Dick Asher, Veteran Music Executive Who Fought Radio Payola, Dies
variety.comJem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Dick Asher, a veteran music-business executive who was 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 confirms to Variety.
His age and cause of death were unconfirmed at the time of this article’s publication. Renowned for his upstanding business practices over his four-decade career in music — although as a former Marine, his disciplined demeanor was sometimes at odds with the mores of the industry’s most freewheeling era — Asher is perhaps best known for his efforts during the 1980s to battle the powerful group of independent promoters, known as “The Network,” that came to dominate radio airplay via payola and other unsavory, at times illegal efforts, as depicted in Frederic Dannen’s 1990 book “Hit Men.” Asher — pictured above, left, with funk legend George Clinton during the 1980s — served in the Marine Corps before graduating from Tufts University and Cornell Law School and taking a job as a corporate lawyer.
He joined CBS Records in the mid-1960s as VP of business affairs for the CBS (now Sony Music). During that period, he was one of the very few people to meet with Bob Dylan during the singer’s convalescence from a reportedly near-fatal motorcycle accident in 1966.
Asher drove to Woodstock, New York to negotiate Dylan’s contract renewal and, upon his return to the CBS offices, was met with astonishment by his fellow executives, as the singer had been in near-total seclusion.
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