Shinn the Writer

Inspiration?

 

Last year, an icon from my youth and into my thirties, re-emerged to play a series of concerts, one of which I had the pleasure of attending. It was Peter Asher. You may not know the name Peter Asher, but if you were listening to music during the so-called “British Invasion” you may well remember a duet which went by the name Peter and Gordon. Yes, that Peter Asher. His sister Jane was engaged to Paul McCartney though they almost married. He went on to discover James Taylor and has produced albums by Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Carole King, Bonnie Raitt, Diana Ross, J. D. Souther, Cher, Neil Diamond, Randy Newman, and Barbara Streisand. Among others. And he’s in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

 

I loved that concert, so when I heard he was returning this year and that a group of friends were going to attend, I added my name to the list. The venue was the same, the intimate (I’m guessing about 200 people) Village Theater in Danville, California. The day of the concert I received an email from the concert promoters that began with a reference to Peter having recently broken his leg. My immediate thought was that there were complications and the concert had been cancelled. But no, it only prefaced that there would be a couple of small adjustments. Not too surprising having just turned 82.

 

The concert, like the previous year’s version was billed as both music and story-telling. And Asher certainly has a wealth of great stories that make many of the events of the past come to life, like how Peter and Gordon’s first hit “A World Without Love”, (a song which IMDB describes as having been written for them by Lennon and McCartney) was actually a half-written song McCartney had written for the Beatles but was rejected by Lennon who utterly hated it. So Paul finished it without Lennon’s help and offered it to Asher for his act. And the rest is history.

 

Or how Carole King had pitched her song “You’ve Got a Friend” to James Taylor and Asher who not only agreed on the song’s value, but also thought to add her to Taylor’s show as his pianist, then later as his opening act. Then to record as a solo artist. And the rest is history. Or how much he utterly hated the song “Lady Godiva” (though not as much as “Knight in Rusty Armor”) but Gordon won that argument and, well, you know…

 

Musically, Asher was backed by a most excellent keyboard player and a most excellent mandolin / fiddle player. It was the keyboard player who immediately noticed that Asher’s guitar was way out of tune. I thought he had his capo on the wrong fret. Asher gave the guitar to he keyboardist who took it offstage for tuning, but other than that, things ran smoothly. Except that about halfway in, Asher sat down because indeed his leg wasn’t as strong as it needed to be.​