BLANK SLATE MEDIA February 28, 2020
YOUR GUIDE TO THE ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND DINING
PETER AND JEREMY
PHOTO BY DAN COSTON
Peter Asher and Jeremy Clyde to perform at My Father’s Place in Roslyn.
BY D AV I D HINCKLEY
O
nce upon a time, in the long-ago age of the British Invasion, there were two British duos, one called Peter and Gordon and the other called Chad and Jeremy. And the years rolled by, and Gordon Waller passed away and Chad Stuart retired from public
singing. This left Peter Asher and Jeremy Clyde without singing partners. And they were sad because they loved to sing. So they began to sing with each other. Fifty-six years after Peter and Gordon sang “World Without Love” and Chad and Jeremy scored with “Summer Song,” it’s time for Peter and Jeremy. Peter and Jeremy will
be playing on March 8 at My Father’s Place in Roslyn, singing familiar songs like “A World Without Love,” “Summer Song,” “Yesterday’s Gone,” “Lady Godiva” and Buddy Holly’s “True Love Ways.” Says Asher with a laugh, “We even sound vaguely like we used to.” Back in the 1960s, Peter and Gordon and Chad and Jeremy “were mistaken for each other all
the time anyway,” Asher adds. “So in a sense this was probably inevitable.” While there were more than a few rivalries among the British Invasion groups, Asher says Chad and Jeremy and Peter and Gordon coexisted in harmony. “We were friends forever,” he says. “We bonded because we were quite different from the other British Invasion bands,
even beyond there only being two of us. “We weren’t from Liverpool. We didn’t play the same rock ‘n roll style. Both of us had one tall handsome guy and one shorter nerdy-looking guy. And something people don’t always remember, in both cases, the lead singer was the second name.” The two groups even shared a stage for one show. “I think just one,” says Asher. “Probably to show people we both actually existed.” Both groups also stopped playing together in the late ‘60s. “Gordon and I didn’t actually break up,” says Asher. “We just wanted to do other things, so we went on hiatus. And then 30 years passed.” Asher managed to keep busy. He became head of A&R for the Beatles’ Apple label, where he recorded James Taylor. While Taylor’s Apple album tanked, Asher was so convinced Taylor would become a star that he quit Apple and moved to America to become Taylor’s manager. Good gamble. Asher then went on to produce almost all of Linda Ronstadt’s albums, for which he won two Grammys, as well as Neil Diamond, Diana Ross, Ringo Starr, Morrissey, Cher, 10,000 Maniacs and numerous others. While he sometimes pitched in with background singing, he admits that “there were times when I never thought I’d play the [Peter and Gordon] songs again.” Then he and Waller were asked to do a benefit, and after some hesitation, they agreed. “We were asking ourselves, is it really cool to play these ancient songs?”
Asher says. “Does anyone want to hear them? So we did it and we found the answer is they absolutely do. These songs are part of their memory of another time – good or bad. We had people crying in the audience.” They kept the reunion going until Waller died in 2008, at which point Asher again contemplated leaving the songs behind. “But then Chad retired in 2018 and Jeremy had a similar decision to make,” says Asher. “We looked at each other and said, ‘What the hell?’ “ It helps, Asher says, that he and Clyde – who had a long acting career that took him to shows like Downton Abbey – already knew each other’s songs. It also helps that their songs were durable. “World Without Love,” for instance, was written by Paul McCartney, who at the time was dating Asher’s sister Jane. “I love ‘World Without Love’,” says Asher, which is a good thing when no audience will let him leave the stage without singing it. “Everyone who’s ever had a hit knows that feeling,” he says. “It’s like James Taylor and ‘You’ve Got a Friend.’ You record it without realizing you’ll have to sing it every day for the rest of your life. “When we do ‘World Without Love,’ there’s a sense of yeah, I’ve done this before. But it’s never exactly the same. Over the years I’ve done it acoustic, electric, solo, with a band. Every live performance is a little different.” In fact, he suggests, songs themselves are constantly changing – even songs he recorded or produced decades ago. Continued on Page 39