THE STORY – Everywhere Man is a feature-length documentary inspired by musician, producer, and manager Peter Asher’s celebrated cabaret show A Musical Memoir of the ’60s and Beyond. Like his stage performance, the film traces an extraordinary life lived at the center of modern music history. From his early years as a child actor in 1950s London to the Swinging Sixties, Asher emerges as a Zelig-like figure in the culture of the era: one half of the pop duo “Peter and Gordon,” recipients of four chart-topping hits penned by Paul McCartney; the first head of A&R at Apple Records; and co-owner of the Indica Gallery, the epicenter of London’s counter-cultural art scene. Asher helped define a generation of singer-songwriters as producer and manager for James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, and others, cementing his reputation as one of music’s most influential behind-the-scenes forces of the 1970s and ’80s. In the present day, he remains a vital creative force, still performing, producing, and most recently collaborating with Barbra Streisand on her acclaimed The Secret of Life duets album.
THE CAST – Peter Asher, Steve Martin, Lyle Lovett, Paul McCartney, Twiggy, Carole King, James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Paul Schaeffer & Weird Al Yankovic
THE TEAM – Dan Geller & Dayna Goldfine (Directors/Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 118 Minutes
If you’re unfamiliar with “The British Invasion,” refrain from searching for it online. You will only receive results related to the Battle of Normandy. And it means you do not understand what the term most colloquially refers to—the overtaking of the pop music scene in America and the world by Britain’s most significant artists like the Beatles—and that the documentary “Everywhere Man: The Life and Times of Peter Asher” is probably not for you. The film, directed by thedocumentarian duo of Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine, had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. As its title suggests, it recounts the biography of musician and music producer Peter Asher in a quirky way. But the life story of a behind-the-scenes talent to a niche little group of fans is itself too niche to be broadly appealing or objectively compelling.
Geller and Goldfine are not household names themselves. Two of their most recent documentaries, “HALLELLUJAH: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song” and “The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden,” also premiered at Telluride and chart off-the-beaten-path courses by focusing on subjects or episodes that are without question interesting but not inherently appealing. “Everywhere Man” is no different, focused on the life of an individual who had lots to do with many people you surely know (Paul McCartney) and others you only know depending on your age or your eclectic taste in music (Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor).
The film begins with a modern-day, aging, elfin-like Asher recounting his life story in a live cabaret show in San Francisco entitled “A Musical Memoir of the 1960s and Beyond.” In the show, Asher intersperses his quick wit and raspy, husky voice with remarkable anecdotes. He also includes interludes of musical numbers performed by both living and deceased artists, meant to both enrapture the audience and convince them that they were in the room where it happened. Geller and Goldfine are, like Asher, aware of the severely limited reach of their subject’s stardom, so they do some intersplicing of their own at the beginning of the movie. This includes shots of some of the most famous people they can muster, calling out Asher’s name for one reason or another. Steve Martin, Robin Williams, and Paul Shaffer make teasing appearances in the first few moments, telling you that you should care and that Asher should matter to you.
Later, you discover that the musician/producer was born into a relatively affluent family in England in the late 1940s. At a young age, he was cast in film roles, including alongside Claudette Colbert and his own sister Jane, who became a relatively successful actress. Later, Jane begins dating a not-yet-super-famous Paul McCartney, who gives Asher his most famous musical number, “A World Without Love,” which he later performs as one half of the singing duo Peter and Gordon.
Later, Peter and Gordon agree that they are not particularly skilled musicians. They are average singers and most of their songs are written by McCartney, who is going on to bigger and better things. The short little redhead Asher, having done fine but not great as a movie actor and now a singer, is left wondering what to do with his own life. Yet another nepotistic-style connection later, and Asher has been suggested as a producer by Paul Jones, singer of the megahit “Du Wah Diddy Diddy.” The Beatles were at that time in the process of founding their own version of a passion project, the music production company “Apple Records,” and put Asher in charge of A&R at the company. A few more cabaret splices later, and we have moved on from the British roaring 60s to the Los Angeles gritty 70s.
As a producer, Asher finally makes the most important decisions of his career and “catches” his big break. I put “catches” in quotation marks only to highlight that someone given so many, repeated, and perhaps unearned opportunities was likely to cash in on one of them eventually. It is one of the reasons why an autobiographical pic of a legend like Steven Spielberg was not entirely compelling, and why this one is not compelling, either. To the extent film at its core tells stories about drama, about overcoming adversity, about rising beyond one’s limitations, “Everywhere Man” lies firmly at the periphery of all of this, much like Asher himself. Asher did not have a particularly challenging upbringing. He did not struggle to get discovered. He even enjoyed, partied, and successfully made it through the drug-addled scene of the ’60sand ’70s that felled the careers of so many of his fellow musical talents. He suffered no spectacular flameout with his musical mates, unlike so many subjects of musical documentaries.
The movie’s strengths lie, instead, in telling little vignettes meant to evoke “oh wow, really?” reactions. McCartney lived with Asher and his family for a bit, which is cool. Decades later, Asher won a Grammy for a collaboration with Robin Williams. He produced major albums for the likes of Cher and is currently still working, collaborating with Barbara Streisand on a significant retrospective.
This is why when the action turns to Los Angeles and the 1970s—about halfway through the documentary’s two-hour runtime—both Asher and the film’s directors find their stride. This is when he starts producing the work of a still undiscovered James Taylor. Eventually, he and Linda Ronstadt became his biggest achievements, winning him two other Grammys. These “famous” singers (again, famous is relative here—they are entirely unknown to the TikTok generation) speak lovingly of the quirky Asher and their decades of partnership. He is loyal and ethical. He is funny and dedicated. These are the sort of plaudits that are thrown around as the action shifts seamlessly from the San Francisco cabaret to interviews in modern-day London to old footage, vignettes of past concerts, scribbled letters, and McCartney voiceovers.
“Everywhere Man” is a flawless documentary as far as the genre goes. The directors know when to incorporate archival footage and when to reveal a subtle, yet unexpected, confession in an interview. Most importantly, they know how to keep the audience interested even while recognizing that their subject matter is only mildly so. However, even with all their storytelling talents, they cannot create a gripping biography where one does not already exist. The result is a finely tuned but very particular little story as sleepy as a little act in a darkened, tucked-away cabaret bar.
