Lack of love isn’t the problem in the entertaining documentary ‘Peter Asher: The Man Everywhere’

Peter Usher: The Man Everywhere

Directed by Dan Geller and Dana Goldfein

Starring Peter Asher, James Taylor, Eric Idle, Steve Martin, Gordon Waller, Linda Ronstadt

Classification not applicable. 118 minutes

Now showing in some theaters

This entertaining documentary about British pop music producer and manager Peter Asher is based on his cabaret show, “A Musical Memoir of the ’60s and Beyond.” In the film, he admits that the British Invasion was “90 percent due to the Beatles.” If you stick to the math, you could say that about half of Peter Asher: Everywhere Man is Beatles and Beatles-adjacent.

The doc by Dan Geller and Dana Goldfein sketches the life of a Zelig-like figure who rose from self-made pop star to influential position at the Beatles’ Apple Records. He discovered James Taylor, moved to California, managed Linda Ronstadt, and as a producer played a role in the development of the LA folk-rock sound of the early 1970s.

How could that have happened? He’s certainly talented and smart, but being the younger brother of actress and Paul McCartney’s former girlfriend Jane Asher doesn’t hurt. It turns out that cute Beatle and songwriting partner John Lennon wrote “I Want to Hold Your Hand” in the Usher family’s basement. (Also, a fun fact: Usher’s mother gave oboe lessons to Beatles producer George Martin.)

McCartney and Lennon also composed the non-Beatles song “A World Without Love,” which became a 1964 hit single for Peter and Gordon, a duo with Usher and former schoolboy Gordon Waller.

Asher, along with John Dunbar and Barry Miles, owned and operated the counterculture Indica Bookshop in London during the Swinging Sixties. Asher said McCartney, who helped get the store up and running, was hanging around and was “helpful.”

“He’ll either write you a No. 1 record or put you on some shelves.”

Or he could play drums on the first recording Usher produced, 1968’s And the Son Will Shine, written by the Bee Gees and released by former Manfred Mann frontman Paul Jones. That same year, Peter and Gordon separated, and Asher became head of Apple Records’ artist and repertoire department. So he put the unknown James Taylor in front of McCartney and George Harrison for an audition.

“I never forgot how amazing that was,” Taylor said in the film. He was the first person signed to the label. Usher produced Taylor’s first album, then brought the singer-songwriter to Los Angeles, produced Taylor’s breakout album Sweet Baby James for the Warner Bros. label in 1970, and helped Taylor recover from heroin addiction.

“There were some really dangerous times, but Peter stayed with me,” Taylor says. “I don’t think that’s a small thing.”

Directors Geller and Goldfein spoke with Usher (and A-list stars such as Eric Idle, Steve Martin, and Ronstadt), but also filmed his autobiographical stage show to tell the story. Asher, 82, comes across as gentle, intelligent and reserved.

“I’m not usually a particularly emotional person, in a very British sense,” he admits.

As for his drug use in the 1970s, Usher says he “participated in it.” So did his first wife, American music publicist Betsy Doster. Her mental health issues are carefully discussed.

“Cocaine was a lot of fun, but it ruined everything,” Ronstadt says.

The latter half of Usher’s career is not covered in detail. The albums he produced for Diana Ross, Olivia Newton-John, Cher, Neil Diamond, Bonnie Raitt, and others are covered in a quick montage.

The movie ends with Usher singing, “I won’t stay in a world without love.” “Everywhere Man” has a lot of people saying a lot of good things about him. The lack of love in his world doesn’t seem to matter.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Peter Asher was Jane Asher’s sister.