Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: Peter Asher

Episode Date: June 23, 2022

GGACP celebrates the birthday (June 22nd) of Grammy-winning producer, British Invasion rocker and former Apple Records exec Peter Asher with this memorable interview from 2017. In this episode, Peter joins the boys for a fascinating discussion about the genius of James Taylor, the profound influence of the Everly Brothers, the rivalry between the Beach Boys and the Fab Four and the 50th anniversary of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Also, John Lennon meets Yoko Ono, Linda Ronstadt teams with Nelson Riddle, Peter and Gordon play the '64 World’s Fair and Peter becomes the first person to hear "I Want to Hold Your Hand." PLUS: The genius of Spike Milligan! Gilbert sings! Jackie Gleason acts out! Peter “inspires” Austin Powers! Chad & Jeremy meet the Caped Crusaders! And a “rejected” Beatles tune lands Peter at the top of the charts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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trivia and dirty jokes. an evening with the boys. Once is never good enough for something so fantastic. Fantastic. So here's another Gilbert and Franks. Here's another Gilbert and Franks. Here's another Gilbert and Franks. Colossal classic. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre, and we're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer

Frank Verterosa. Our guest this week is a singer, guitarist, recording artist, manager, Grammy-winning record producer, and eyewitness to some of the most important and defining musical events of the last half century. As one half of the British pop duo Peter and Gordon, he scored nine top 20 hits, including I Go to Pieces, Lady Godiva, and the million-selling number one single, World Without Love, penned by his longtime friend, Paul McCartney. After splitting up with partner Gordon Waller in 1968, he went on to scout and develop new talent for the Beatles' Apple Records label, discovering and signing a 20-something songwriter named James Taylor. He produced over a dozen Grammy-winning recordings and worked with artists such as Linda Ronstadt, Neil Diamond, Diana Ross, Elton John,

Randy Newman, Ringo Starr, Billy Joel, Bonnie Raitt, and even Steve Martin and Robin Williams, and is responsible for such hits as Fire and Rain, You've Got a Friend, Shower the People, You're No good. When will I be loved? And it's so easy to just name a few. You want more? He's also a former child actor, a member of Mensa, and the first person to ever hear, I want to hold your hand,

when a young Paul McCartney and John Lennon played it for him in the basement of his mother's house. Wow. Please welcome a man of multiple talents and our first guest to be appointed a commander of the British Empire, the legendary Peter Asher. Wow, what an intro. I should take you with me everywhere. Thank you very much. That's amazing. It's like a whole opening act. That's it. Thank you. Now, before anything else, your grandfather was Lawrence of Arabia's lawyer?

Yes, he was. Wow. He was. He was also an amateur playwright and a musician, but he was a solicitor, and one of his clients was Lawrence of Arabia. It is true. Fantastic. And did he go to his office on a camel? No, I don't think so.

No, but my mother met him when she was little. Wow, your mother met T.E. Lawrence. My mother met T.E. Lawrence. She was around 17 or so, and she did tell her father how incredibly handsome she thought he was. And there was a way, and she couldn't remember exactly how he told her, but he made it clear that that was not what he was interested in, that an attractive young 18-year-old woman

was not what Lawrence was looking for in life. And I've always wondered exactly how you explained it back then, because you didn't go, oh, he's gay, that's for sure. Oh! But she was apparently tactfully informed by her father that not to get her hopes up. Wow. Wow.

I just keep seeing Peter O'Toole in my head. Of course, because we don't really know the real T.E. Lawrence looks like. We could look it up. No, he was handsome. He was extremely handsome. He was handsome. There's photos. He was very handsome and in captain's uniform and everything.

Right. And the other thing is if anyone listening out there looks up the name Peter Asher early photos and looks on YouTube me back in that era that definitely informed the look of Austin Powers to a considerable degree. Because I did have the bad teeth and the square black glasses that I was copying Buddy Holly and so on. There's a thing that TMZ did where they actually lined up some photos of me and Austin Powers to make the point, which do look remarkable. As they put it, the poor guy really did look like Austin Powers.

But the character was not based on me. I think it was based on a DJ called Simon Day, I think, and a few other people. So, you know, not that I wasn't shagadelic, I'm sure. You were shagadelic. But I was not the role model, but I was apparently, to some degree, the visual inspiration for the look of Austin.

Did you ever talk to Mike Myers about it? I did once. I mentioned it to him, and he kind of nodded, yeah. That's fun. Yeah, because when I look at those photos, it's scary. No, it is. He definitely, there was one particular picture, you know, where you can really see that they,

he kind of went, well, maybe he should have that look, you know. Yes. Before we get into Peter and Gordon, I want to talk, you brought your mom up, and I want to mention to Gilbert, just before we turn the mics on, that your mom, you not only come from a musical family, but your mom was a teacher. She was in the London Philharmonic? She was a professional musician. She played in various orchestras, in the Hallé Orchestra for a while,

and with Sir Thomas Beecham, and I'm not sure which other ones. And then she was an oboe professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, yes. And also taught privately, taught at the academy and gave some private lessons. And did she teach George Martin? Do I have that right?

That's one of the strange coincidences, yes. Wow. By the time I met George Martin in a completely other context, he had actually, he went to the Guildhall School of Music where she was a guest professor. And he was one of her pupils, yes. He was an oboe player.

And here's a question I always ask people who knew George Martin. Do you think the Beatles could have made it as big as they did without George Martin? I don't know about as big. The Beatles would have made it whatever. They were that good. I mean, there is a certain level of talent that is undeniable and unstoppable, in my view, that whatever happens, it would have

made its mark on the world. Did George help the Beatles records be even better than they would have been otherwise? Absolutely, yes. Does the genius of their records owe George a huge debt of gratitude? Absolutely, yes. Does the genius of their records owe George a huge debt of gratitude? Absolutely, yes. Is he one of the best record producers in the world? Yes.

Would the Beatles have happened without him? Probably yes, but it might have been different. You know, it's hard to say. But in the same way, people have asked me that question about James Taylor, you know, would he have made it in the answers? Yes, absolutely, you know. So it's not... Well, you certainly helped but I helped exactly I was proud to help but I mean I was just

amazed when I heard him and when you know this is you're colossally good you know this is insane um you know it's you actually get to the point where you can't believe nobody else has that gone this guy's brilliant and signed him up and made a record I would just happen to be there first and George was the first person to to hear how good the Beatles were and recognize it. I love that George also worked with comedians, that he worked with the goons. Absolutely. He had that other background. That's one of the things that recommended him to them and to me.

I mean, the reason we all knew George Martin was cool wasn't the music records he'd made thus far. It was the fact that he produced Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers, who were our heroes. Sure. I saw an interview with you and you said it all comes back to Spike Milligan. It does. Which I love. British humor entirely goes back to Spike Milligan. And he's not that well known here, but he's of course a hero to all of us. To Monty Python and to all the

comedians who came after. And the Beatles. Tell us how you made the connection with Paul McCartney. Oh, well that's I can't take the credit for that. But what happened was my sister was and is a successful actress in England. Jane Asher. Jane Asher. And she was kind of a celebrity and still is.

And it was in that context, I think, that she was invited to go and see this band. It was the Radio Times who invited her, which is kind of like our TV guide, except we didn't really need a TV guide because we only had one television station, which was the BBC, which was only on a night. But anyway, so this was for radio programs. And they were doing an article on the Beatles, and they asked her to go and see them and kind of do a review. So she went to see them in London and met them after the show you know she thought the band was

incredibly good she met them afterwards thought they were funny and cute and charming and everything and she liked them they liked her one of them liked her in particular and asked her out and so on so she ended up going out with Paul McCartney for for a few years and and it was in that context that that I met him. And because shortly after that, you know, one of the functions of that relationship was that he was hanging around our house all the time. And eventually our parents kind of took pity on him and offered him the guest room at the top of the house when they weren't out on the road. And so he moved in and he and I shared the top floor of the house and then you know we ended up becoming friends and and one time he invited you to listen to a song he wrote yes there was in the basement of

the house it was a small music room where my mother would give private oboe lessons occasionally but not very often so she had said to Paul if you ever need to use a piano because he plays piano very well he's one of those people who can play everything very well. And she said, if you need a piano, use the one in the basement music room. So John came over one day, quite soon after he'd moved in. This was early on. And they were down there for a couple of hours, interestingly, with no guitars.

The guitars were up in his bedroom and my bedroom on the top floor. And they were down there for a couple of hours. It was a small upright piano and a little sofa and a music stand. It was a tiny room. And then Paul called up the stairs, and asked if I wanted to come down and hear the song that they had written so i came down and sat on the little sofa and they sat side by side on the piano bench and played uh i want to hold your hand for the first time freshly minted wow and asked me what i thought so you were like the first person in the world to hear i want to Hold Your Hand.

He was. Other than the composers, yes. Did you have an ability at that tender age to recognize a hit song? Oh, yeah. I think we all would have. I mean, you kind of go, am I losing my mind or is this one of the best songs I've ever heard in my life? And, of course, what you really do, which is what I did, is ask them to play it again. And they did.

Because that's what makes – we all know, it's like when you used to buy 45s in the minute, the needle got to the big old fat grooves in the middle, and you'd yank it back to the beginning. Because that's the great thing about a hit record, you just want to hear it again and again. I miss those days. Yeah. Didn't he also write Yesterday in the House, and you weren't home at the time? That's right. He did.

I think my mom was the first person to hear that. Wow. You probably know the story, but he woke up with the melody completely formed in his head and was convinced it was an existing song. He wasn't going around saying, listen to this song I've written. He was going around saying, what is this? He's saying it to my mom and to various people saying, this must be something. It's melody stuck in my head.

And eventually, by process of elimination, he realized he'd written it inadvertently and did he originally call it scrambled eggs it originally had no lyrics and then they were looking at some point as i say i wasn't there so i didn't witness this but at some point during that day the temporary lyrics that he was looking for a da da da you know and the first da dada-da that apparently came to mind was Scrambled Eggs so at one point it was something about Scrambled Eggs how I love your legs or something it's fascinating but his initial reaction was someone must have written this

it's the only tune apparently where he woke up with it completely done as a melody I love that nobody knows really where songs come from people tend to get a bit mystical about it. But that was an extreme case, to wake up with one of the best songs ever

written, pre-written, without having to make any effort. Of course. We should all be so lucky. Oh, what an ability. And you're a member of Mensa? It's true. Well, I took the test. We don't go in any order here, Peter, as you can see. I took the test a very long time ago, so at least they don't make you retake it.

There's no readmission qualification. I'm sure in 150 guests, we've never had a Mensa member in here before. I probably took it when I was about 16, but I've worked on my brain cells pretty vigorously since then, so who knows what's left. Luckily, they don't make you recheck your IQ. Gil, you're not in Mensa? No, no. It's so political. But also, I do like those kind of logic things.

I mean, I read philosophy at university, so I do like maths and logic and stuff. Before we get into British Invasion... They wouldn't let me near the building. I'm sure. I'm sure you were banned. Before we get into Peter and Gordon... But I've been to near the building. I'm sure. I'm sure you were banned. Before we get into Peter and Gordon. But I've been to a couple of meetings and they're pretty weird.

Really? I've been to like two in my whole life. Now, are a lot of the people in Mensa a little bit on the crazy side? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That's interesting. So in what way?

Are they just like out there? No, it's just a bunch of people. Interesting. So in what way? Are they just like out there? No, it's just a bunch of people. But, you know, I'm not sure what you – I don't really know what it's for or what you'd expect. They're all going to get together and solve the world's problems in ten minutes over dinner. But, no, it's – IQ, as we all know, measures a particular kind of thinking ability. Sure. It may or may not be any use. Don't go away.

We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. Now back to Gilbert and Frank. It's them that you soon will thank. Gilbert found this interesting, too. We want to get into the British invasion, too. There's so much to cover

with someone like you, Peter. But also, you were a child actor. was you worked with one of gilbert's favorites alistair sim i did we were in a film called escapade together fascinating yeah it was a good film actually i saw it not long ago they they had a revival of it in la they were talking about some particular period of british filmmaking i can't what they called it. And some film research body was doing the screening and they figured out I was not dead. And I was the only person in the film left. So they said, will you come and talk about making the movie?

I said, yeah, of course. And you worked with Claudette Colbert. I did. Claudette Colbert played my mother. I've got a great picture of me kissing Claudette Colbert very vigorously. How about that, Gil? It happened one night.

And you worked with this actor, Jack Hawkins. Yes. Sure. He was my father in the same film that Claudette Colbert played my mother. We were in the outposts of Malaya fighting the commies on behalf of the British Empire. I love this. In the film we won. In real life, not so much.

I was just saying, like, years ago I was watching a talk show and Jack Hawkins had just had his vocal cords removed. Yes. He did quite a few films after that. I mean with some lines that he would do with the buzzy thing which they're getting better anyway. And it seemed like he was talking about it

and the way some people burped the alphabet. He would burp the words. Yes, yes, that's what – there's two ways they do it. Either they swallow the air and kind of talk over the burp, or they use those buzzy things like electric razors. And he got really good at it and could actually – he was actually in a couple of films where he had short lines

and he would get away with it. I'm just curious about – He was a terrific actor and a very nice man. Terrific actor, Jack Hawkins, yeah. And then he did a film with Cecil Parker. I don't know if you remember. One of my favorite British actors. I don't know that name.

Oh, look him up. You'll know him. Okay, Cecil Parker. He's in everything. I know Cecil Kellaway. No. Look up Cecil Parker. He's in everything.

Okay. How did you and Jane get into acting in the first place? I mean, your dad was a physician. I know. Your mom was a musician. It's odd. The stories I'm told, I can't really remember,

but apparently some agent or somebody spotted the three of us. I've got two sisters, Jane and Claire. We all have red hair, so it was like, and we were all

graded by height and looked evidently, you know, cute or whatever. And so, somebody said, oh, you know, you should make some money

on those kids, you know, or something. Get them working. And anyway somebody said, oh, you know, you make some money out of those kids. Get them working. And anyway, so some agent expressed interest and we went, yeah, sure.

And we never did anything, all three of us together. Jane and I did do one thing together because I did a number of the old Robin Hood series,

if you remember that, with Richard Green and the black and white, which is a very interesting story, by's right. in Britain. She would do a show a week. Blacklisted writers who had to go overseas. Largely blacklisted writers who went overseas. That's fascinating. Anyway, I was Prince Arthur in a number of those episodes. But then later,

after Prince Arthur had disappeared for a while, I came back as a peasant child with Jane as my sister. We were two peasant children trying to free their oppressed father

from the clutches of the Sheriff of Nottingham. That's the only thing we ever did together. But you can find it. It exists. I didn't know it was. I know the series, but I didn't know there were blacklisted American writers behind it.

Hannah Weinstein is the producer. And I don't think she's related to the Weinsteins as we know them. But she was a blacklisted producer, left-wing Jewish producer from L.A. who'd gone to London to work. How about that, Gil? Wow. Along with a lot of cool writers who went there, too. So all of them, the whole crew was basically blacklisted.

No, the crew probably was. I'm sure the union crew had to be English. But the creators. But I think the creators, I understand. Certainly Hannah Weinstein, who was the key figure, and they used some blacklisted writers as well to write episodes. I've got to dig into that. Yeah.

So how did music, you're always musical, it was a musical family, but you obviously decided at some point, not acting. Well um well yes i'd like to think i made that decision but it could be that the acting community made that decision we'll give you credit for it um no i mean by the time i got to school see jane uh quit school when she was about 15 she she she knew acting was for her and she didn't need school. But I went to Westminster, which is a serious, what in England we call a public school, which isn't really public at all, expensive and hard to get into. And it was a very serious school in the middle,

founded by Elizabeth I and all that stuff. So they would never give you time off to go and be in a film or anything. So between that and the fact that I probably wasn't getting as much work as I was, I just started taking school seriously. And I could combine school and music, but not school and acting. And at the risk of getting the raft of Beatles fans the world over, you introduced John Lennon to Yoko Ono. I was responsible for that meeting. Yes, I started a bookshop and an art gallery with some friends. Two friends of mine,

Barry Miles and John Dunbar. Miles ran the bookshop, John ran the art gallery, and I was the third partner, and also put some of the money I thought I was making in pop music, turned out it wasn't really, but that's a different story, into the bookshop and the art gallery called Indica. of course after the plant cannabis indica maybe some botanists

that tells us a lot yes exactly and so we were trying to be like the city lights bookshop or something it was you know and it was effective we you know william barrows came over and did a reading ginsburg did a reading. I saw that in the research. And then we opened this art gallery. And John had heard about this Japanese-American artist who we thought sounded wacky enough to be in a cool avant-garde gallery. So John got hold of her and asked if she'd come and do an exhibition. She said yes. We took an ad in the paper and she came over and everything.

And the way these things work, you'd have an opening night for the press and everything with wine and cheese or whatever. But we sometimes had a pre-press opening that we would invite friends to. And by this point, the Beatles were amongst my friends. So we invited everybody and one of them came and that was John. So that's where he and Yoko met. And a lot of people have this very easy answer that it was Yoko who split up the Beatles. No, I don't think so. I mean, you know, they were arguing

about a lot of different things and, you know, I think, yes, some of them got annoyed about Yoko, but in the end, it was Alan Klein that they were arguing about, you know, when they'd agreed that they wanted some serious businessman to come in and and rethink the whole thing because by then it had expanded into numerous areas beyond music

apple records was one thing but it was films and electronics and clothes and this and it was going a bit nuts they just couldn't agree on who that person should be and john was determined that it should be alan klein and uh i think he was mistaken. I knew about Alan from New York, and I knew him essentially to be kind of a crook, you know. Turned out to be true. Turned out to be true. And so Paul was vehemently against Alan. And John, Alan Klein somehow talked John into it the way these people do.

Maybe he told John he was going to make Apple great again or something. I don't know. Whatever it took. But however these crooks talk us into electing them. But it didn't work. And anyway, that was what I think, if one thing brought Paul and John to a point

of departure from each other, that was it. And you were at Apple then, so you were in the middle of some of those arguments. The minute they chose Klein, I resigned. So I, by the time John arrived, I had left. And took James Taylor with you. By the time Alan arrived, sorry, I had left.

And the relationship between Yoko and John, how did that be your opinion? I wasn't there that much of the time. I mean, it was very close. He valued her opinion on everything, and she's a very smart woman. She's an eccentric woman, but a brilliant woman. I think the Beatles, it was new to them, because the rest of them had wives or girlfriends that would leave and go to work,

and Yoko was part of John's partnership in everything, and I think they found that disconcerting. But, I mean, no, she and John loved each other very dearly, no question about that. But I wasn't there enough to comment beyond that. Let's talk about Peter and Gordon and meeting Gordon. You met Gordon at Westminster School? I met Gordon at school, yes.

I mean, essentially, we were both, you know, we were the only people we ran into who also played the guitar. By this time, I'd got a guitar. I played various instruments badly. I'd never kept up with my piano lessons or anything musically. Both my sisters

are much better musically than I am. They both read music much better than I do, which is probably why I'm the only one making a living in the music business.

That's ironic. So, but eventually, I got a guitar and I had a skiffle group like we all did. That's all other pro- Lonnie Donegan. The skiffle movement, exactly.

Right. Lonnie Donegan was great. We talked to Billy J. Kramer about that very thing. Yeah, he was such a big deal. Yeah. And most Americans don movement, exactly. Right. Lani Donegan was great. We talked to Billy J. Kramer about that very thing. Yeah, he was such a big deal. Yeah. And most Americans don't get it. Jack White is a huge Lani Donegan fan.

There are a few outposts of Lani Donegan fandom in the U.S. music. Does Your Chewing Gum? Well, the good one was Rock Island Lime. That's right. And the bad one was Does Your Chewing Gum. Right, that was the novelty one that we got in the States. Lose His Favorite. Well, no, Rock Island Lime was number one.

What? Yeah. Which is a Lead Belly song. And then Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost overnight was also, sadly. I guess I was a child, so that's the one that I remember. Right. So Gordon played the guitar and sang as well. So we tried doing it together just really because we were there, you know.

And it sounded okay. We'd work up some songs. He was a bit more of a rock and roll. He was a big Eddie Cochran fan, big Elvis fan. You were more the folky. I was a bit more folky. And we were sort of a folky-ish duo. But where our tastes totally overlapped was the Everly Brothers.

Like all duos throughout history. Whether it's Simon and Garfunkel or John and Paul or us, the Everly Brothers were our inspiration. Everybody wanted to be the Everly Brothers. Everybody wanted to be the Everly Brothers. Everybody wanted to be the Everly Brothers. We did. You were both big fans of American pop music. Yep, for sure.

I mean, again, this is a big subject because it goes beyond pop music. What you've got to understand is we were big fans of America. I mean, when we grew up in, you know, people often ask me why the 60s were special in England and why it was different. And the answer is in the 50s, because the 50s in Britain and America could not have been more different. 50s in England were black and white bomb sites, depressing.

We still had rationing until 1956, you know, and we'd look across the Atlantic and there was this miraculous land if we were black and white they were technicolor and glossy and perfect teeth and huge refrigerators full of exotic foods and these silly cars with giant fins on them you had a poster of the New York skyline I did, I had a poster of the New York skyline on my wall

I had copies of Downbeat with the jazz clubs I'd go to the minute I got to New York I knew I would you couldn't wait to go. I didn't know how. And going back and forth then was a very big deal. Now people go for a week's holiday in Florida like there's nothing to it. There's cheap tickets.

And then it was a very big, very expensive deal. And on top of all that, you know, America, we could see, was taking over. This whole British Empire thing was, you know, which people were still on about in England. It was clearly not happening anymore. It was clearly to all of us that that was yesterday and tomorrow was America. And on top of that, to clinch it, all these American cities that we knew about

from movies and television, New York and L.A. and New Orleans, they all had amazing music, which we loved. So we were obsessed with American music. So it wasn't just the Everleaves. You were listening to Little Richard. Oh, no. You were listening to Fats Domino.

You were listening to anything you can get your hands on. Of course. And we all were. I mean, the Beatles were a cover band. Of course. You know, that's how they began. They were doing all American songs. I used to go and see, you know, R&B was huge.

I used to go and see the Rolling Stones every Monday night. They were playing at a place called Studio 51, which was an R&B night on Mondays. It was Ken Colley's Jazz Club the rest of the week. They were playing all, in their case, it would be like Bo Diddley and Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters. But nobody was playing their own

songs. It was all a tribute to American music. Right. And so Peter and Gordon, when you guys formed, that winds up becoming your ticket to America. We did a bunch of R&B stuff and we did folk stuff and we did Evely stuff. Yes, exactly. And that's what got us signed.

You know, we were spotted playing in a club by an A&R guy and signed up. And they were, you said in an interview that everybody would confuse

every single one of the English groups and duos together. Well, you guys were confused with Chad and Jeremy? Duos particularly. Chad and Jeremy, which was kind of weird, really. We knew each other. We actually took over one gig from them.

They were playing one bar, and they were leaving to go play somewhere else as a residency. And the bar asked them if they could recommend someone else, and they recommended us. So we helped each other out. But it was kind of odd because the two duos, in both cases, the tall, handsome one sang the low part. The short, nerdy one with glasses sang the high part. And so, I mean, what would happen is they did things that we didn't do.

They did, like, the Patty Duke show. They were on Batman. Oh, sure. The Dick Van Dyke show.. The Dick Van Dyke show. And the Dick Van Dyke show. Right. And people would congratulate us,

but they were never on Ed Sullivan and we were. That's great. But so what happened is, you know, we would do Ed Sullivan. People would congratulate them

and you kind of go. That was the one where they had so many mobs of people chasing and they had to stay with the Petri family. Yes. Oh, that's it.

Yes. And they were playing another mythical English duo with different names. I believe so. Like Rodney and... They weren't even Chad and Jeremy, which makes no sense at all looking back. Well, Jeremy's still a very successful actor. Yes. He's in a play in London.

Yeah, we were talking to Billie Jay about it. As is Jane, by the way. My sister's in the London version of An play in London. Yeah, we were talking to Billie J about it. As is Jane. My sister's in the London version of An American in Paris. Oh, cool. Which is great. With the original guy from here, you know, the lead guy, whatever his name is. Amazing and brilliant. And Jane plays Madame somebody or other. And after

those years of the New York skyline, tell us what the experience was when you finally got to New York. It was brilliant. I mean, it was astounding. One of our first gigs was playing the World's Fair. What's the sphere thing called? Oh, the Unisphere. You played the 64 World's Fair? We did. That's cool. That was one of our very first gigs. And first of all, we were just arriving in New York, and we knew exactly what it was going to look like and it did you know and then of

course to arrive and be chased around the city by teenage girls trying to take your clothes off can only improve the experience you know it's the only way to travel I recommend it highly should opportunity ever come here we wouldn't know and we played playing the unisphere they had a sort of a moat thing filled with water between us and the audience. And, of course, the minute we came on, they all jumped in the water and swam across. So it was like a wet T-shirt contest. Wonderful. It was all very exciting.

So you enjoyed your career over the years. I did. I enjoyed every moment of it. You lived every minute of the British Invasion fantasy out. Absolutely, yes. That's great. I continue to enjoy it, by the way. So how did World Without Love happen?

That was obviously a game changer. It was. Well, what had happened was, you know, we got signed up by this guy, Norman Newell, who I think was thinking of us as kind of a folk duo. I think we were kind of like Britain's answer to the Kingston Trio, the Kingston duo, as it were. Interesting. Or Peter and Paul Without Mary. think we were kind of like britain's answer to the kingston trio the kingston duo as it were interesting peter and paul without mary and and uh so because that's it was a song we did a version of 500 miles that he particularly liked and so on so he said they they we auditioned they signed us

but they said we're doing 500 miles we're doing this we're doing that i'm gonna go look for a couple of songs but if you know any other songs you know you'd like to put on the list let me know now cut to a few months before that, I'd heard this song, World Without Love, that Paul had written. And I said, that's a really good song. And he said, yeah, but I'm putting it aside. I'm not finishing it. We're not going to do it. John doesn't think much of it, and I'm abandoning it for now.

And apparently John really didn't like it. And I've read later, I didn't witness this, but I've read later that John would actually interrupt Paul when Paul would start to try and sell him the song. Because the first line is, please lock me away. And John would go, okay, I will, the song's over. And so anyway, so when Norman said, do you know any other songs? I kind of went, maybe I do.

And I went back to Paul at home that very evening and said, is that song, Well Without Love, still an orphan? And he said, yes, we're not doing it. I said, well, can we try and work up a harmony version of it? Because it's pretty cool. And he said, yes, happily. So by this time, it had the two verses but no bridge. So he wrote out the two verses for me on a piece of paper,

which you better believe is safely locked in my safe. I saw that you still have that. Oh, yeah. So the minute the music business collapses completely, I can run to Sotheby's as fast as my legs can carry me. I would. But anyway, and he made a demo on my reel-to-reel tape machine. And then before the session came around,

I had to nag him a little bit to write the bridge. So I wait, and in a while, bit, which he did. And it went on the list, and we recorded it that very first day. And by the end of the session, there was no doubt in anyone's mind, that was going to be our single. We weren't folkies, we were going to be pop stars. And it came out only a month later, and went to number one in the UK, number one in all over Europe,

and eventually to our disbelief and incredulity, number one in all over Europe, and eventually to our disbelief and incredulity, number one in America. In fact, it was the first British invasion, number one in America, after the Beatles. After I Want to Hold You, I Stopped Being Number One, we went up there, which is insanely great. The only snag for me was by that time I'd left Westminster. Gordon was still there because he was a year younger. I was at university doing philosophy. And in England, you know, they don't let you leave and come back. We don't have these mysterious credits that you have over here. Right.

You're supposed to just start, you know, get your degree. And so I had to go and meet with the head of the philosophy department and explain this problem. And finally, I convinced him this was a completely unique opportunity. And he gave me a one-year leave of absence. Oh, nice. To go and get all this rock and roll nonsense out of my system and come back and get my degree and tragically of course I have to admit

to my shame that I'm still on that one year's leave of absence you had bigger fish to fry well yes exactly I just have to absorb certain things here you're the first human being to hear I want to hold Your Hand, and you

have songs being just handed over to you by Paul McCartney and John Lennon. It's true. It's true. It was a leftover song. But what's interesting is, because people go, how did you get all those other songs? And we didn't do any getting at all. They took songwriting seriously. I i mean if you read any interviews with the beatles back then one of the questions we all got asked is what are you going to do when this is all over because the assumption was confident assumption that two years was the max for a pop career and they would always say we will be songwriters because they didn't just want to be eddie cochran and elvis and buddy holly they wanted to be lieber and stola oh and

backer rack and david backer rack and david be Lieber and Stola. Oh, and Bacharach and David. Bacharach and David. Wow. Pomas and Schumann. They knew that. They looked upon it as a separate career. And songwriters, I mean, if you have a big hit single, you make damn sure you write the follow-up.

You don't want somebody else cashing in on your success. So when we came back from our first trip to America, promoting Well Without Love, the second single, Nobody I Know, was written with a bridge. You know, waiting for you. So we didn't have to do any begging. You know, that's what songwriters do. They give you the songs you need. What's the moment like?

And there are only so many people on the planet that could answer this question. The moment that you find out that you have the number one record in the country. Well, it's insane. And number one in England was insane. Number one in America meant more to us. And it's the same when the Beatles got the same phone call six months earlier or whatever it was, that I Want to Hold Your Hand was number one, because they knew they would get to go there, and that's what we knew.

It meant we were going to America. It was a phone call? The news came to you in a phone call? Yes, it came to you in a phone call. And, you know, that was like the irrevocable proof that we were going to get to go to this land that we dreamed of going to. And we did. You know, it's funny to think, because you told us about how the English had this dream world view of America. extreme world view of America. And when the English invasion was starting, America looked at everyone coming from there thinking, oh, this is the hip spot. I know. Isn't that weird? And, you know, as I say, that's what people ask is why was why were the 60s so cool? And it is was a

reaction, you know, his reaction to the bleakness of the 50s, because, you know, they everyone tried to crown a new queen and said it's a new elizabethan age and blah blah blah but eventually it wasn't till the young people kind of went we're gonna screw all this you know everyone in the 50s tried to dress like a grown-up you know that you tried to look older than you were and suddenly everyone went i'm not gonna do that i'm not gonna wear a suit like my dad. I'm going to wear these absurdly silly clothes and velvet and flowers and bell bombs. And it changed everything.

And then America fell in love with it. I mean, America was doing it too with the whole hippie thing. But there was something radical that happened in England which was a distinct reaction to the bleakness of the 50s. And there was a reaction to the 50s in America too because they were a bit conventional and sturdy. Oh, certainly. But they weren't miserable like they were in England, you know.

Do you want to... Are you feeling brave, Peter? I think so, yeah. Since we're talking about World Without Love, and he's been excited about this, he's saying Wichita linemen with Jimmy. So I'm told. I didn't consult with Jimmy before I came up. You should have. I probably should have. Perhaps you should

have. Jimmy is a good friend and I'm a huge fan. He's the best. That's one thing I failed to do was go, should I let him sing with me? Well, we always ask. I'm going to have to carry you through this. Exactly.

Don't worry. We'll do it. You follow the script and I'll join you. Follow his lead. Okay. Don't worry. You follow the script, and I'll join you. Follow his lead. Okay. You follow the script. Okay. Here we go. Please lock me away

And don't allow the day Here inside Where I hide With my loneliness I don't care what they say I won't stay in a world without love Birds sing out of tune And rain clouds hide the moon

I'm okay, here I'll stay With my loneliness the moon. I'm okay. Here I'll stay with my loneliness. I don't care what they say. I won't stay in a world without love. So I wait, and in a while,

I will see my true love smile. She may come come I know not when when she does I know so baby until then lock me away and don't allow the day

here inside where I hide with my loneliness I don't care what they say I won't stay in a world without love So I wait And in a while I will see

My true love smile She may come I know not when I will see my true love smile. She may come, I know not when. When she does, I lose. So baby, until then, lock me away. And don't allow the day. Here inside, where I hide. With my loneliness I don't care what they say

I won't stay in a world without love One repeat I don't care what they say I won't stay in a world without love And an instrumental Brilliant Brilliant Peter and Gilbert Who needs Gordon?

Brilliant Peter and Gilbert, ladies and gentlemen Thank you very much That was fun Birds are not the only ones singing out of tune Oh yeah And the interesting thing is There's these weird lyrics floating around Thank you very much. That was fun. Birds are not the only ones singing out of tune. Oh, yeah. And the interesting thing is, there's these weird lyrics floating around, which, when she does, I lose, which came from God knows where.

It's on the web in places, but it's wrong. It's when she does, I'll know. Oh, wow. I apologize for that. No, it's quite all right. But every now and then, you look up the lyrics, and it says lose. But if you listen, we're definitely saying no, and he wrote no. How strange.

I have the handwritten manuscript to prove it. When she does, I'll know. When she does, I'll lose. Right. That's kind of insulting. When she finally turns up, you go, uh-oh. I'll start proofreading the lyrics going forward. Here's another thing I like about Paul living in your house.

Your dad had arranged for an escape route for him? Yeah. My father found a way over into a neighbor's house on the roofs so that Paul could escape. Because, of course, it became known eventually that he was there. The weirdest part, of course, must have been for, you know, because my house was in Wimpole Street, you know, which is that whole Wimpole Street, Harley Street medical zone. So my father saw patients there, too. It was his consulting rooms as well as our house. Wimpole Street, Harley Street, medical zone. So my father saw patients there too. It was his consulting rooms as well as our house.

So he would have patients come and they'd be like a crowd of girls on the doorstep. We never explained. They were completely bewildered. This is the only doctor in England with groupies, you know. Now, a strange thing in your life that brings me, reminds me of a movie that i saw what's that oh you were the best man at the wedding for marianne faith i was i was yes now marianne faithful did a strange movie girl on a motorcycle no i think it was i i reena palm, okay. Where she's a grandmother. Oh, this was more recently. Yes, yes.

Not young, beautiful Marianne. Oh, no, no. This is the older. Old, cool Marianne. Yes, yes. She's great. I love Marianne. Anyway, no, I don't remember that.

I haven't seen it. She's a grandmother who's retired and, you know, struggling for money and has a handicapped son. And the movie is how she just falls into a job where guys go to a place, put their dicks through a hole in the wall, and Marianne Faithfull on the other side jerks them off. Where on earth did you see this? This is a movie. It's actually not a bad film.

Well, there you go. I wasn't aware of that. That's a showstopper. That's very good, yes. And it wasn't like a sex comedy or anything. How strange. It was like very serious stuff. I have to research that.

Yes. I have not seen it. I could bring it out with Marianne, I suppose. Maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I wouldn't. Tell us about part of the experiences you just mentioned, playing The Sullivan Show. And what was that like? It was great.

I mean, it was... I'll tell you an interesting story, though. The reason we weren't on The Sullivan Show when we first got here was indirectly, Alan Klein again. Uh-oh. I'll tell you why. Not being evil, actually being clever. He had set up a system whereby when all the new English singles came out,

he would have them shipped immediately that week, the new hot releases, straight over to New York. And occasionally he would cover them on his label, Cameo Parkway. And Bobby Rydell did a cover of World Without Love. The minute it did come out in the UK, before Ours came out in America,

he put his out, went in the charts. And then when Ours came out, we luckily knocked him out of the charts. And Ours became the hit. But meanwhile, when we got here and our agent tried to get us on Ed Sullivan, they were going, fine. But then they said, we're going to sing World Without Love.

He went, no, no, you can't do that. Bobby did that song last week. Oh, bad timing. Because he was a regular on The Sullivanllivan show so we didn't get on sullivan till later when we with another mccartney song called i don't want to see you again right but that was that was why we weren't on was that what was ed like to to uh you didn't meet him mr sullivan it was mr sullivan and you didn't really meet him but they did did tell you, when you finish and bow, look over at Mr. Sullivan. And if he puts his arm out, you walk over and shake his hand.

But if he doesn't, you don't. But he did, of course, or I wouldn't be telling the story. From England, the two London youngsters who met while they were attending Westminster School and developed into top flight stars, ladies and gentlemen, Peter and Gordon. I understand when someone says to me, I don't want to see you again. Why do I cry at night? Something wrong could be right. I hear you say to me, I don't want to see you again. As you turn your back on me You hid the light of day

I didn't have to play Broken hearted But later on Our love's been and gone I'll still hear someone say I don't wanna see you again As you turn

your back on me You need the light of day I didn't have to play at the end Brokenhearted I know that love is bad. How can I understand

when someone says to me, I don't want to see you again. I don't want to see you again. I don't want to see you again. I don't want to see you again. I'll tell you one person that was a bit of a surprise. Was when our agent got all excited when they said that they'd got us on the Jackie Gleason show. And we'd never heard of him. I love that.

We didn't get, we got very few, we got Sergeant Bilko, that was the only American TV we got. We loved Phil Silvers. We didn't get The Honeymooners, so we had no idea. And everyone's going, oh, Jackie Gleason, this is amazing,

you know, so cool you're on his show. So we were quite excited. He was this legendary guy. So this is when he had a variety show down in Miami. Sure. So we were quite excited. There was this legendary guy. So we went, this is when he had a variety show down in Miami. Sure. After the Honeymooners.

Yeah. They would do a bit of Honeymooners. Jackie Gleason show. They did a bit of Honeymooners in the middle of it. That's right. So we went down there, you know,

and walk on the set and there's this obnoxious, drunken asshole of a man being really horrible to everyone. Not to us. He didn't even speak to us. But the crew, the cast, it was,

this guy's a complete shit, you know. And that, of course, was the immortal Jackie. Oh, no. The great one. Since then, I, what, the Honeymooners, learned it all by heart.

I recognize he was a complete genius and had every right to be as arsehole-ish as he wished. But he certainly was using that right to the fullest on this particular occasion. But then we did Red Skelton, and he, on the other hand,

was not drunk and not unpleasant at all. He was very nice. Did you do Miltie's show, too? No, we never did. Oh, okay. Oh, that saves the question. Red Skelton. The internet cannot be trusted in certain respects.

Maybe we did do. They have you guys playing the Burl show. Maybe we did. Yeah. We did a few. I don't remember meeting him, but I know, I don't remember. Maybe we did. All right.

Who knows? So Peter and Gordon. If it's on the internet, it must be true. I do, this must be true. I also want to ask you about one other hit. I want to ask you about I Go to Pieces, written by the great Dale Shannon. Dale Shannon, yes. Yeah.

What was he like? I mean, it's a great talent who came to a Saturday. Very nice. I mean, that was another one we sort of picked up off the floor in a way because we were on tour with with the searchers another great English band and Del Shannon and and he'd written this song that he thought would be right for the searchers and inexplicably into my mind mistakenly they turned it down they they said thank you very much it's only it's right for us they actually could have made a good record of it but we'd overheard it and kind of went oh well, well, if they're not doing it, can we have it?

And we worked out a version and said, look, hold that song. We'll cut it as soon as we get back to England. And we did. Great track. And so when Peter and Gordon finally split up in 68, you decide to go in different directions. Well, the interesting thing is we didn't actually split up.

You didn't officially split up. No, I mean, we never said this is our last gig. We never had a big row. We never had an Ever't actually split up. You didn't. You didn't officially split up. We know. I mean, we never said, this is our last gig. We never had a big row. We never had an Everly Brothers punch up on stage or anything, you know. We just drifted into a kind of hiatus. And I confess, when the hiatus went on for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, my assumption was, we're not going to do something. But, of course, we did.

Gordon and I got back together after 38 years. Thanks to Paul Schaefer. Thanks to Paul Schaefer. But to go back to where you were, where were you again? Oh, yes. That's when I went off and did other things. You were on different paths. I wanted to be a record producer. I knew that. I loved the process of making records from the day we first went in the studio.

And so I did. And that's a career I deliberately went after. And you were sort of like at one point not as excited about performing as you are about being in the creative process. Yes. Well, performing then was very different too. I mean we had fun. We had a great time. But it's like you probably saw it eight days a week when the Beatles –

It's great by the way. Yeah, it's terrific. They're recommended. Oh, yeah. Terrific. Ron Howard is a great friend and a brilliant filmmaker and and but you know you couldn't hear yourself you couldn't they couldn't hear you really I mean it was an experience but music now it's great you know the technology's changed everything people forget they were singing through the PA system when they would play aas in those days. Monitors didn't exist.

The word monitor didn't exist. There were jobs that we have now that didn't exist. Front of house mixer didn't exist. Guitar tech didn't exist. I mean, not all that stuff. And monitor mixer, no monitors. You were using whatever PA was in the building, including like the same thing they announced the score over was what you were saying. So when they play Candlestick Park, that's what they're singing. It's crazy.

And then you just had big amps on stage. Nothing was mic'd except the vocals. It was crazy. So you couldn't hear yourself. You couldn't hear anything. They couldn't hear you. It was kind of annoying. And I loved the studio, you know, completely. So I decided I wanted to, and then got lucky enough to find an artist

I believed in. That's when I became a manager as well. And you said that in an interview that how much it's changed being on the road. Completely, yes. What are the changes? Well, as I say, some of it is the technology. Some of it's the fact that it's organized now. It was chaotic then.

I mean, everyone was making it up as they went along. I mean, there are aspects of it that have maybe become too corporate and too organized on a grand scale, you know, with crazy $300 ticket prices and, you know, all that stuff. It's just got very elaborate now. But, you know, so there's a certain homemade-ness that one misses. But there's no question. Now, when you go to a show, now you expect to be able to hear everything and see everything and get a real production, and you do. Sure. And it's great and it's exciting.

So it's changed radically. It's stunning to think that this... Even on our level, even when I play clubs, you know, I still go out and I do a memoir show thing with a band. And then I've lately been doing a bunch of gigs with Albert Lee, a genius guitar player. Absolutely. Who played with the Everly Brothers. Who played with the Everly Brothers,

my brothers, and Emmylou Harris for years and all that stuff. But even for us, it's completely different. I mean, we can hear ourselves. The audience can hear everything perfectly. You can really make a show sound good. Your guitars sound like real guitars. Back then, none of that existed. And I think the Beatles were getting tired of that,

not being able to hear themselves. Completely. I mean, Ringo says it was only by watching their behinds, their whole backs and movement, that he knew what song they were doing. Right. I mean, it was crazy. A combination of bad tech and screaming. Yeah, exactly.

A combination of bad tech and screaming fans. Right, right. I mean, that scene in Eight Days a Week when Ringo comes out and he's trying to stop the drum riser falling over before he climbs on it. Yeah, it's fascinating. It's insane. Yeah. I mean, I remember we had one guy on the road, you know, doing everything.

And I was kind of, when we toured with the Beatles, I went, well, this will be different. They had two, you know. But now, a band like the Beatles would have a hundred people and semis and, you know, the change is beyond measure. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. So you went your separate ways. Paul asked you to take a job at Apple. Yes.

And you went into A&R. Yep. And you were scouting talent. He started off saying, would you produce some records for Apple? Because he was aware of my production work and he played on a couple of things that I had produced. So he'd watch me at work. And I said, yes.

And then he said, well, why don't you be head of A&R for the label jumped at it yes and Mr. Taylor came into your life came into my life Danny Korchmar yes

Danny Korchmar had been in a you know we used to get assigned a band to back us up on different legs of a tour in America I mean admittedly you only had to work up 20 minutes of songs but the bands varied a great deal in quality

but Danny was in a good band called The King Bees. And they backed us up on two tours, I think. And Danny and I became great friends in that time. Then he was subsequently, some years later, in this band, The Flying Machine, with his childhood friend, James Taylor. They'd grown up on the vineyard together. And so that band was in New York and having a hard time

and a couple of them were strung out and broke and this, that and the other. And the band broke up and James decided he would go to London. He had a girlfriend he thought he could stay with in London. Danny gave him my phone number. Just said, you know,

here's a friend of mine in London. If you're going to be there, give him a call. So he called me up out of the blue. Came over. And what did you hear? Which song? Something in the way she moves. Something's wrong. Knocking around the zoo.

Not Carolina in my mind. He wrote that a few months later. That was probably Soak Around the Sun. Not sure what else. But you knew. You knew straight away. I was knocked out. I mean, everything. I mean, he had played the guitar brilliantly.

This finger-picking style that obviously owed something to classical playing. He'd been listening to Segovia and Julian Bream and stuff and not just, you know, folkies. But then he was using these kind of jazzy Manhattan's Records kind of chords, but singing with this beautiful folky tenor. And, of course, in that era, the term singer-songwriter hadn't been invented. If you had long hair and played the guitar, you were a folk a folk singer didn't matter if you never sang a folk song that's interesting if you if you wrote every song you played you were still a folk singer and and that was that was what he was but um i'd never heard anything that good and i on

we had this strange conversation that really was kind of i said look i've got this new job i'm head of anr for a new record label would you like a a record deal? And he said, yes, I'd love one. And so within two days, I had him in the office meeting the Beatles and signing up. And they responded too? They loved it too. I played them something, The Way She Moves in particular, and they all agreed. What's not to like? What's not to like. And so we signed, he was the first artist signed to Apple. And that gets us back to another subject we brought up on this show. Which is? Songs that mention other songs in them.

Well, I believe, and I hope this isn't bad information too, but that something in the way she moves in some way inspired George. Well, we have to assume so. Right. Yeah, George certainly heard it and liked it. Right. And then wrote a song with oddly similar lyrics. But James, in response to that, when people say, how do you feel?

Did George adopt your phrase? The answer is that in that song, James keeps putting in, I feel fine, which he said he thought of because of the Beatles. Oh, wow. That's great stuff. She's around me now and I feel fine. When he says holy host of others standing around me, too, he's referring to the Beatles. That's cool. That's been Carolina in my mind.

That's pretty cool, too. I just learned that. He wrote that. I mean, he wrote that. It was after he'd met them. We'd signed to Apple. He went away for a week or two of holiday to Ibiza, and that's where he wrote Carolina. It's great.

I'll tell you. I've seen interviews and listened to interviews with James Taylor recently. Yeah. He gives you a lot of credit for being the person that believed in him. I did. I mean, because essentially when we moved to America, you know, neither of us had any money. I was betting my career on his. I dropped him off on the East Coast for a bit of rehab he was in the mood for at the time.

And I then went out to California and made a record deal. And looking back at those people, I mean, and the people that you assembled, I mean, Danny, Randy Meisner, Carole King, Russ Kunkel. No, hold on. That's not the Apple album. No, no. I mean, later on. Oh, the Sweet Baby James.

Yeah, Sweet Baby James. Well, I mean, they were very distinct because the Apple album was just people in London. So, you know, Paul played on it. But other than that, we had to put a little band together of English musicians. Right. I jumped. I split when you went to L.A. Right. sorry but i thought you said yeah my mistake but then when we got to l.a i decided to make the album much simpler and i wanted to put a band together by this time i'd heard the demos carol king had done of all the

great songs she wrote you know the demo of you know up on the roof or whatever and and i loved her piano playing so when dann coach my introduced me to Carol I said would you consider just being the pianist on this project? I'm doing and she came over to my house where James was staying and they met and sat down and played together and Russ Kunkel Had never been in the studio before he'd wow I heard him in a Jon Stewart rehearsal John Stewart used to be in the Kingsford Trio. And I loved the way he played. He was the first person I'd heard of.

He hadn't been listening to Hal Blaine, but to Ringo, you know what I mean? A whole other kind of drum fill. And so I hired him to do those sessions. And how did you find Linda Ronstadt? Somebody, I was in New York, and somebody said, you have to go and see this girl. I don't remember who it was. Have to go and see this girl. I don't remember who it was.

Have to go and see this girl playing at the bitter end. She's amazing. She's got the greatest voice you've ever heard in your life. She's brilliant and she's unbelievably beautiful. She sings barefoot and, you know, it was all true. And I went there and met her afterwards. And we didn't actually start working together right away because I just started working with Kate Taylor, James' sister,

and I thought managing two women might be complicated. But in the end, Kate decided to take some time off, and at that point, Linda and I got together, and I started managing her and producing her. And the first album I produced with Linda, she'd done a couple of other ones, but I produced Hot Like a Wheel. And the thing that eventually had her stop performing, Linda Ronstadt. Well, she has Parkinson's.

Yeah. How's she doing, by the way? She's, I mean, as well as anyone with a very unpleasant disease can be doing. Of course. She's fine, you know. She always worries about her brain, you know, because she goes, I feel my brain turning to Swiss cheese. But she's so brilliant. She's one of the most smartest women I've ever met. Incredibly well-read. Best girl singer you've ever heard in your life, I've heard you say.

She is. It's amazing that those two things would apply to the same person, but they do. There's no reason they shouldn't, but it's, you know, very fortunate when someone's an amazingly good singer and is incredibly smart and well-read and fascinating so i've treasure her as a singer and his friend but yes so parkinson stopped her singing and you know she she can walk a bit and stuff but it's it's a it's a very annoying disease we're fans here and those albums she's the greatest prisoner in disguise hard like a wheel i mean uh simple dreams uh living in the usa they're wonderful records thank you very much and if our listeners we have about a million people now a month listening

to the show. Wow. If our listeners do not know these albums, by all means, run out and get them. Absolutely. And also the James Taylor record. She's one of the greatest interpreters of songs, because she's not a songwriter, you know, and she, but she herself, I mean, I didn't know about Warren Zeva until she came to me and said, we're going to do

several songs about this brilliant guy, and she was right. Well, all those songs. The McGarrigle sisters, she rescued. Elvis Costello. She does Alison. Yeah, it's funny. And then Elvis was incredibly rude about it, but she subsequently apologized. Oh, interesting.

Oh, what? How was he rude about it? Oh, because, you know, he had to be. He was a punk. And so, you know, he did a Rolling Stone interview and he kind of derided Linda's version as, you know, awful. Meanwhile, of course, it made him more money than he'd ever made in his life so far because it was a big hit.

But he did. I love Elvis very much. We've become friends, and he totally acknowledges that he was being a bit of a deliberate punk. Well, also... In the musical sense. That's funny.

I'm glad he apologized. Yeah. The songwriting, I mean, not just Zvon and Elvis Costello, but I mean that you guys were picking, you know, Stones covers, Orbison, Buddy Holly. I mean, you went to the best places. We did. I mean, Linda and I were fans of a lot of the same people. And so we did that.

Yes, it was fun. I love When I Grow Too Old to Dream, which on Living in the USA, I don't know which one of you decided to pick that one. But it is, that is an absolutely stunning song. I think that was fun. I love When I Grow Too Old to Dream, which on Living in the USA, I don't know which one of you decided to pick that one, but that is an absolutely stunning song. I think that was Linda. I'm not sure. Generally, I'm the one usually picking some of the rock and roll ones because Linda would make an all-slows album, given the choice.

She likes singing slow songs. And, of course, when we did the Nelson Riddle albums, which was completely her idea, not mine, I supported her in it, but I didn't think they would be successful. And, of course, they did unbelievably well. They're great records. The first one sold three or four million, more than her preceding rock and roll albums.

And working with Nelson was a thrill to us. I owe Linda a huge debt of gratitude for that. My hat's off. Those records are wonderful. And Elvis Costello since then, of course, has become a hero of mine. He's one of the best songwriters in America. And our friend Jimmy Webb turns up twice on Get Closer. Yes, he does.

And then we did that Cry Like a Rainstorm, Howl Like a Wind album. That's right. We did three Jimmy Webb tunes, I think, Adios and Gosh. I can't think. I know the Moon is the Heart's Mistress. Moon is the Heart's Mistress. That's a great song. Yeah.

No, Jimmy's amazing. There's nobody like him. And how did you get involved with Robin Williams and Steve Martin? Quite differently. Robin, I think I met through my wife, who knew Robin. My wife, Wendy, knew Robin before I did. And so we met and hit it off and became great friends, and we would hang out together a lot.

And when he was talking about filming and recording the tour um i had some ideas about how you know we could make a record that would be a different thing than than what the the dvd of one show you know the dvd was the hbo show essentially but for the album we recorded every show and took all the best bits and and he also would do different bits every night about the city he was in. So we had a separate CD with all those put together. So I was explaining to him what I thought he could do. And he said, why don't you produce it and come with us on the road?

And I said, yes, please. Robin and his wife, Marsha, who helped very much put that together. How does one produce a comedy album? Well, in this case, it really was a question of note-taking primarily, remembering where all the best bits were. You guys won Grammys. We did. We won a Grammy. We won Best Comedy Album, not one I counted on winning.

Congratulations. And then Steve Martin was different because Steve also is a friend, and I was having dinner with him here in New York, and he was telling me about this stuff that he was working out with Edie Prickell he'd written some banjo melodies he'd given them to her she'd written these amazing songs

kind of on top of them not we thought he thought that she was just going to put lyrics to the banjo melody instead of which she wrote a whole counter melody it was brilliant

and I heard those over dinner at Steve's house and again we were talking about I said you know these are really good. You should make an album. And here's how I think you could do it. So it wasn't strictly a bluegrass album, but make it a little more adventurous than that. Put some other instruments in it and real strings and not just a fiddle and so on.

And the same thing kind of happened. I was actually on the plane home the next day that Steve emailed me on the plane and said, do you want to produce the record? And I said, yes. So basically, I'm always that hustling for work busiest person we've ever had on this show I website I did those two Steven Eadie albums and then because they turned that into a Broadway show bright star which is right that's right which ran on Broadway for a while not long enough to officially be a hit but we did a hundred and some shows. And it's opening in L.A. this fall at the Amundsen.

So I was music supervisor for the show, and then I produced the cast album, which we were nominated for Tonys and Grammys and all that stuff, which was exciting. You have your hands in everything. I do. I work with Hans Zimmer a lot. Yeah, you're doing movie music. So yeah, I like to keep busy.

I'm not going to take up golf and move to Florida or anything. Just a couple of last questions, Peter. Sure. We know you've got to go, and you've been such a sport. Oh, it's a pleasure. And just filled with information. In addition to recommending those Ronstadt albums, I'm going to tell our listeners, too, to get those James Taylor albums, for God's sake. i mean they're wonderful gorilla jt in the pocket walking man

they're all wonderful and everybody you get to hear everybody on them i mean paul and linda mccartney show up art garfunkel's on there yep david crosby graham nash everybody yep it's true it's true it's true and i will also i will plug my shows with Albert, if I may. Please do. We're doing a bunch of shows with Albert Lee here on the East Coast, starting with The Cutting Room this Sunday. But yeah, do come if you can. And Celebrity Biography. And I'm doing the Celebrity Biography thing,

which is keeping my acting career going. Because that's, you know, my acting career does every now and then pop up again. I did a film, I had a small role in a film called Doris and Bernard.

I don't know if anybody saw it. No, who's in that? It was an HBO movie. Okay. My friend Bob Balaban, who I'm actually

having dinner with tonight, directed it and there I am again hustling for work. Yeah. We're big fans of his. And they did this great movie about Doris Duke.

You know, Susan Sarandon played Doris Duke and Ralph Fiennes played the butler who has this peculiar, confusing relationship with her throughout the whole movie. In order for Ralph Fiennes to get the job, the old butler has to get fired. So I was the old butler in pages one, two, and three, serving Susan Sarandon her watermelon at the wrong temperature for breakfast and getting fired.

Yeah, I was just... So without me, Ray Fiennes couldn't have got anywhere. And you were in the Ruttles movie, I'd also like to point out. I'm in the second Ruttles movie, yes. The second one. Yes, Eric Idle is a dear friend and a genius. And the great Neil Innes. Yes, and Neil Innes.

So we have to ask you this real quick. Gil, you have anything else? No. Maybe we let this man get on with his life, and maybe he'll be kind enough to take us out with a song. First of all, Faust, the Randy Newman project, is another masterpiece. Oh, thank you.

So you have my admiration. Thank you. That was fun to do. We had James Taylor. Oh, Elton's on there. Don Henley, Elton John, Linda Ronsap, Bonnie Raitt. Everybody, get that one, too. That was fun to do. We had James Taylor. Oh, Elton's on there. Don Henley, Elton John, Linda Ronsap, Bonnie Raitt. Everybody, get that one too. Yeah, that's a good one.

So, and just the last thing, that's the 50th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper, so we'd be remiss in not just asking you about it. I mean, even if it's just... Well, I remember visiting the studio a couple of times, so I'd heard little bits, but not much. I mean, I wasn't in the studio hardly at all. I mean, people, I think,

if everyone who says they were at a Beatles session was actually there, it would have been as big as the Albert Hall. But what I did do was hear the whole thing when it was finished. I remember distinctly when Paul brought home a metal lacquer, you know, they just assembled it all and put it together for the first time and played it. It was just in our dining room at home on an ordinary old record player, the one with the lid, and it sounded amazing.

Just the mono lacquer straight from the studio, and I was blown away. I realized that albums were never going to be the same again. Never going to be the same. They were talking about that, I think, on PBS recently, the making of Sgt. Pepper. There was a great special on PBS Wonderful with a musicologist Who really takes you through

How impossible It was to do that then Yeah because it was all 4-track I mean the technology was fascinating I could go on about that for hours too But yeah I've been working with Apple Records and that Apple Quite a bit lately.

Indeed, I also have a radio show now. Tell us about that. I have a radio show every Thursday night at 8 p.m. on the Sirius XM on the new Beatles channel. They asked me if I could do an hour show once a week, and I get to play pretty much whatever I want because it's supposed to be Beatle-related. Right, of course. I want to include everything that influenced the Beatles and everyone they influenced. So why net? that's everybody.

So why met? That's everybody. Right, right, right. So I try to, like, just tell a story, a thread that goes through it all and, you know, include some cool music

that people might not have heard. And I heard... That's Thursday Nights at 8. Thursday Nights at 8. On what... Where can they get that?

Sirius XM. Sirius XM. On the Beatles channel. Okay, that's great. Now I'm going to listen to that for sure. Go ahead, Gil.. Sirius XM. On the Beatles channel. Okay, that's great. Now I'm going to listen to that for sure. Go ahead, Gil. No, I had just heard that the Beatles, they had like sort of a rivalry, creative rivalry with the Beach Boys.

They did. I mean, they both, I think they both realized. I can't remember what the order is anymore, but was it Sgt. Pepper? That's Pet Sounds. Then Pet Sounds. No, I think Pet Sounds came out when the Beatles heard that. Pet Sounds is first. Maybe so.

So, yeah, one way or the other, you know, Pet Sounds maybe inspired Sgt. Pepper and then these boys, you know. But I think it was definitely a case of somebody doing something brilliant and their big rivals going, oh, shit, you know, how are we going to beat that? And so, you know, and it was an amiable musical competition. Absolutely. And just, you know, everyone trying to be better than everybody else, which is what show business is all about. Because I think McCartney had heard pitch sounds. You could be right.

And he couldn't believe it. Yeah, I don't remember that specifically as an experience of mine, but certainly I know that took place and we've all read about it. And the last thing I want to ask you, and we'll throw the plugs in again at the end, but you've been asked this before. Did you, did you know that this music was going to have the permanence that it's had the, the lasting effect that it's had? Was there any way to know? No, I don't think, I didn't really think about it. I mean, as I say, the perception at the time was being a pop star is, is, is an extremely short ephemeral career.

Because nobody took the music seriously. The record companies certainly didn't. I mean, EMI looked down their noses at it. You know, they took their classical music seriously, their radar business seriously more than pop music. But, no, and that's why, you know, the Times of London music critic wrote that, you know, life-changing review of the Beatles, where he took the music seriously and reviewed it as music and said it was brilliant. And that was kind of the beginning of a total change of attitude.

And now classical musicians, jazz musicians and rock and roll musicians are all thought of in their respective fields as equals. But before that, the jazz guys and the classical guys looked down their noses at everything pop. As if, oh, I could do that if I wanted to, but of course they couldn't. Right. They're each of them, but very particular arts, and now pop music's given the respect it's due. Great. We know you got a fly. Do you have time to do one

more with him? Um, sure. Ha, ha, ha. Seventeen, a beauty queen, She made a ride that caused a scene Her long blonde hair Hanging down around her knees All the cats who dig striptease Praying for a little breeze

Her long blonde hair Falling down across her arms Hiding all the ladies' charms Hey, hey, hey, take it away, there you go. Lady Godiva She found fame And made her name A Hollywood director came into town Came into town

And said to her How'd you like to be a star? You're a girl who could go far Especially dressed the way you are She smiled at him bar. Especially dressed the way you are. She smiled at him. Gave a pretty head a shake. That was Lady

G's mistake. Hey, hey, take it away. Lady Godiva. He directs Certificates And people now are Craning their necks to see her

Cause she's a star One that everybody Knows Finished with the Striptease shows Now she can't afford her Clothes Her long blonde hair shows now she can't afford her clothes her long blonde hair

is lying on the barber's floor she doesn't need it anymore hey lady diver I can die now. Terrific.

Very good. Peter, thank you. It never sounded bad to me. Thank you. Give us the plugs again. Thank you. If you look on peterashamusic.com, there's a whole itinerary. We'll send people.

Come to a show if you can. Because the nice thing about playing small plays is I get to say hello to everyone afterwards and hang out and stuff. So do come and say hi. Well, I'll tell you what. We're going to put up to the video that our friends have just been taking here. And we'll put it up on social media tonight just to get. Absolutely.

That should be deeply embarrassing. Yes. So, I'm Gilbert Godfrey. This has been Gilbert Godfrey's amazing, colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. And we've been here talking to my fellow Mensa graduate, Peter Asher. I doubt that Peter this was a treat thank you very much you are someone

we could talk to for seven hours oh yes I won't I can go on forever thank you for doing this thank you very much thank you

thank you gentlemen I tell my arms they'll hold someone new Another love that will be true But they don't listen, they don't seem to care They reach for her but she's not there And I go to pieces and I wanna hide Go to pieces and I almost die every time

My baby passes by I remember what she said when she said goodbye Baby, we'll meet again soon maybe But until we do All my best to you I'm so lonely Think about her only I go to places we used to go

But I know she'll never show She hurt me so much inside. Now I hope she's satisfied. And I go to pieces and I want to hide. Go to pieces and I almost die every time. My baby passes by. Bye.