Peter and Gordon: "Lady Godiva"

December 12, 1966 (1 week)

He was a player in London's thriving avant garde arts scene, involved in the the operations of the famed Indica Gallery in London along with Barry Miles and John Dunbar. He befriended Paul McCartney, the pair sharing a loft on the top floor of his family's spacious home. He would go on to be the head of A&R for The Beatles' Apple Records, pushing for the signing of a young James Taylor and supervising the recording of albums by both doomed power pop group Badfinger and jazz legends the Modern Jazz Quartet. He then went into management and record producing in Los Angeles. Yes, you might say Peter Asher has accomplished a great deal over his eighty plus years. It's just a shame his actual music wasn't up to much.

Hot on the heels of "Winchester Cathedral", music hall was everywhere! You couldn't throw a beer bottle in disgust without it hitting an opportunist looking to cash in. Having rode the wave of Lennon and McCartney's generosity for more than long enough, Peter and Gordon weren't about to change course at this point. Sure, they could've followed the example of The Beatles and embraced more exotic types of music while also doing some studio experiments of their own. Alternatively, they could have done the obvious thing and moved in the direction of folk rock. They could've been Britain's answer to Simon and Garfunkel, for Pete's sake!

Nevertheless, something had to be done. The rise of The Monkees on the other side of the Atlantic likely signaled an end to the British Invasion. Thus, "Lady Godiva" appears to be an attempt at maturity. I say 'appears' because the results don't really bear it out. The risque nature of doing a song about a mythical exhibitionist transported in time to the swingin' sixties is rather undercut by the vaudeville send up. And they weren't really able to pull off passable music hall anyway. Asher and buddy Gordon Waller sound uncertain as to whether they're supposed to come across like either a pair of horned up losers out on the prowl or a cheeky comedy duo winking to the audience as they fire off innuendos. While I might wish for them to have chosen a lane, neither approach was going to lead to anything worthwhile. Ultimately, "Lady Godiva" offers proof that the music business was about to leave them behind — the same music business that Asher became an intrinsic part of.

While it might seem like Peter and Gordon were either incapable or unwilling to write their own songs, they were able to contribute some of their own material for their albums, even if the cover versions always outnumbered the originals. Their singles releases, however, were made up entirely of either covers or numbers written especially for them by others. (On the other hand, some of their own songs ended up as B sides, including the Byrdsian "Morning's Calling", the flip side of "Lady Godiva") While a hit-making machine for a period, it's difficult to see just what they contributed overall. Waller would go on to record a solo album, do some acting and then run various businesses in both his native Britain and in the US while Asher did everything I mentioned above. It's good to know they were both able to be much more than mediocre recording artists.

Score: 4