Apple Records releases 15 remastered albums

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British band The Beatles started Apple Corp. in the late 1960s. The music division — Apple Records — was designed as an open invitation for talented musicians to come and record. Apple Records has now released 15 albums that have just been remastered. Anchor Lisa Mullins speaks to Peter Asher, an early Apple employee and friend of The Beatles. Download MP3

• Apple Records official site.
• Come and Get It: The Best of Apple Records

“Peter Asher: A Musical Memoir of the 60s and Beyond”
Friday December 3, 2010
Iridium
1650 Broadway, New York, NY
8p.m. and 10:30 p.m.

Sunday December 5, 2010
Coach House
33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano, CA
7 p.m.

Tuesday December 7, 2010
The Grammy Museum
800 Olympic Blvd
Los Angeles, CA
8 p.m.

Video extra: Peter & Gordon – A World Without Love

Read the Transcript
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LISA MULLINS: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. When you talk about Apple and music, you may think about iTunes and iPods. But before Apple Inc., way before, in the late 1960s, the Beatles started a company called Apple Corp. The music division of Apple Corp. was Apple Records. The Beatles put out an open invitation for talented musicians to come and record. James Taylor, Jackie Lomax, and Mary Hopkin took them up on the offer. The Welsh band Badfinger was among the first to lay down tracks. That’s Badfinger’s song Come and Get It. It was released on Apple Records and it’s one of 15 albums that have just been remastered and re-released on CD. They’re also available starting today, for the first time, as digital downloads. Peter Asher was a close friend of The Beatles. He was also one of the first Apple Records employees. The philosophy at Apple Records, he says, made it unusual.

PETER ASHER:  The Beatles intention was to create a record company and incidentally a whole other company around it to do things beyond music. But, a record company that would be open to new kinds of music and would treat the musicians with some kind of intelligent respect as if their music mattered. That was how the philosophy was intended to be completely different from the current labels of the day.

MULLINS:  Well, that must have affected you quite a bit then since you were the first employee hired and the head of the Artists and Repertoire Department. You had to basically go out and scout around and bring in what you hoped would be big names.

ASHER: We weren’t so much actually looking for big names at that point because most of the big names were all signed up to long-term contracts with the major labels. So, it was more really to look for interesting, new music was more the mandate. And it began, my involvement was sort of gradual in a way. I’d ceased to be a performer and had begun producing records, something I’d been interested in all along. And Paul McCartney, who was a friend of mine, first he asked me if I would produce some records for the label. And I said of course I would. And then as it became more concrete and it had a name, then he said look, we’re just starting to put all this together, would you like to be head of A&R for the label. And I jumped at it of course. I mean what could be cooler than working for a brand-new, optimistic record label and working for The Beatles at the same time.

MULLINS: Absolutely. So, then how much creative freedom were you given to pick and choose the artists that you heard and wanted to bring in?

ASHER: I was given a lot. I mean I’d made it clear that if I was going to do this, I wanted – that if I found somebody I absolutely believed in, which it turns out I did. More of that, of Mr. Taylor, later. But, that I would have the right to sign it. But in practice, of course, it would have been really hard to sign somebody if any or all of The Beatles had absolutely detested it. The disadvantage of having a very active board of directors is that they will express their views. The huge advantage, of course, is that our board of directors happen to be brilliant musicians, amazing record makers, and gentlemen of great taste.

MULLINS: So, talk about your own taste. When you heard James Taylor, I mean for so many people now he’s kind of like the soundtrack to our lives as are The Beatles. But, what did you hear in the very beginning?

ASHER: To me, he excelled at everything. I mean his guitar playing was beautiful finger-picking style. And he wrote these songs with quite complex harmonic stuff in them. And sang with a sort of folkiness, but the phrasing of Sam Cooke. So, I loved everything about him. I became a very huge fan and that’s why obviously when post-Apple I became his manager for the next three decades or something and produced all his records.

MULLINS: One of the musicians or, in this case, composers signed to Apple was the British composer John Tavener and let’s first listen to a track from The Whale. So that’s from composer John Tavener and I have to say it sounds a little bit like it would fit on The Beatles White Album.

ASHER: In a way, yes. It was Ringo that brought in John Tavener and I actually don’t remember the precise history, but I do remember that his signing, he was a sort of a Ringo endorsement.

MULLINS:  Yeah, really avant-garde sounds though. How did that fit in to the whole Apple Records picture?

ASHER: I think it fit well. You see, the whole idea was Apple very much wasn’t like our favorite American labels where you knew if you put the needle down on a Stax record or a Motown record or even an Atlantic record, you’d have a pretty good guess at what kind of groove you were likely to hear. Apple, you had absolutely no idea. It could be a novelty record like The King of Fuh, it could be the Modern Jazz Quartet, it could be straight ahead pop like The Ivys/Badfinger. We liked to keep people guessing. So that’s why when the opportunity to make a record with John Tavener, or to sign the Modern Jazz Quartet for a couple of albums, came up, we jumped at it.

MULLINS: So for those people who are going to be listening to the pieces, the remastered pieces, on this CD, is there one maybe that they wouldn’t necessarily quote, unquote, put the needle down on first that you would recommend?

ASHER: I think Jackie Lomax. I would say Sour Milk Sea on the Jackie Lomax album. He was a terrific singer. That was a George Harrison project. George brought him in. George produced the record brilliantly. It’s an astounding band. Nicky Hopkins on piano, Eric Clapton on guitar, Klaus Voormann on bass and Ringo on drums. And I would say that’s a track that some people may not have heard unlike Those Were the Days or something that they probably have heard. I think that’s one of the undiscovered gems, but with any luck there are several.

MULLINS: So here’s Jackie Lomax with Ringo on the drums. Is there any particular song that in the remastering really changed or that our ears would prick up more now than previously?

ASHER: I don’t think there’s a particular one, no. But overall, what’s interesting about the sampler and the box-set, is you can get a dip into it anywhere and be a bit surprised. There’s quite a few cool things on it. I certainly enjoyed the process of rediscovery myself because I hadn’t listened to them for years, of course, most of it and it’s been an interesting surprise.

MULLINS: Alright. If we end the show today with a particular track, what would you recommend? Your pick, Peter.

ASHER: Let’s end with Those Were the Days.

MULLINS:  Former Apple Records employee Peter Asher. And we close with Mary Hopkin singing Those Were the Days. You can find details about the new release of 15 Apple albums at TheWorld.org. You can also find out about Peter Asher’s new show, Peter Asher: A Musical Memoir of the 60s and Beyond. From the Nan and Bill Harris studios at WGBH, I’m Lisa Mullins. Thanks for listening.

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