originally only through Glen Campbell’s cover version! The evening ended with a performance of Peter and Gordon’s biggest hit, “A World Without Love,” which topped the charts in both the United States and the UK. Written by Paul McCartney, the song didn’t quite seem to fit with what the Beatles were doing, so Peter persuaded Paul to give the song to Peter and Gordon as their first single. Asher also had to badger McCartney to write a bridge to the song, which Asher says Paul did “in something ridiculous like seven minutes.” And just how did Peter Asher have such access to Paul McCartney? Well, Paul was dating Peter’s sister, the actress Jane Asher, and the Asher’s let Paul live in the third floor of their family home! So it’s because of that connection that Peter Asher became the first person besides John Lennon and Paul McCartney, to hear “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” which was written on the Asher’s piano! 

The encore songs were Peter and Gordon’s last Top Ten hit, the cheeky and silly “Lady Godiva,” and the eternally gorgeous “Let It Be Me,” another song made famous by the Everly Brothers. All in all, it was a fun evening of music and stories from two musicians who have crossed paths with many of rock music’s greatest figures.