If you remember that 1997 No 1 hit from pop beat combo Cornershop, ‘Brimful of Asha’ you might recall that the lyrics were partly about cultural identity and the power of hope. It wasn’t about Peter Asher but to a degree the documentary Everywhere Man does have an element of that.
Peter Asher early years….
Born in 1944 into a well to do family his father was a well regarded endocrinologist who identified Munchausen and his mother was an equally well regarded musician who taught at the Royal Academy of Music. As a teen Peter musically bonded with Gordon Waller and formed a duo that sang at the Pickwick Club something of a celebrity haunt at the time where they caught the eye of EMI records.
So good so far but where the Gods shone on Peter was that his sister Jane Asher was dating Paul McCartney and was at their house so much he moved into the family spare room next to Peter’s. From there he wrote several songs for Peter (the songs were essentially Beatles cast offs as they were loathed by John Lennon) and became hits in the early 1960’s making Peter and Gordon teen idols though each were very different people – Gordon got the girls whereas the shorter, floppy fringed, ruffled shirt adorned, horn rimmed spectacle wearer Peter would be the inspiration for Austin Powers.
The duo imploded and Peter Asher went on to open an art gallery (where Lennon would meet the artist Yoko Ono), would be hired by The Beatles for their Apple Records business where he discovered artist such as James Taylor and Linda Rondstadt and was drawn into producing records by Manfred Mann’s Paul Jones who asked him to helm his first solo album.
The man, the myth…
All of this is recounted in the recording of his autobiographical San Francisco live show of music and chat about his career illustrated with archive clips and interviews. By his own admission Asher says he wasn’t much of a pop star and like former pops stars of that era he is now in his eighties, frail and bespectacled and effortlessly polite if in a slightly nerdy way – it hard to see him trashing hotel rooms and throwing TV’s out the window – as he didn’t. But his work with Taylor and Ronstadt produced, for the time, sublime albums and songs that saw him appear on the cover of Rolling Stone. After then his career was at best patchy that saw him succumb to cocaine but survived.
Back in 1983 Woody Allen made the underrated film ‘Zelig’ about a man who assimilates into the company of those he is around meeting famous people at the right time and to a degree that’s how Peter Asher’s professional life started and continued. But he made enough of an impact to be recognised by many and here there are contributions as diverse Eric Idle, Twiggy, Lyle Lovett and Paul McCartney himself
The lot of an actor is often luck and being in the right place at the right time and that’s certainly true of Peter Asher’s early career which has more than sprinkle of stardust about it and here he’s certainly not shy in coming forward about his achievements even if the pinnacle was decades ago.
related feature : Paul Di’Anno documentary, Iron Maiden’s Lost Singer: Wes Orshoski on Iron Maiden’s original frontman
related feature : ‘The Session Man’ – we take a look at the Nicky Hopkins documentary
Here’s the trailer….
