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Music fans of a certain mature vintage may remember Peter and Gordon, a British singing duo that had a No. 1 hit in 1964 with \u201cA World Without Love,\u201d an infectiously melodic pop song written by a soon-to-be-famous Paul McCartney.<\/p>\n
But you don\u2019t have to be familiar with the song or the singer to be fascinated by the incredible career of one Peter Asher, a nerdy-looking, bespectacled, red-haired singer and guitarist who was half of this short-lived musical pair.<\/p>\n
While his partner, Gordon Waller, would fade away in a clich\u00e9 of rock star dissipation \u2014 he died in 2009 at 64 \u2014 Asher, who turned 82 this week, went on to become one of the most influential and respected behind-the-scenes machers in the music business in the 1970s and \u201980s.<\/p>\n
After a stint as the first head of A&R (artists and repertoire) for the Beatles\u2019 Apple Records, he came to America and helped define a generation of Los Angeles singer-songwriters, managing and producing James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Carole King and a host of other bold-faced names from that golden age of Southern California rock and pop.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an extraordinary story that Emmy-award-winning San Francisco directors and producers Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine tell in their thoroughly enjoyable new documentary, \u201cPeter Asher: Everywhere Man,\u201d which opens Friday nationally and at the Smith Rafael Film Center for an open-ended run. After Saturday\u2019s 7 p.m. screening, the directors will sit down with music writer Joel Selvin for a Q&A about the film. For showtimes, go to rafaelfilm.cafilm.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n