Mal Evans worked alongside the biggest pop group in the world, but his greatest thrill came when he accompanied the Beatles to meet his musical hero, Elvis Presley.
As the Beatles’ road manager, Evans had a front-row seat as the Liverpool quartet became global superstars. He began working with them as a roadie and bodyguard in August 1963, eventually becoming a trusted insider who accompanied the band on tour and in the studio. He even helped Paul McCartney develop the idea of an alter ego for the group while the two were on holiday in 1966 — a concept that would help give rise to the Beatles’ landmark album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Evans had planned to write a book about his adventures with the group and received permission from all four Beatles to do so. Sadly, he never completed it. He died in 1976, aged 40, after police shot him during a confrontation at his home. Distraught over his impending divorce, Evans had waved an airgun at officers. His death is widely understood as a possible case of suicide by cop.
Now, however, his stories of life with the Beatles are finally being published. Evans’s family made his recordings available to Kenneth Womack, one of the world’s foremost Beatles scholars and the author of numerous books about the band. Those include his 2023 biography of Evans, for which he gained access to recordings Evans made on a portable cassette recorder in 1975 while working on his memoir.
“It’s the book Mal was going to publish, taking us into the heart of Beatlemania, reminding us how electrifying it was,” Womack told The Guardian. “He pulls no punches. He shows us the Beatles. It’s very powerful. It’s a treasure trove of new material.”
Among the stories is an account of the Beatles’ August 27, 1965, meeting with Presley at his home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, during the group’s U.S. tour that year.
“Mal loved Elvis more than he loved the Beatles, in terms of music,” Womack says. “So, for that reason, when they meet Elvis in Bel Air in August 1965, Mal writes page upon page about the experience and what happened.”
“There’s been so much debate among writers about that meeting — and now we have this complete record of Mal saying: ‘Here’s exactly what happened.’”
Evans’s admiration for Presley is unmistakable in his account of the encounter.
“If there is one day in my life I shall never forget, it is the day when the two biggest phenomena in showbiz met for the one and only time,” he wrote. “The day the Beatles met Elvis Presley. I was there that day in El’s palatial Hollywood home. And that will always be the biggest day of all the years I have spent with the famous Beatles.”
He recalled that Presley played Beatles LPs for the group before finding guitars for each of them. Evans listened in awe as “they began to make the place rock with … improvised beat music.”
Evans had actually discussed the encounter years earlier in an anecdote included in the Beatles’ 1996 book Anthology. But his recollection also revealed that the day came with one personal disappointment.
“It was a thrill, but it was the biggest disappointment of my life in one way. I really am a big Elvis fan at six foot three I’m one of the biggest. So I prepare my outfit to go and meet Elvis — send the suit to the cleaners, nice white shirt and tie — really ponce myself up. But when the suit came back from the cleaners, they’d sewn the pockets up. Now, I always carry plectrums — picks, they call them in the States. It’s just a habit. I’m not even working for them now and I’ve still got a pick in my pocket at the moment.
“So when we get there, Elvis asks, ‘Has anybody got a pick?’ and Paul turns round and says, ‘Yeah, Mal’s got a pick. He’s always got a pick. He carries them on holiday with him!’ I went to go in my pocket for one and there they were, all sewn up.
“I ended up in the kitchen breaking plastic spoons, making picks for Elvis!
“That was a disappointment: I’d have loved to have given Elvis a pick, have him play it, then got it back and had it framed.”
