The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan - Peter Asher | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Episode Date: August 5, 2026

Music legend Peter Asher joins Billy Corgan for a fascinating conversation spanning the British Invasion, the Beatles, Laurel Canyon, and the art of making timeless records. As one half of the chart-topping '60s duo Peter & Gordon, Asher looks back on his unforgettable years at Apple Records working alongside the Beatles, discovering James Taylor, and helping launch Linda Ronstadt's solo career.Billy and Peter dig into the craft of record production, the golden era of singer-songwriters, why a distinctive voice matters more than a perfect one, and the quiet relationships that shaped music history. Peter also explains why his greatest calling wasn't the spotlight but helping other artists find theirs.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Once I discovered what a record producer could do, you know, that you could hire musicians vastly better than yourself and tell them what to play. I thought that was brilliant. It's not often that somebody will take themselves out of the spotlight and make it about somebody else. That's true, I suppose, yeah. But that's what I was determined to do. We could literally just talk for hours about you as a producer. That era that we were on stage when it was all about screaming girls and stuff. Oh, yeah.

You guys had the best air of them all. We did. We enjoyed ourselves. And somewhere in your story, Paul McCartney moves into your house. I was driving down Sunset Boulevard in a rented Mustang convertible being recognized by beautiful women. I kind of went, this is a little bit better. This is an improvement. Peter Asher, so nice to see you.

Thank you for being here. Good to see you too. Thank you. You know, we've had such an incredible crazy life. We've been lucky. Yes. But I found myself at 4 this morning as I was doing my research. like sort of where do we begin?

So I'll start here if that's okay. It's the breakup of you and your partner, Gordon. It's about 68. Yes. It seems like there was no sort of dramatic. No, there wasn't. In fact, we didn't ever break up as such. Okay.

You know, we never had any. Just kind of stopped? We had any, we never had any kind of Evely Brothers-style actual bust-ups, let alone attacking each other on stage and all the crazy stuff they did. we gradually started doing other things Gordon went to Australia for a while he started acting he was in the it was the original Joseph

in in the technical Pharaoh, original Pharaoh in Joseph Oh I didn't know that He was the one who did it like Elvis you know which is always part of the part of the park because Gordon did a very good Elvis impersonation and it wasn't really It was 37 years or some ridiculous amount of time

until we got back together. But as I say, we never actually said, we're never doing this again. Wow. But I admit, as the decades went by, I'd kind of naturally assumed, well, we're never doing that again. But we did.

It was actually Paul Schaefer and his wife and caused that to happen. They were doing a benefit, wanted to do a benefit, for Paul Schaefer's friend and our friend to Mike, what's his name, Jesus, the keyboard player in the Dave Clark Five,

Mike Smith, Mike Kay. who was a terrific keyboard player and had a terrible accident, fell off his roof and needed help. And Paul Schaefer wanted to put the benefit together, and Paul's wife, Kathy said, you know, it would be great if you could get Peter and Gordon back together and do a 60s-themed benefit.

So he called me up, and after a 37-year gap, it was evident to me that if we were ever going to do it, this would be the time, because Paul Schaefer could be relied upon to put a great band together. So we said yes. So there was no sort of singular moment where you're like, okay, that's done.

So the ending, you know, the ending was very undramatic. Yeah. We just started doing other things. Gordon wanted to be a solo act anyway. And so, no, there was no official breakup moment. Right. You produced the guy from the Manfred Man. Paul Jones.

Paul Jones, right. Did that come before joining Apple as A&R? Yes, before. Yeah. Was that just something as a lark to do with a friend type of thing? What was interesting was, you know, I... Because people often ask how I became a record producer, how I became a manager,

and they're terribly different, because being a record producer was an actual concrete ambition of mine. I wanted to do that. Oh, I didn't know that, yeah. Because I'd very much enjoyed the process of making records with Peter and Gordon, and gradually had gotten more and more involved

in the actual production and decision-making. Who'd you work with, who produced you guys? That's something I feel I should know, but I don't know. The first track, the initial big hit, World Without Love, was produced by a man called Norman Newell, who was best known as sort of middle-of-the-road kind of productions. He produced the UK hit of Andy Williams. I'm losing my memory. Can't help but love in you?

No, Moon River. Oh, okay. Because oddly enough, it was a person called Danny Williams who had the hit in England, not Andy Williams. But Norman produced that, and that was his first number one, I think. And he was recommended by EMI. I mean, not recommended. We were told by EMI that he was going to be the producer of our first record. What was it about production that appealed to you so early on?

As you know, most artists really don't care. Yes. They kind of care how it turns out, but they don't want to spend time measuring microphones. No, that's true. That's true. But once I discovered what a record producer could do, that you could hire musicians vastly better than yourself and tell them what to play, I thought that was brilliant.

My reaction was kind of, how do I get in on that racket, you know? And I loved the idea you could try out, you know, different arrangement ideas and make suggestions and things that worked and things that didn't work. Were you a Manfred band fan? Yes, I was. Yeah. And a Paul Jones fan in particular. Yeah.

Paul is, was and is one of the best harmonic players in the world. Very underrated band, I find. That's a band I, maybe because, you know, in America, they were known as the band that, when they were younger, obviously, they were known as the, that had the hit with Quinn the Eskimo. Yes. So in America, the perception of Man for Man was almost kind of somewhat novelty-ish. Well, it began, of course, with Duadiddi. But that's my point is, the songs we heard on the radio in America were, The band didn't seem serious to us.

That's right. But they were a serious man. Manor was a serious musician and the various singers they've had, Mike Dobo and then originally Paul Jones, were very good. Yeah. So they all took it seriously. So you've got one foot in production. You don't know you've broken up your band or your duo.

Exactly. We know we're on a hiatus. Yeah. And then you get the call from Apple, you know, do you want to come A&R? Yes. Can you walk me through that a little bit? Yes, Paul was aware of my ambitions as a record producer.

And so the initial conversation with Paul, who I'd become friends with because he was staying in our house, and that's a long story. As you do. As you do. You have a beetle living in the attic. And he asked me if I would produce some records for Apple, and then subsequently adjusted that or made a bigger offer

in the sense that he said, do you want to be head of ANR? I think they'd sort of figured that the label should have somebody called head of ANR because labels had, you know, something record labels always had. So I was very happy to take that role. And of course, you know, being offered a job by the Beatles was exciting anyway. Yeah. And, uh, was there like a meeting where you go sit in the boardroom with them or was there? Yes. Yes, there were such meetings. I would try to have weekly A&R meetings with whatever we'd been sent, you know, but which we were sent vast amounts of, I can't imagine.

Everybody in the world probably wanted to be on Apple at that moment. Yes, I think so. And not only that, but we actively solicited submissions. Yeah. We took an ad in the paper. Okay. Saying send us your tapes, we will listen to them. And I had to have a staff of about six people to listen to them.

Was there any great discovery that ever came in that way? No. It was disappointing. The submissions were not terribly good. George liked a guy who's called brute force, who sent us a tape called The King of Fur, which was a song, which was, I'm the King of Fur, I'm the, which at the time was hilariously outrageous

and got banned and everything, of course. Did that come out? That came out. Oh, okay. Root Force was his name. Because I have some of the other, like Jackie Lomax. That's a good, that's a good record. Yes, you see, that didn't come in the submissions.

Jackie was a friend of George's. Yeah, but I'm saying, is there's, you know, obviously what happened with the Beatles kind of overcasto, that was what happens with Apple as a label. But there's, there was some credible stuff that came out of Apple. I think so. Yes. I mean, Jackie Lomax and, of course, James and, yeah, and Mary Hopkins, you know, which was entirely Paul's invention. It was an example of Paul's extraordinary the way his brain works is that, you know, Mary Hopkins, I don't know if you know that story of how we signed Mary Hopkins. I know it a little bit, but I'm happy to hear it.

She was on a talent show called Opportunity Knox, a bit like American Idol, whatever. And she got voted on and survived the week after week and became the sort of winner. And Paul, Twiggy, actually, our friend Twiggy, the supermodel at the time when there were really only one supermodel and was only one supermodel. And it was her. And she called Paul to tell him that you should turn on his television to watch this girl. Paul called me. We all watched her.

We loved her. And we, this, Eric, I think Derek Taylor and I and somebody else were dispatched to Wales to sign Mary where she lived. And we had to convince her father. I think we weren't in the white slave trade that we were respectable. And so we signed Mary. And at that time, Paul already knew the song he was going to do with him. He'd heard the song, those were the days. He'd heard by an American duke.

sung in a nightclub called The Blue Angel some months previously and made a mental note of it as a terrific song. He said, I want to do that song with Mary. Wow. Let's find the song. Classic. And that was all his idea.

Yeah. And then he had an arrangement done by this guy Richard Houston, who I recommended to do the James Taylor album. Yeah. Who was a friend of mine who was a jazz musician. Okay. And classical conductor.

And so he wrote the arrangement for those were the days, and Paul produced the record. Yeah. And it was a huge hit. Huge shit. James Taylor kind of found you through somebody that knew you kind of thing. Cooch.

Danny Couchmar, or Cooch, as we called him at the time. Okay. And still do. I was in a band. Well, when Gordon and I toured America, we were given a backup band, often a different band in different territories. Okay. Somebody were booking the Northeast.

Was he in one of your backup bands? He was in one of our backup bands. called the King Bees. And the King Bees were good. Cooch was great. He was a big Steve Cropper fan. I loved his guitar playing. And he and I became great friends.

And that friendship extended beyond the Peter and Gordon era. Wow. He stayed in touch. So Cooch was subsequently in a band called The Flying Machine in New York, with his childhood friend, James Taylor. Smile, a little smile for me. Exactly. They were friends going all the way back.

to Martha's Vineyard when they were 13, 14. So when the flying machine broke up, that's the flying machine in pieces on the ground, as in the song. Cooch said to James, well, if you're going to London, James intended to go to London

because he had a girlfriend over there he thought he could stay with. Don't know that he couldn't. That was another story. But so Cooch gave him my phone number and said, is my friend in England? He's okay. we were friends,

give him a call. So James called me out of the blue. Wow. Used himself as Coochie's friend, came over to my flat the following evening and played me a couple of songs and life changed forever. Wow.

Did you... I love those moments in history because like, okay, you're sitting there. Now, of course, we all know who James Taylor is such an incredible artist, but did you think, oh my God, this guy's a world-class talent? I did.

I did. I was entirely convinced. quite straight away. Yeah. I mean, he had a tape. He'd gone in the studio and for like 20 minutes of studio time or something and recorded two or three songs. Yeah.

But something in the way she moves and something's wrong, we're among them. And I kind of went, this guy is completely amazing. Because what's extraordinary is that I loved each separate element of him, you know, because his guitar playing was extremely unusual. Yeah. He clearly been listening to Segovia and Julian Bream as much as he'd been listening to Woody Guthrie. Yeah.

And he simply combined the folk thing with immaculate and complicated guitar playing. And then his harmonic sense was like owed a lot to the Manhattans and great American vocal bands and stuff. But also he had no like Dylan damage where a lot of people around that time were so affected by the shadow of Dylan.

Right, and by Woody Guthrie's second hand. Yeah, yeah. It took me a while to like Bob Dylan because I thought, who is this guy who wants to sound like Woody Guthrie? Because I was a big Woody Guthrie, because I was a big Woody Guthrie fan. Yeah. And I first saw Dylan in that light,

and later it dawned on me that songs he was writing were of a different caliber. Yeah. But his singing put me off for a while. So walk me through, you bring James Taylor into Apple and say, okay, I think we should put an album by this guy, which you guys did. Yes. What was there for a song?

impression of him as an artist. Well, I play, first I had James play them a couple of songs live. I went into Apple. Not too intimidating. Exactly. It didn't really occur to me at the time, how scary that would have been. Yeah, it's like, hey, here's the Beatles, and I'll play them some of your songs. Exactly.

Here's two Beatles. Oh, two Beatles. Two Beatles still be pretty interesting. Two Beatles is a quorum. Yes. So who was present? George and Paul. Okay, good.

And James played them a couple of songs. and they're going to go, yeah, sign him, you know, produce them. And they did. And we went in the studio shortly thereafter. We put a little band together, advertised in The Melody Maker for musicians, and chose a keyboard player and a bass player. Don Shin and Louis Sonamo, I haven't seen them for 100,000 years. And James' friend, Joel O'Brien,

who was a New York drummer who's one of James's best friends who we knew we wanted to use. And we embarked on the production of the first James Taylor album. Wow. At Trident Studios. Okay, so

it's because it has something to do with the story, I'm not asking for the salacious part, but he had a drug habit or was kind of back and forth. Were you aware of the drug habit? Because that kind of feeds into the story of how it all kind of goes wrong there for a minute. Yeah.

really aware. No, I knew very little about drug addiction. And, you know, it just sort of dawned on me. There was something was a miss. I just thought he was extremely moody and, you know, and late and stuff. But eventually I realized these were all the symptoms of a major disease. Yeah. So because the, because the album doesn't necessarily connect with, you know, it didn't sell per se, right? No. He's not, he's not a sensation. No. He ends up going back to Americans. Somehow that leads to you to America. He got some respectful reviews and stuff and then decided to go back to America. Right. So how do you end up going? Because we discussed, you know, who we thought should manage him and how his career should take place. It was clear to me that his career should be American-based. He wanted to go back anyway. Yeah. And the people we admired

and Johnny Mitchell and Neil Young and so on. Yeah. We're all a base. in the US, even though the Canadian, in some cases. And so, you know, we agreed that I would go to New York as his manager. Oh, wow. I kind of thinking, how hard can it be, you know? And the answer is, if you've got James Taylor, it's not that hard. It's no funny. Sorry.

Because, you know, for a short time, Elliot Roberts managed me. Yes. And Elliot used to, you know, as you know, because you knew Elliot. Very well. these massive proclamations, you know, and I go, yeah, if you've got Neil Young, you know, it kind of works. Exactly. You know.

Exactly. I mean, I got to induct the first two managers into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which were Brian Epstein and Andrew Lou Goldham. Yeah. The Beatles and the Stone. So it's like, duh, you know, how hard can that be? You know, so the secret of a great management is a great client. Had you guys developed a personal friendship as well?

Yeah. Yes. Yeah, we liked each other. We still do. fortunately and talked to James the other day and he's happily on the road

sounding as wonderful as ever I guess I asked because my stepmother was a huge fan of James so I grew up hearing James' music in the house and I became a fan and over time then I certainly grew to appreciate what a great artist he is and I even like

80s James Taylor where like maybe the 70s fans didn't necessarily like that I sort of thought he made a cool pivot. I thought he's one of those guys who somehow gracefully went into the 80s. Yes. Yes. And I don't know how much you had to do with that per se. Which albums are we thinking about? It was when there was, when there was a hit there, you know, sort of late 70s, early 80s, there was so like, he kind of, I was like, I don't want to say he sounded like Jimmy Buffett, but like everybody started kind of making those types of records. He kind of, yeah, a little bit, yes.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, kind of, I don't know, it felt like endless sunrises or something. at sunsets. Yes, some of those songs were more depressing than that, but yes. Yeah, but I'm saying somehow he maintained who he was through that transition

where some people felt it got a little schmaltzy. Yes, they did. Right. We don't have to say who they are, but we know who they are. Anyway, I got lost in my reverie for James.

I guess what I'm saying is because you know the man and I am interested in him as an artist. the fact that he was this moody and unfortunately drug-addicted artist when he was young and that became part of his story. But he went on to have obviously a long and successful and very respectful career. Absolutely.

Well, of course, and the key point is he's been sober now for decades and all that is. What I'm saying is I feel like for somebody that I've listened to for over 40 years of my life, I don't really know him as a person, is that this because he's a person. private person? Yes. He's quite private. He's very funny. I mean, he's always funnier than people expect.

Yeah. But, and extremely smart, obviously. Well, yeah, definitely smart. Yeah, and I consider myself fortunate to count him as a very close friend. Yeah. And still a great musician. He does. He does.

He does cool stuff on YouTube where he shows, like, kind of how we play. I'm like studying like he's like by teacher. Like how do you do some of that stuff? I know. Well, it's incredible. So there's some folk technique, you know, pulling off and hammering on stuff. Yeah.

But applied to really jazzy chords. Yeah. So cool. So speaking of the 70s, so, you know, you guys end up in LA, sunset sound, and I'm looking at this,

you know, which becomes the big record, but, uh, in, you know, with massive hits. But the,

what I see when I look at that and I was just at Sunset Sound not long ago recording myself. It's basically the birth of yacht rock or 70s rock or whatever. Yeah, I haven't quite got a handle on a yacht rock. It's meant to be respectful. But it's a it's a particular form of recording. It's very dry. It's very, you know, very present.

Yes. A lot of natural, beautiful tone. Yes. But you're there kind of basically first. And when I looked at who was playing on the third, You know, it's like Conkle, Rannie Meisner, Carol King's in the session. Yeah, well, Carole King was James's piano player for a while. Yeah.

Yeah, and Musk Conkull, that was the first session he ever did. He'd never recorded it. So I'm saying you basically put in together, let's call it, the new form of the L.A. wrecking crew. Yes, in a way. And there they are, and it's on that album. Yes. And that sort of sets the template for about the next seven or eight years of music making. And also, I was surprised that when I credit it.

to the musicians, which was my determination to do, it turned out that was unusual as well. Really? There was a time before that, they didn't get their names on records. Did you have a particular sonic vision that you were after, or was it what you were just attracted to? Clarity, I think.

Yeah. I really, if anything, you know, which later on I was accused of being too neat and tidy. But I really liked records where each sound and each part fit into an overall picture. Yeah. You know, and you didn't have to listen, Kathy. Was there something that had influenced you to, like, did you listen to somebody else and thought, oh, I'd like that? It's a very good question.

I don't know. I think there's some R&B records that you feel like that to me, where each part, even the horn parts, have a very precise role. Are you thinking like stacks type stuff? Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That beautiful kind of, it's all there. You're in the room maybe?

Yeah, and Steve Crawford will play one note. Yeah. Make it mean a lot. Yeah, beautiful. I thought, as I do sometimes, I find myself trying to put myself in your shoes at that moment. Now you're a successful record producer. You've had a very successful pop career. Yeah.

Right? That's not a dirty word. No. But suddenly now you're a producer. Were you okay with now being the guy behind the scenes? Yes. Did you like that part of it? I liked that very much.

Did you like that you didn't have to go and perform? What part of it was appealing to you? I think, yeah, I enjoyed not having to perform. I didn't do it for a long time. But at the same time, there was part about being on stage I always liked, of course, especially that era that we were on stage when it was all about screaming girls and stuff. Oh, yeah. That was a lot of them.

You guys had the best air of them all. We did. We enjoyed ourselves. And so I know the idea of returning to. to live singing appeal to me as well. And I did sing on a lot of the records I made. Yeah. A lot of backup vocals that I went,

well, I'll do that. But I'm saying is most people would have a hard time sublimating their ego. If they've had success as a performer. Yes, I suppose so. It's not common, as you know. But yeah, I have a healthy ego, I think. You do, yeah.

And I don't think that's a bad thing. When I was a talented person. I was happy to be known when I wasn't on stage, you know, when Rolling Stone put me on the cover, I went, yes, please. But you understand, it's like it's not often that somebody will take themselves out of the spotlight

and make it about somebody else. That's true, I suppose, yeah. But that's what I was determined to do. Yeah, because I had a moment when I was in my early 30s, I was out of a record deal. And a friend of mine from a record label called me, and he said, what are you going to do? And I said, well, I'm trying to get a new record.

deal and he said i think you should go into production he said you'd be a perfect person for it you know you know what you're doing you know how to write yeah and he said think about it you won't have to tour anymore you can have a normal schedule you'll make the same amount of money that you're making now and i thought i said i thought i said you're crazy i'm not i'm not done i'm a star i'm a star maybe i mean i got more to but it would it would have been and you were at i think in this point you were maybe 25, 26 years old, somewhere around there? Yeah. See, the thing is, I think part of it is that I was always the harmony singer.

I mean, I wasn't the star. I mean, collectively, I suppose, as a duo, we were stars. But I still think it's not irrelevant to consider that, you know, I... But your name was first on the marquee. Oddly enough, that was a change. We were Gordon and Peter. Really? And Gordon and I got together at school.

We were Gordon and Peter. Okay. Because he was the lead singer. He was the tall hand. someone but there was the obvious solution it was when we had a record deal eMI came to us one day and said we've we've done some research peter and gordon sounds better we're changing it to peter and gordon who was i to complain so i was going to say you're like yeah so yeah think of me as as second willing so now that you're okay because it's as you as we all know now you know this is

a romantic time in music history laa yeah uh laurel canyon you got this whole crowd out here. Neil Young's out here. Joni Mitchell, you know, you talked about these people before. The Beach Boys are sort of fine in their 70s way. It's a fecund period in L.A. Absolutely. Music history, a lot of great musicians, a lot of great singer-songwriters.

And you're in your mid-20s. You're living the California dream. Yes. You know, it's perpetually sunny out here. Yes. Coming out of gloomy old England. Did you, I guess what I'm saying, and you take it however you want, Like, is it what you wanted?

Like, did you look around and go, ah, this is all right? This is all right. Yes, I think so. Because I visited L.A. before, of course, on the road with Gordon. Yeah. And I remember distinctly, I mean, there was a point where a year earlier I'd been bicycling home from university on a winter's afternoon, bicycling in the rain, you know. And almost exactly a year later, I was.

driving down Sunset Boulevard in a rented Mustang convertible being recognized by beautiful women. I kind of went, this is a little bit better, this is an improvement. Yeah. So, sticking with the production side of the... So I knew I'd locked out. Yeah, yeah. So Linda Ronstadt had

had success with Stone Pony's and hits. And I think when you came in, because there was something with an album, you came in where an album was struggling. Half done, yeah. Yeah, can you Can you walk me through that? It was partly produced by John Boylan, partly by John David Souda.

Both of them were boyfriends at the time, and it was complicated. Sounds messy. And it couldn't get finished somehow. So I helped to finish it. Yeah. And in the course of all that, I think it was John that suggested that maybe I would be interested in managing her as well. Yeah. Because John Boylan didn't make sense.

And John played a key role in that. And so initially, when Linda approached me about management, I, first of all, I asked James, because at that point I was a one client manager. Yeah. So it's represented a potential change. But he was okay with that. After thinking about it, I mean, it wasn't an instant decision.

I'd have to think about it too. Yeah. So, where was I? Well, you worked with her on her album. Exactly. So that impelled her. And at the same time, also, I'd started managing James's sister Kate. Yeah. And I thought, well, that would be weird to be trying to break two girls singers at the same time.

So I wasn't sure that I could say yes to Linda and be effective. So I said no initially. And then Kate decided that show business was not for her. And she made one album for Atlantic, which is a very good album, I think. but she, the road didn't agree with her. Yeah, because in doing the research on you, I didn't even know that James had a sister that had recorded. Yeah.

I was sort of like, huh? Like, in all these years of, like, digging around in record piles, I wasn't aware that there was the sister that sang. Yeah, they all sing. All the brothers sing, and the sister. Wow. So Kate, Alex, Livingston, Hughes, the whole Taylor family sings. So tell me if this perception is right, because, you know,

I was too young, but I, kind of remember the times, but there was, there's a seems to be a historical sense that after Stone Pony, she was just another girl singer from a band that had kind of broken up and she was kind of, she had a deal, but nobody really thought she had a big upside. Is that, is that generally inaccurate? I think that's accurate. And also, I think she had a slight reputation for being difficult, with, totally unjustified, because she was, was, was and is incredibly smart. and has incredibly good ideas of our own. You think it was just a headstrong type of thing?

I think it was the people were telling her, don't you worry, you're pretty little head about that and thinking that they could tell her what to do. Yeah. I think people honestly did have a hard time realizing that somebody who had that voice, miraculous voice, and was incredibly good looking and could also be a seriously thoughtful, well-read, intelligent person.

I see. And they had a hard time understanding all that. And it became clear to me that all you had to do with Linda was listen. Yeah. And help her affect her. Before you worked with her, what was your perception of her voice? I saw her first at the bitter end in New York, Paul Colby's bitter end, and was blown away, completely blown away. This was when she had the backup band that turned into the Eagles.

Ah, that's right. Randy Meisner, Don Henley, Glenn Frye, good band. Not bad. Not bad. Forecasts a bright future for them. Yeah. So, and she was amazing. I mean, I'd never had anything like it in my life.

She had this extraordinary voice, you know. Yeah, it's a kind of a one-of-a-kind voice. Totally is. And total pitch, pitch, control, command. Yeah, and that's, that's, of course, what, tragically, when she figured out she had Parkinson's, that's what she lost was the control. Because sometime before she even realized

that there was an illness involved, she was kind of going, my voice won't do what it feels like it should. And I couldn't hear the difference, but she could feel the difference. Ah, I bet. It was the control. Well, when you're like a gifted... Her pitch is insane, you know. Yeah.

A lot of those vocals on those albums are live vocals. I bet. You know, and obviously not. Some singers, they just open their mouth and it just sounds right. Exactly, exactly. You were instrumental in helping the public find her gift as a solo artist, and we know that that translation doesn't always work, you know, that the idea that you're a standalone singer, you know,

not everybody makes that translation. I've even had, I've even struggled to get the public to understand me out of my band, even though I'm the writer and the singer. So I understand that that's a difficult lead. for people to make. What was it that you think that you all discovered together? You're no good, I think,

was the first big hit that sort of cracked it open, right? Yes, it did, yeah. That was, you know, the big number one record that changed people's perception. Yeah. And a lot of the credit

for the brilliance of that record should go to Andrew Gold as well. Okay. He was an extraordinary musician who played most of the instruments. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. All the guitar stuff in the middle

is all him. Oh, yeah. Cool. Cool stuff. He played, Comerfrey played the drums as well. Kenny Edwards played the bass, but Andrew played most of the instruments

and had a lot of the ideas. So I worked with Andrew on that record. Yeah. But what did you, I mean, maybe this is too esoteric a question, but what do you think it was that suddenly was there

and so obvious to the public that wasn't there for the previous, you know, three, four years? I don't know. I mean, we liked out. We had the right song. Linda sang it brilliantly, but it was one of those cases where

you work a couple of days on a record in the studio and you kind of go, if this isn't a hit, I don't know what is. Everyone who would play it to who likes it. Except Linda, initially, didn't like the guitar stuff in the middle. Oh, the weird. All the multiple guitar parts. She went, oh, it sounds like the Beatles.

I don't know. And I went, yeah, it does sound a bit like the Beatles, but that's what's so cool, you know. That's where you go, well, I know the Beatles and let me tell you. She changed their mind. Anxiety, check. Burnout, check. Stress, check. Guess what makes all of those things worse, trying to find the right therapist.

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and we could literally just talk for hours about you as a producer. Anyway, here's a short list of people I thought was interesting. You worked with, and you worked with more people than this. But Diana Ross, Tony Joe White, who I love, Cher, Ringo, Levy Newton-John, Barbara Streisand. And I thought, wow, you've worked with a lot of, incredible singers. Yes.

And even with your relationship with the Beatles, you've been around great singers. And I thought you would be one of the only people that could answer a question like this, which is, is there a common link between such one-of-a-kind singers? What is that one-of-a-kindness that is the link, I think.

I mean, I find myself particularly drawn to singers who are instantly identifiable, among whom I number you. Thank you. That's a pretty good. Because, I mean, your voice is another one. You're going to go, oh, I know who that is. Sometimes that's a good thing.

No one else could do that, you know. You know, when I was young, though, I thought it was a bad thing. Because everyone was always telling me my voice was wrong. Right. Well, distinctive can be wrong, can be right. Yeah, it took, I had to find my own song, which was my journey. But I appreciate that because when you, like everybody I name, even Ringo. I mean, there's only one person who seems like Ringo.

You only need a bar to know who it is. Yeah, yeah. That's certainly true. Because, I mean, the people that always make me nervous when they come up to me start talking about, you know, will you produce a record with me or, is the, I can do anything, people, you know. Look, I can sing. Maybe I should do a bit of country, maybe, but what do you think?

You know, whereas most of the people I've had the privilege of working with, Natalie Merchant, you know, everyone, you know. Now, a cool singer. Exactly. You're just going to go, oh, that's great singing. You know, it's inimitable. and as I say instantly recognizing. Even somebody like Natalie, who I got to meet one time,

through your work with her, you know, it's like I had to imagine this whole world around her voice. And I met her, I realized I'd created this whole personality that wasn't her personality. She's a lovely person, but I'm saying I almost created a personality for her wasn't hers based strictly on the sound of her voice. Right. Right. Her voice is, it's hard to say what's so special about a case like her because you just know it's a particular terminology.

It's not even just the phrasing, it's the tone. So looking back on your production career, what do you most, I don't know if the most proud of isn't the way, wait, wait, wait. I don't know. I mean, it's been so miraculously surprising to me. I mean, I remember the first time I worked with Diana Ross, for example, you know, I remember being in the studio. and she went out there to sing on the first song we were doing. And, you know, I'm somebody who had every Supreme's record in the book, you know, and knew them all by heart. So she opens her mouth and I find myself going, Jesus Christ, she sounds exactly like Diana Ross.

That's too weird. Yeah. And the same with Cher, you know, Cher's big fog corner of a voice, which is so exciting, you know. And I consider myself incredibly lucky. and then again last year with Barbara with whom I'd never worked before and I knew her socially a bit

but I mean again the miraculous moment they first step up to the mic and you go it's Barbara it's very amazing and then I'm very lucky to have experienced all that so let's go back a little bit to the beginning I probably have this wrong but I'm paraphrasing here

your dad worked in the medical field with blood and mental health issues? Is that, is that? Not particularly blood. Okay. He was an endocrinologist, which is glands. Okay. And he was also very interested in mental health,

and he was in charge of the mental observation award to the hospital, though he was not actually qualified psychiatrically. Okay. But he just had a real knack with dealing with people with mental illnesses. even those extremely crazy people. Yeah. He would go in the room and lie on the floor, you know,

because he found he never got attacked if he lied on the floor, however crazy they were. Wow. So, and he, in some of what he talked about, you know, where it's all evidence-based and, you know,

what do they call it now, the, when you just, it's just talking therapy mostly. Yeah, you call it talk therapy. Yeah, that kind of thing. Yeah. Which he did. He used hypnosis as well, too, before it's time. Wow.

And he's also known, if you look him up now, it's largely because he was the person who identified and named Munchausen syndrome. Oh, wow. That's kind of a cool. Yeah. Well, you know, also, it's also an example of his eccentricity because doctors, normally, if they identify a particular syndrome,

name it after themselves. Yeah. So you still get people that go, who was Dr. Munchausen? Yeah. Because there is no Dr. Munchausen. It was Baron Munchausen, who's the legendary fictional character.

Yeah. Terry Gilliam made a movie about him. Yeah. There was Baron Munchausen. So my father, that... There's a little bit of wink and a humor in that. Absolutely. And then your mom was a professor.

Yes. At a music school. George Martin was a pupil. Correct. Yes. By coincidence. Before, before we met any Beatles. And here we are,

talking on Mother's Day. But, um, yes, I guess what I'm saying is, you know, not everybody grows up in, in such a learned environment. No, I was lucky in that regard, too. Yeah. And then you've got two sisters that, uh, one was doing voice acting. Is that accurate? Claire, Claire didn't, he's the cleverest of us all probably. Um, she was, she's the one who actually went to Oxford and got an organ scholarship to Oxford. And, uh, and it's the most, the most skilled musician out of, uh, out of the three of us. But, and Jane became a successful actress.

Yeah, and then you started acting when you were young. Yeah, when I was eight. Was that something you wanted to do? I don't know. Well, what happened was we were spotted by an agent who liked the look of us and told our mother

that she thought she could get work for us and would we be interested. Yeah. And I think it was largely based on the fact that we all three had red hair, bright red hair at the time. It's changed in the interim. But so I think that, so that we all got signed up.

We never did get anything all three of us together. But Jane and I did an episode of Robin Hood together as a pair of peasant children. But I love, because I saw this, where you had, you acted with John Mills and Alistair Sim. Yes, yes. And even Boris Karloff at some point? Yes, in fact, I did an interview the other day for, and I was going, this is weird they would warn me. But I think it was a Boris Karloff documentary. And I think I'm the only living actor they could find

who actually worked with Boris Karloff. Because after this whole career in America, he moved to England and was in a series called Colonel March of Scotland Yard. And I was in one of the episodes. Oh, my goodness. And Boris Karloff added a couple of scenes with Boris. Do you have a good memory of that?

Yes, very, he was charming. and he had a scene where somebody was trying to poison me and he had to, with his walking stick, smash a glass of milk out of my hands so that I didn't drink it. So it was very dramatic. Is there video of this?

Have you seen? Yes. I have to find the video of that. It's called the talking head or something. Oddly enough. But I'm a huge Boris Karloff fan which I couldn't resist. Yeah.

No, he was very nice to me. Such a it's like that's the beauty of America it's like somehow we find the Boris Karloffs of the world you know, and turn them into kind of like living legends yeah but he lived up to it he was really a gentleman

yeah so you meet Gordon at school and yes what what musically was going on in the atmosphere that made you want to be a pop musician I know I know it didn't happen overnight but I Yeah, no, it didn't happen overnight,

but Gordon and I found that we liked a lot of the same things. I was more of a fokey. I was already Woody Guthrie crazy. Were you a purist type? You're not like, because there's people who get very purest. No, I wasn't. I wasn't. But, and then we were both fans of Cliff and the shadows, you know.

Yeah. In England, as you know, are very important in America. It's a shame because it really hasn't translated it over here? Not at all. I mean, it's very odd, you know, when they interviewed British guitar players, they invariably give credit to Hank B. Marvin.

Yeah. And American, without doubt, without question, go, who, you know? Yeah. It takes them, oh, the shadows, that's right. Even I had to go, kind of go back and, they're not easy to find in America like old Shadows records, like, no pressings on EMI or whatever they were on, and

amazing sound, and I can see the influence when you listen, but in America, culture, there's no representation of the shadows at all. No, exactly. Other than maybe there's like Cherokee or something, like one of their... Apache. Thank you. Close.

It was close. So it's off told, so you could take it however you like. But, you know, somewhere in your story, Paul McCartney moves into your house, dating your sister. Yes. Let me ask this. How does that work where your sister goes to your mom and your dad and says, hey, by the way, the beetle wants to move in. Well, because my mother actually offered him the guest room because he was hanging around a lot. I mean, he would come to dinner, you know, and hang out and you see. This is early,

like, 63, 64. I'm bad at dates, but yes. But early, like, this isn't like they're, they're getting there, but they're not like what they became. It's sort of love me do time, I guess, or something at that. Wow, wow. Yes. So, yeah, you know, Jane met them when she was asked by the the Radio Times, the equivalent of TV guide, I guess. And they asked her if she would go and see the Beatles when they came down to London for the first time to play in an NME poll winner's concert, where they just did a few songs. They wanted her to go, she was known for her affection for music.

She was also known for being on a TV show called Jukebox Jury, where various celebrities would rate the hits, hit or a miss. So they knew she liked music. They wanted her to write a piece about the Beatles and see what all the fuss was about. So she went and she was taken backstage to meet them as the visiting celebrity. And she met all the Beatles and found them all to be charming and funny.

And she liked them. They liked her. One of them liked her in particular and invited her out. And that's how she ended up with Paul. And that meant Paul was around her house a lot. Yeah. And we all liked him. so at some point he was there a lot

and he stayed in the guestroom from down to time and a mother said that if you wanted to use the guestroom as a pia d'hater when they were in London that was okay so he was there a lot and eventually moved in for a few years I guess how where were you at musically you know with Gordon we were playing a lot we had a gig a regular gig by this time in a place called the Pickwick Club

where we played every night was just the two of a acoustic guitar was no PA mostly doing folk folk classics or we're doing rock classics as well a lot of Buddy Holly okay probably all of Buddy Holly

I would say most of the catalog and and some folks a lot of folk stuff too yeah it's that mixture it's funny I just interviewed

Paul Anka who wrote a song for Buddy because Buddy was trying to cross over guess it doesn't matter anymore, yes. Yeah. So, so, like, weird. Yeah, no, exactly.

Yeah. Because Buddy Holly was such a great songwriter. It's, like, funny that he... Absolutely, and Paul Anker captured it perfectly, including the weird, Paul Anger actually put golly G and whoopsie daisy into the lyrics to guess it doesn't matter anymore, which is something only Buddy Holly would dare to do. So one Beatle story, if you don't mind, it's where they wrote, or you got to hear, I want to hold your hand, or they wrote it in your basement, or just, just, well, you.

walk me through that story. Yeah. My mother, when Paul moved in, my mother had a music room in the basement that she occasionally used for giving private oboe lessons, but didn't use much because she was very busy at her main gig, which was being oboe professor at the Roller Academy Music. So that room was pretty empty. And she said to Paul, if you ever needed a piano, he could use the piano in that room, which was a small, upright piano. And he did quite often. And this particular day, John Lennon came over who we'd met by this time. And they went down to this basement room. And after a couple of hours, I guess, called upstairs to see who was around and

ask if I wanted to come hear the song there just finished. So I said, yes, came down. I sat on this little sofa, two-person sofa, they sat side by side on the piano bench and hammered out. Curiously, what was, because it's odd that I went whole time, was written. on the piano in some respects. Yeah. So much a guitar song. But it was written on the piano and they played it to me and asked me what I thought. And you said.

I said it sounds great. Yeah. And of course, the ultimate clue is that what you says, that's amazing, could you play it again? And then the second clue is that they were very happy to play it again. So they knew exactly what they'd got. Wow. One question about John Lennon. Paul McCartney, if you watch interviews in 1963 today,

he seems like a fairly consistent personality. And I'm not saying John Lennon was a chameleon. He obviously went through a lot of inner changes. But what were your impressions of him at that point? I never got to know John terribly well. I mean, people, you know, and obviously spent more time with Paul and with John. But he could be quite grumpy.

He could be opinionated. But he was also fascinating and articulate. Did you see him as a magnetic personality at that point? Can you at least try to quantify that a bit? Because every generation has these, it's easy to look back and say, well, now we see what they did. And he did so much great work in his life. But oftentimes, and there's people in my generation,

where I remember meeting them early on, you would hear the rumble about somebody. Yes. you know and you and you go okay i'm going to see for myself what all this rumble is about and then you see it and you go well i don't know what that is but there's something there exactly i think that's exactly what it was and and yeah it became clear that he was an interesting person and a changeable person and the person capable of being quite grumpy i've seen him sort of

shut people down yeah readily you know yeah um to the point where it might even seem hurtful but I've also seen him be very funny and Lewis Carroll connection was one we were all Lewis Carroll fans My sister Jane There's a record version of Alice That she did Which is interesting

But she'd find fascinating too Because it was one of the first live stereo recordings That Argos records ever did Then it was full on live stereo To the point where When they fall under the pool of tears they shot it all, they filmed, recorded it all at a swimming pool.

And they had the cast fall into the water as Lewis Carroll describes. Yeah. One last thing on them, even on a song like I Wanna Hold Your Hand, you hear the brilliance of their sort of melodic, you know, there's almost like a Bach thing going on with them. Totally. Did you recognize that there was a harmonic complexity in them early on? Yes.

Yes. Yes, it was, you know, you couldn't. and all the da-da-da-da-da-da in the left hand of the guitar, or the guitar, which you came to the drop-up. It was just brilliantly written, so brilliantly arranged. So, back to Peter and Gordon. You know, Paul offers you a tape. I think there was three songs on it.

Is that accurate? Well, without love, yeah. No, no. I don't think there were three songs on it. Yeah, the story I read, so you were there. There was a tape where it had World Without Love, nobody I know and I don't want to see you again. No.

Okay. They were all written at different times. Okay. The World I Love tape was a demo he made in my bedroom upon request. Yeah. And it was he played me the song, which didn't have a bridge, by the way. It was unfinished. Okay.

And he explained that he didn't finish it because John didn't like it. John thought it was a lame song, and John thought the lyric was ridiculous. that please lock me away was an incredibly stupid way to start a song. So it didn't have a bridge at all. And Paul made me a demo.

First of me showed me the song, wrote out the lyrics and the chords, which I have. That was my next question. Yeah, they're safely locked in a fireproof safe. But again, no bridge. And so, and he made the demo

again, just one verse so we'd have the melody correct. And the bridge came in response to me nagging him in time for the session, because Norman Newell had said, you know, Norman Newell had chosen two or three

songs from a set that he'd overheard at the Picnic Club when he came to see us. But he said, if you know any other new songs, you know, be sure to bring them along. And that's when I went, maybe I do. And so I was set to Paul, that unfinished song you played, is that anything happened with that.

You know, the Beatles changing their minds and doing it. He said, no. And can we have it? And he said, yes. Wow. A simple yes. So when did he write the bridge? Just kind of knock one out?

Yeah, he said, I think it was like a week before the session or something. I said, we really want to do that song. You know, it really needs a bridge. And so he went into his bedroom and with his guitar and came out a few minutes later with the, So I wait and in a while I will see my true love smile She may come I know not when And so on

And we went, that'll do Wow Thank you very much So now you're doing a Didn't realize how momentous that was Yeah but I mean that's the beauty of it Yeah You know because it changes the course

Of your musical life Exactly I love looking at discographies Because it tells such a beautiful story If you're able to like sort of look linearly. So first single World Without Love. Yeah.

Second song, a second single, Paul also wrote, Nobody I Know. Yes. And then the third singles, I Don't Want to See You Again, also a Paul composition. And then the fourth is I go to pieces with Del Shannon, which is another incredible writer. Yes. Is true that he showed you the song or something in one of those cavalcade type gigs? In Australia. Wow.

We were in Australia on a bill with Del Shannon, ourselves, The Searchers. Another great band. Eden Kane, an obscure British artist. Don't know you. And some New Zealand girl singer. And Dina Lee. And we were all on the road together. What I discovered later was that he'd actually written the song in America

and had tried to find a home for it before leaving for Australia, not successfully. But in Australia, he played it to the searches. He thought it would be great for the searches. To be honest, I think he was right. The searchers with their jangly electric trollstring sound could have made a killer record of... If searches are basically like power pop 10 years early. Yes.

If you listen, if you really, I really love the searchers and if you really listen, it's like, they sound like cheap trick, but they're like cheap trick in 65. But all with the Rick and Backer Trill Street. Yeah, cool stuff. Exactly. And the searches turned it down. And I'd overheard that.

and said to Del, can we have to go out there? And so we worked it out at sound checks and stuff and said, please don't give it to anybody else. When we get back to London, we will record this. We think it's a hit, and it was. That's one of my favorite songs that you guys did. Mine too. Because something about the mercy beat vibe with Del Shannon.

I know, I agree. On stage, I always tell the story that, you know, if I'm listening to the 60 station as I drive up and down PCH or something, if I go to pieces, it comes on, it's the one I'm most likely to open the window and crank the volume and go, that's me!

Yeah. Because I'm proud of that. A beautiful, beautiful recording. Fifth single, True Love Ways by none other than about Buddy Howie. And then the sixth single is to know you is to love you. Yes. I mean, good start for a... We changed the title because...

Yeah, well, these days you wouldn't, but... Right, right, but we wanted to sing. to the girls in the audience. We weren't interested in reporting on a third party situation. So now you're in this heady time of success. Yeah. You're doing these, you guys were probably doing those package tours, right? I think I wrote down some of the people you played with.

It's just, there's. Yeah, we did one tour with the Shirelles. Yeah, amazing package tours. Yeah, Tom Jones. Yeah. Is this where you'd only get up and play of like two, three songs type of thing? Brian Highland. Yeah.

Wow. Ronnie Dove. Okay. Who else was there? Mel Carter. Okay. Do you remember Mel? Oh, hold me, kiss me, through me.

Yeah. Yeah, amazing song. Fantastic singer, too. He was amazing live. Yeah. And then we toured in the UK with people like Gene Pitney. Wow. Did you like his voice?

Yes, terrific. Cool. Terrific. Always a little bit sharp, but it worked. That's the producer. Well, I'm always sharp, too. And in fact, I had an argument once with the friend of mine who was producing a vocal session for me. And I would come in and, I'd say, it's too sharp.

And he says, no, it sounds good. It sounds like you. Yes, exactly. And I go, no, but I don't, it's too sharp for me. So I would go back in and I'd sing it in tune. And it came back in and I go to the guy, what do you think? What do you think? He doesn't sound exciting.

Exactly. Well, he and Jean Pintney have something in common. Well, me and Gene. You and Gene, right. Seven single, baby, I'm yours. Yeah. Well, you know, when we toured America, I heard that on the radio all the time

and loved the song and realized that it could be a duet. And by the time we got back to England, its opportunity to be it had gone. I don't know if they didn't put it out, or it didn't work, or they didn't promote it. Well, the thing I read is they wouldn't release it in the U.S. Because of the... Right.

But when we were recording it as an English single. Right. I knew that because it would have been a big hit in America. Yeah. I didn't think we'd ever hit. Oh, I see. I misunderstood you. So we covered it for England.

And it was a hit in England. Yeah. Our version. But because Barbara strangely wasn't. I love that record. Yeah. So most of your stuff, correct me if I'm wrong, was mostly done at Abbey Road. Yes.

Can you walk me through like a typical session? Because I love this era of recording. Yeah. I mean, our producer at the time, after Norman Neal was John Burgess, by the way, to follow up on that conversation. He produced our later records. And he would book the musicians. They made the choice of people like Jim Sullivan and Vic Flick. So would you tell them before the session, we're going to want to record the song, so is there a demo or how they do chart it out for the musicians?

Yeah, Jeff Love was the arranger officially, and he would write a chord chart. Okay. And they would do the booking and everything. It was nine pounds a session the studio musicians made for a three-hour session. Yeah. So three hours. Three hours. And you guys are present?

Are you singing live? Yes. Okay. Yes. We usually sang live. Were you playing acoustics live with the band? No. Usually not.

Because you probably don't want the bleed into the... Yes, exactly. And we're always sing together on one mic. Like this way, yeah. Figure eight. Like the Neumann. The Norman Figure 8 configuration. There's even cool shots of the Beatles, like same thing.

Yeah, exactly. Which is cool because you're bouncing yourself. Yeah, you're probably doing it this way, right? And I still think there's a way, there's something about the fact, they're not just singing at the same time, but you're singing into the same physical capsule. Yeah. You know, so your voices are internally conjoined,

and that balance is the balance. Yeah. Roy Thomas Baker, the great, you know, obviously did a lot of things. Queen. Yes. He was a firm believer. on putting voices together into the same thing and getting that sound.

Into the same capsule, same microphone, yeah. He said that, he thought that was the key to that. I think it makes the difference. Whatever that feeling is, yeah. Yeah. So you're doing as many takes as you need to do to get the record right or? Yes, and then fix the vocal if you had to.

Okay, yeah. Interesting, wow. Do another take, punch in some stuff. And three sessions, three hours you're looking for one song? No, you usually be able to more than one song. Okay. A couple or two or three. Wow, okay.

I mean, in the day, you know, if you did a double session, you'd get like five songs. Yeah. And who would pick the takes? The producer. Yeah. Did you, were you okay with that? I think so. Just I can remember.

I mean, when you're trying to sing something, you know, I mean, obviously if at the end of the take, it felt particularly good, you'll say so. Yeah. But I guess the producer was making the final choice. Yeah, because sometimes artists at the era talk about how they felt disempowered by the way things would work, you know, that the producer had sort of the... I trusted John Burgess. I mean, he was a good producer. Yeah.

I mean, I think if I seriously disagreed, we'd listen and argue, but... Yeah. I don't remember any such arguments. back to Paul McCartney here for a second well yeah don't pity me was the eighth single yeah that wasn't a hit it was not a hit I don't know that one and then and then the curious choice of you do a really cool Paul McCartney song Woman which I love incredible yeah it's really cool

we cut it two different ways yeah yeah but this idea where he you didn't want people to know that it was his song he didn't Okay, he didn't. So tell me that a little bit, yeah. He gave us the song and gave us a potential arrangement, which ended up in a discussion being him and John Burgess about which way to do it, which I'll get to. But he also said that he wanted to try and experiment,

which is to put the song out under a pseudonym, because people were saying that anything with the Beatles' name on it or any of their intellectual names would automatically be a hit. And he was been insulted about that, or annoyed by it or something. So he said, There's an embarrassment of riches. Let's put it out under someone else's name. So he invented this character called Bernard Webb.

But the whole thing got screwed up. I mean, in America, some came out under as a Smith. Such an odd choice, you know. Yeah, exactly. Somebody sent some message saying, oh, don't put Paul's name on it. Put another name. They obviously hadn't got this Bernard Webb story. Yeah.

And everyone realized that the thing was published by Northern Songs. and it was a very ineptly organized deception. But he proved his point because it got lots of airplay and jumped into the charts while the deception was still in place, and then it all fell apart. Yeah. The first time I got to meet you, the first thing I sailed you with as a fan was,

I love this record, Hurt and his Lovin. Oh, thank you. I'm sure you don't remember the conversation, but... I don't, but... Yeah, but you kind of did this... Where was it that we first met? Do you remember? I don't, it's somewhere I feel here in L.A., we just, we cross past.

Yeah. And the first thing I said to you is, is like, I'm obsessed with the song that you did hurt and his love. And you kind of gave me that look like, oh, you know that one? Because it wasn't a hit, it wasn't a single, but such a cool. Thank you. I think Gordon wrote that mostly. Yeah. I contributed to it. Yeah, you're on the credits. Yeah, I think it was pretty much his song.

It has that for people that maybe would be interested in listening to the song. It's kind of got that James Bond. Yes, a little bit. Yes. But it's such a cool production. Well, brilliant. I can, I'll go to listen to it. It's what I love about you guys together is you, even though at your core, you're kind of a folk do, your production with sort of goes past that.

You got bigger and bigger. And Gordon, voice got more and more. Yeah, exactly. More like that. Yeah, exactly. In my poking around, I found a cool version of Billy Fury doing Hurt and His Lovin. Have you ever heard that? No. Yeah, it's live at the BBC thing.

Wow. I found it on YouTube. We were friends with Billy. Gordon particularly was good friends with himself. And so there he is doing Hurtin' His Lovin. I had no idea. Fantastic. I felt like I'd found like a little chestnut. That's a gem, yes. I've listened to it. You were probably one of the only people in the world who was invited to a Beatles.

session. Generally speaking, nobody was really welcome there, right? I mean, they ran a pretty tight shit. And I was only there very rarely. Yeah. And the people who are, well, we're there for that one? Yeah. Yeah. Was there two or three times, Max? Yeah. And I know you've, I mean, you do a show about the Beatles, but, you know, I guess if I was going to ask any fanboy question, it would be, could you see the chemistry with them working in the studio? Was it apparent? Was it apparent? You know what I mean? Did you see, Did you see something that was unusual, say, outside of your normal experiences with recording? Not really, no, because I'd never seen bands recording before. So I suppose it would, you know, I just assumed that that was how it's done.

But, yeah, there was discussions and arguments and a lot of tea breaks and stuff. Yeah, I remember. Yeah, I remember thinking it was very casual compared to the way we did it, because we had studio musicians who were paid by the minute. Yes. Even though they were paid very little. But I think, if anything, that was, I'd just assume bands did that. I think it might have been in Jeff Emmerick's book, which is really a great book about them recording.

Yes. It might have been in there where I read, but he was saying that the one thing that he found interesting is they would listen to every take. If they did like four takes of a song, they would all come in and they listen to every take, good or bad. And they kind of make mental notes and then go back out. I didn't know that. It's very interesting, you know. That makes sense, though. Because, you know, when you think of these great, there's so many moments,

you can't even just pick the dozen and you would fall short. But their ability to go in, and obviously Paul McCartney was visionary in the way that he produced the records. That was more so him than the other guys. But their ability to kind of create a mini-movie, even as early as sort of rubber soul, it starts to form into this holographic thing that they're able to do and do it quickly. Yes, amazing, I know. And the thing is, now a lot of those outtakes have been released. Yeah.

And you listen to them, they kind of go, well, I get it. That wasn't as good as the master, you know. Yeah. They picked the right one in every case. Yeah. There's none where you go, this is way more exciting. Yeah. Why did they miss this?

Yeah, they've definitely reached kind of the end of the particular barrel on that. Yes. I love the band and I love the history. and I got all the bootlegs, but there comes a point where you're like, okay, I feel like I've heard it.

I know why they didn't put this one. Yeah, and God bless, you know. Yeah. Just one last thing here because we talked on it briefly. I guess more, it's more atmosphere. I think it's a beautiful way to end

because, like we said before, you played at a time where there was this hurricane going on with the gigs with young fans. basically the discovery of what we would now call modern rock and roll. Yes. There had been Elvis,

but this was something different. It extended now beyond just the personality of one artist where, you know, Hermits Hermits were getting, you know, run over by teen fans. Right, right. There was this incredible hue and cry of enthusiasm. Yes. Well, I think American audiences, particularly,

they'd read about all this Beatlemania. Yeah. And they'd seen it in the movie. Yeah. So they kind of went, well, now we know how I was supposed to behave. You know, our first taste of that was when we, our first gig in America, one of the very first gigs,

was we played the World's Fair in New York. 64, yeah. 64, played the unisphere or whatever they called it, that thing that's on the way out to the airport. And it had a moat filled with water around the stage. And the police were going, oh, don't worry, you know, we got the solar under control. And, of course, the minute we came out, came on,

all the screaming girls jumped in the moat and swam across to the stage and jumped out on the stage. So it was incredibly exciting. It was like an early version of a wet t-shirt contest. And Gordon and I were immediately enthralled and kind of went, this is the place for us. Yeah. You know, audiences are insane. And they learned that from the Beatles.

Yeah. Are you, I don't know if wistful is the right word. I mean, how do you view those times now, you know, knowing what happened, knowing that so much of the music has survived, meaning people are still listening, interested. Well, it's extraordinary. I mean, that's what I suppose that is what would strike me most, is that at the time, every interview you ever did,

or the Beatles ever did, if you go and look at any of them, somebody asks the question, what are you going to do when this is all over? Yeah. Because it was an absolute conviction that this had a finite timeline to run. And then, you know, and Paul and John, interestingly, their answer to that question was, we will be songwriters because they admired Goffin and King as much as they admired Elvis. Yeah. They knew that was a respectable career. Ringo, I think, said he wanted to open a hairdressing saloon. So, so, but there was no question, or Freddie Garrity, Freddie in the Dreamers would go back to

being a postman. Yeah. Whatever it was. But there was no question it was going to end. So nobody could have foreseen the fact that all these decades later, the music is a whole new respect and a whole new analytical figuring out going on. So let's give a little plug to your great show. I listen to it, your serious show, if you don't mind? Thank you very much, no, by all means. No, I enjoy doing it.

You'd think that, again, we'd run out of time and ideas because, you know, the Beatles only recorded the certain finite number of songs. The Beatles' channels played them all endlessly, but they all still sound good. When I do my show, one of the pleasures of the show, oddly enough, is getting to put on headphones and listen to the track as we're playing it live on the air. Because every time you listen to that, those things on headphones carefully,

you find something new or something you've forgotten. You know, you think you know the track in your head and you, oh, listen, what's that cowbell doing there? That's something different. Well, God bless. Thank you, Peter. Great talking, Dean. Thank you very much.

My pleasure. It's an honor and a pleasure.