Behind “Bright Star”: Edie Brickell, left, Peter Asher and Steve Martin.
If Peter Asher spends a lot of his time delving into the past, it’s hard to blame him. He’s got a hell of a lot of material to explore. A pop star during the first wave of the British Invasion who scored a series of hits with the folkie duo Peter and Gordon, Asher was the guy the Beatles first tapped to run Apple Records.
Looking to reinvent himself as a manager and producer, he crossed the Atlantic in 1969 and guided James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt to multiplatinum stardom. He’s worn many hats since then, succeeding on a multitude of projects with affable and unassuming proficiency, despite the amorphous talents required of music producers.
“The skills involved vary enormously,” said Asher, 73, who’s in the midst of producing an anthology celebrating the 50th anniversary of Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s prolific songwriting partnership. “Working with Cher, you make the record without her and she comes in and sings, and, of course, she’s fabulous. Linda Ronstadt is in the studio every minute and completely involved. She’s not off making a movie or working in Vegas.”
Always game to explore a new creative field, Asher signed on as music director for Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s bluegrass musical “Bright Star,” which he helped bring to Broadway last year. Though nominated for five Tony Awards, the production was overshadowed by the “Hamilton” juggernaut and closed after 109 performances.
He’ll be on hand again as music supervisor when “Bright Star” opens at the Curran in San Francisco on Tuesday, Nov. 28, for a threeweek run. The touring production features several Broadway cast members, including Carmen Cusack, who earned a Tony nomination and the 2016 Theatre World Award for originating the lead role of Alice Murphy (her Broadway debut).
Though disappointed by the musical’s relatively brief Broadway run, Asher is particularly proud that the musical launched Cusack as a major Broadway star. “That alone was worth it,” Asher said from his home in Malibu. “On closing night, we were all sad, but looking back, by no means was it a disaster. It’s a play we believe in and that people will be doing for a long time to come. Quite apart from the touring production, interest in licensing is very high. It’s such an American musical.”
A complex time-jumping narrative about a writer’s creative ambition and the search for the fate of a lost infant, “Bright Star” emerged from Martin and Brickell’s Grammy Awardwinning 2013 collaboration “Love Has Come for You.” Asher first heard Brickell’s music in a protean state when Martin played some of her homemade recordings over dinner. He encouraged Martin to work on the songs with her, and Asher ended up producing the album, expanding the bluegrass instrumental palette with touches of pop and jazz.
“I said, ‘I don’t think this should be a straight bluegrass record,’ ” he recalled, suggesting it needed a string section. “I had bassist Esperanza Spalding come in because I loved the idea of someone with her genius playing with Steve’s banjo. Turning the album into a show meant a lot of new songs got written, but all based on American roots music. When people talk about it as a bluegrass musical, we don’t mind, but it isn’t quite that.”
Delving into America’s rural past is a bit of detour for Asher, who got his start as a child film actor. He’s performed his unsalaciously gossipy show “A Musical Memoir of the 1960s and Beyond” in San Francisco several times, and doesn’t mind taking on an occasional acting gig here and there.
In January, he’s participating in the 17th Annual SF Sketchfest’s Celebrity Autobiography, a bit where actors and comedians read unexpurgated passages from, well, celebrity autobiographies.
“Sometimes they’ll do it ‘Rashomon’ style, with two competing versions of an event,” Asher said. “The last time I got to read Zayn from One Direction, and Mr. T. I don’t know who I am this time.”