(Photo credit: Echoes/Redferns)
Dick Asher, the veteran music business executive who served as president of PolyGram and Columbia Records and worked with artists ranging from Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson and Bon Jovi to Bob Dylan, has died, his family confirmed to Variety. His son, Jeffrey, confirmed that Asher died peacefully on Tuesday at his home in Boca Raton, Florida. He was 92 years old.
Renowned for his high-minded business practices throughout his four-decade career in the music industry, Usher, a former Marine whose disciplined attitude sometimes clashed with the mores of the industry's freest era, is best known for his battles in the 1980s against a group of powerful independent promoters known as “The Network,” who came to monopolise radio airplay through bribery and other unscrupulous, sometimes illegal, activities, as depicted in Frederick Dannen's 1990 book “Hitmen.”
Born in New York City in 1932, Asher graduated from Tufts University and Cornell Law School before enlisting in the Marines (pictured above, left). After his discharge, he worked as a corporate lawyer, with one of his clients being Don Kirshner and Al Nevins' Aldon Music, home to Brill Building songwriters such as Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Cynthia Weil, Barry Mann, Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry and Neil Diamond. Asher then joined CBS Records (now Sony Music) as vice president of business in the mid-1960s.
During that time, Asher was one of the few people to meet with Bob Dylan, who was recovering from a motorcycle accident in 1966 that reportedly nearly killed him. Asher drove to Woodstock, New York, to negotiate a contract renewal with Dylan. Upon returning to the CBS offices, his fellow executives were astonished: Dylan had almost completely isolated himself. According to Asher, when he asked Dylan what new music was in store, Dylan replied, “It's a while away,” presumably referring to songs on his legendary album with The Band, “Basement Tapes,” and the album “John Wesley Harding.” (Years later, Asher would argue with Dylan over Dylan's decision to record Christian-themed music in the late 1970s.)
After a brief stint at Capitol Records, Asher returned to CBS in 1971 to work with Clive Davis at Columbia Records and was soon sent to London to turn around the company's struggling UK division, which he quickly did and was promoted to head of international. When the rapid decline of disco led to a recession in the music industry in the late 1970s, Asher was named vice president of the label and led the company to a profitable recovery, albeit largely through layoffs.
During this same period, as detailed in Hitmen, Usher began to address the growing influence of independent radio “pluggers,” who monopolized radio airwaves and charged labels exorbitant fees amounting to millions of dollars annually. In some cases, they had ties to organized crime. When Usher tried to cover “Another Brick in the Wall Part 1” from one of the biggest groups in the world, Pink Floyd's, smash hit new album, The Wall, without using the indies, major radio stations in Los Angeles and many other markets would not play the song. But once he resumed paying the indies, both the single and the album shot to No. 1 and stayed there for four months.
Usher's attempts to compete with the indies put him at odds with Columbia's notoriously temperamental president, Walter Yetnikoff, a rivalry that would continue for years to come. Despite CBS Records achieving record revenues thanks to smash hit albums by Jackson, Springsteen, and others, Usher was forced out of the company in 1983 by Yetnikoff and CEO Thomas Wyman. The Network was eventually axed after congressional hearings in the mid-1980s, but by that time Usher had taken a senior position at Warner Communications and, in October 1985, was named president and CEO of PolyGram Records. PolyGram Records was on the cusp of releasing two of the biggest albums of the decade, Bon Jovi's “Slippery When Wet” and Def Leppard's “Hysteria,” as well as many other hits by Cameo, John Mellencamp, Scorpions, Cinderella, and others. Although the company was successful, Asher left it in 1990 after a contractual dispute with the company's owners.
After leaving Polygram, he returned to law and served as a consultant to several artists and companies before becoming the first director of Electronic Arts Software, a position he held for 24 years. In the 1990s, he moved to Florida, where he became an associate professor of commercial music at Florida Atlantic University, where he helped start the university's recording studio.
Asher is survived by his wife, Sheila, his son Jeffrey (his daughter and younger son are predeceased), four grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.