From packing the four young, freezing Beatles in the back of a van and driving them up and down Britain in their earliest gigging days, to providing the iconic hammer-on-anvil sound on Maxwell’s Silver Hammer – the third track on the band’s final recorded album, Abbey Road – road manager and trusted insider Mal Evans had an incredible insight into the Beatles’ lives during the most extraordinary decade in music history.
Sadly, Evans died in 1976 at age 40, shot and killed by the Los Angeles Police following an altercation in which Evans, then devastated after the breakdown of his marriage, aimed an air rifle at the gathered officers. By all accounts Mal was one of the loveliest people you could ever hope to meet.
Prior to his untimely death, Evans was intending to publish his recollections of the whirlwind of Beatlemania in the form of a memoir, which all four former Beatles had given him the thumbs-up to do.
Intending to use a stenographer to transcribe his words, Evans had dictated his memoir into a portable cassette recorder, with the final manuscript reaching 95,000 words. Unfortunately his death meant that the book was never completed.
Now, Beatles writer Kenneth Womack – the author of previously published biography of Mal Evans Living the Beatles Legend – has carefully selected, edited and presented sections from Evans’ lost memoir to be published within the upcoming With the Beatles. The book is presented as an illustrated journey, that also features many of Mal’s previously unseen photographs, as well as his never-before-seen diary entries.
“Once thought lost forever, this holy grail for Beatles die-hards is being shared for the first time,” writes publisher HarperCollins. “With annotated (by Ken) excerpts of Mal’s memoir, the first-hand account of life with the world’s most important band through the eyes of the man who was there for it all, and bits from his diaries showing the comings, goings, recording schedules, and personal appointments of John, Paul, Ringo, and George, their life as a group, time on the road, and lives after their dissolution.”
Speaking to The Guardian, Womack said “It’s the book Mal was going to publish, taking us into the heart of Beatlemania, reminding us how electrifying it was. He pulls no punches. He shows us the Beatles. It’s very powerful. It’s a treasure trove of new material.”
The Guardian also presents some exclusive extracts, including some tantalising new insight into the day that the Beatles met Elvis Presley in his Bel Air mansion in 1965.
“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,” wrote Evans.
“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.”
After the initial meeting, instruments were handed around and, in Mal’s words – “they began to make the place rock with … improvised beat music”.
Evans also remembered being on the ground during the Beatles’ disastrous tour of the Philippines in 1966, wherein the group accidentally snubbed First Lady Imelda Marcos. She had invited them to the royal palace on one of their much needed (and quite rare) days off. After hearing that they had turned down the invitation, the media were enraged, and so were the police…
As ever, Mal was right there in the thick of it:
“A large number of the promoter’s staff were wearing automatic pistols in their back pockets … this was brought home to me personally the morning of our departure,” wrote Mal.
“I had just finished packing when one of the gentlemen entered my room asking for autographed pictures. I was in the middle of explaining that I had given away most of the photographs, keeping a few for the plane crew on the way home, when I was cut short by the same gentleman brandishing a gun in my face and repeating the demand. I couldn’t give them to him fast enough.”
As Mal shared, the morning became even more terror-filled; “I waited for the Beatles to arrive, then we proceeded to immigration. We were climbing a stairway inside the airport when suddenly … a dozen men appeared to impede our progress, and started to jostle us. It was obvious that they were looking to cause trouble … because of the fiasco the previous evening with the first lady.”
Evans’s account continues, “they were standing on our toes, jabbing us with elbows, generally giving us a bad time … I would give my right arm for any of those boys but, under these circumstances, it was most inadvisable to retaliate in any way whatsoever. To stand there and see my beloved Beatles treated so roughly was heartbreaking.”
With the Beatles by Kenneth Womack is released by HarperCollins on December 1st. Find out more here.
