Peter Asher 'Everywhere Man' Doc: Pop Star to Producer
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- "Peter Asher: Everywhere Man" is a documentary by Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine, built around Asher's autobiographical stage show at Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco, mapping his life from British Invasion pop duo Peter and Gordon to one of the 1970s' most influential record producers.
- Paul McCartney gave Peter and Gordon "A World Without Love" in 1963-64 while dating Asher's sister Jane Asher and effectively living at the Asher family townhouse, launching the duo to a No. 1 hit; McCartney also wrote "I Don't Want to See You Again" and "Nobody I Know" for them.
- Peter Asher co-founded the Indica bookstore and avant-garde art gallery in London with John Dunbar and Barry Miles — the fabled gallery where John Lennon met Yoko Ono — and introduced Marianne Faithfull to the Rolling Stones.
- Asher was hired by McCartney as head of A&R at Apple Records, signed James Taylor, and produced "Sweet Baby James" (1970), pioneering the singer-songwriter era and introducing the then-unprecedented practice of listing session musicians on the album sleeve.
- Asher produced Linda Ronstadt's "You're No Good" and "Heat Wave" and appeared alongside Taylor and Ronstadt on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1977 — what the reviewer calls the only time the magazine has featured a record producer on its cover.
- The documentary reveals, only in its closing credits, that Mike Myers modeled the look of Austin Powers on Peter Asher — a connection the reviewer calls "undeniable" once side-by-side footage is shown.
- Asher also produced 10,000 Maniacs' 1987 album "In My Tribe," which the reviewer calls "a joyful masterpiece" with "incandescent" sound.
Why it matters: Asher's production work on "Sweet Baby James" helped launch both the singer-songwriter era and the modern convention of crediting session musicians on album covers — a packaging practice that reshaped how rock and pop records were marketed and understood. The documentary also belatedly confirms the long-suspected Austin Powers connection, giving cultural-history fans a new entry point into a Zelig-like career that touched the Beatles, the Stones, Taylor, and Ronstadt.
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