Peter Asher has heard it all

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Set us as preferred When David Jacks published a biography of Peter Asher in 2022, the veteran record producer and manager expressed surprise that anyone would have deemed his life worthy of the treatment.Four years later, he’s no less baffled to have become the subject of a new documentary, “Peter Asher: Everywhere Man,” directed by the filmmakers Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine.“It just seemed to me,” he says, “that I wouldn’t be that fascinating.”The movie, in theaters now, argues otherwise: A child actor alongside his two younger sisters, the bespectacled Asher became an unlikely pop star during the British invasion as half of the duo Peter & Gordon, whose debut single, “A World Without Love” — written by Paul McCartney — hit No.

1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1964.(McCartney offered the song to Asher while the Beatle was dating Asher’s sister Jane.) In 1968, the Beatles made Asher head of A&R at Apple Records, where he signed James Taylor; the two soon moved to Los Angeles and turned Taylor into music’s biggest heartthrob folkie.Asher went on to shepherd Linda Ronstadt to stardom and to produce records by Diana Ross, Cher, Bonnie Raitt, Randy Newman, Neil Diamond and 10,000 Maniacs, among many others.

And at 82 he’s still at it: Last year he produced Barbra Streisand’s latest duets album — they’re due to start work on a new Streisand solo LP, he says — and he’ll perform a show of his own July 19 at the Grammy Museum.Asher, who broke his leg in a recent fall, spoke about it all the other morning at his home in Malibu, where he walked into the kitchen using a cane before sitting down at a table set with pastries and several of the day’s newspapers.What unites the jobs of musician, producer, executive, manager? What’s the through line?Love of music and admiration for the peo...