Mal Evans Lived the Beatle Legend

Editor’s Note: This is a bit longer-than-usual piece for us, but 1) it’s an interview with our friend Ken Womack about his newest Beatle book and 2) it’s a great insight to Mal Evans, the constant helpmate to the Fab Four. Settle in and enjoy.

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I must admit up front that I am a big Ken Womack fan. Along with his 22 published works of non-fiction and 5 novels, Ken has brought to Beatles fans over 16 Beatles titles that have helped expand the world’s knowledge of their history and their impact on music, pop entertainment, and society at large. His entire body of Beatles works, which includes his flagship two-volume biography devoted to the legacy of producer George Martin, along with his vivid reproduction of the last days of his life in the book John Lennon 1980, have been worthy of their inclusion in the permanent collection of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Library and Archives.

For those of us thirsting for any new, fresh, accurate perspectives on the band’s history, Ken’s latest submission Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans is groundbreaking stuff. In the book to be released this week, the Beatles scholar draws from his association with the surviving family of one Malcolm Evans, the band’s long-time roadie, personal assistant, devoted friend, and invaluable member of their inner circle. Mal was there, nearly every day, with the Beatles from 1963 until his death in January 1976.

Like discovering the contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Womack’s exclusive access to Evans’ unpublished archives, diaries, self-recorded notes, unfinished autobiography manuscripts, and previously unseen pictures (along with numerous new interviews) conveys another view of the Beatles’ stunning history.

We recently sat together for a Jersey ocean-side lunch only a few miles from Monmouth University where Ken Womack Ph.D. is currently serving as a Professor of English and Popular Music:

Culture Sonar:

In a fan’s mind, it’s easy to place Mal Evans in the position of the character depicted in A Hard Day’s Night played by John Junkin, but in the book, you reveal Mal’s full legacy. That is, Mal was a heck of a lot more to the Beatle’s story than just a go-fer, wasn’t he?

Ken Womack:

Oh yes! In my mind, Mal is performing an important role in providing us with all the great music of the Beatles. Particularly in the later years where they would stay up all night recording, you needed a guy like Mal to make that possible. It would have been very easy to pack up for the day at midnight and say, “I’m done, end of my shift.” Suddenly, you have a guy there willing and able to call up Sound City (a London music equipment source) in the middle of the night to fetch needed guitar strings or alternative instruments, or whatever they desired. This was key in the later years, it made a big difference in the delivery of Sgt. Pepper, the White Album and Abbey Road, etc.

CS:

As for his role in the Beatles’ world, I love the scene in the Get Back sessions where Mal is actually working on lyrics with Paul…with Paul McCartney! How many ex-bouncers from the Cavern Club get the chance to partner with one of the greatest composers of the 20^th century?

KW:

It also demonstrates that Mal was not some “doff.” He is much more than that in life and to the Beatles. He’s not just a go-fer, or roadie. He’s a guy they can trust implicitly.  With their most important cargo (their songs), he added value to them in many ways (for example: he was one of the three pianists to contribute to the crushing final chord on “A Day In the Life”). That role was important to Mal. He knew who he was when he was with them. He was educated, he knew how to converse, and Mal understood the arc of their output. In a very specific way, that scene does very much demonstrate his place within the Beatle’s world.

CS:

The book reveals that the Beatles, and especially Brian Epstein, were tough taskmasters to Mal. Although polite, the book really portrays them as not giving an inch in terms of expecting Mal to meet their standards. The attitude was not, “He’s our pal, he can screw around, it’s OK.”

KW:

In fact, he had numerous scuffles and skirmishes with Brian. As the Beatles’ manager, Epstein had high standards as to how Mal would comport himself. Mal did understand those expectations and what it took to make their show work. He took that seriously and with great pride. In fact, after Brian’s untimely death, Mal would remind himself that he was now the first person, most often, that people would see in connection with the Beatles. This meant that Mal always made sure those approaching the Beatles, legitimately or not, were treated right, he gave them the right time of day….but also swiftly moved them on if that was called for.

CS:

This is where I found the book to take on another dimension. Our main character goes from everyday telephone installer/friend/bouncer to going all the way to talent scout/rookie producer and a player in the music industry. I get a purposeful sub-theme to the book that reveals that people of that era could grow, (and just like the Beatles), even if it would have been impossible to predict that kind of outcome when Mal started working as their roadie as of January 1963.

KW:

I am glad you picked up on that, I did want that to be one of many true themes of the book. It was a double-edged sword for Mal. He had the wherewithal and the talent to be an A&R man of the day. He discovered Badfinger and brought them to the Beatles [Apple Records]. He ended up producing their top 5 song (“No Matter What”, 1970). These are real accomplishments. But the other edge of the sword was when Mal would face more opportunities outside the Beatles, suddenly, they still wanted him to be the guy who would stay up all night recording with them. He can’t be both. Mal had to tackle that. Keep in mind, by that point, Mal is a bonafide songwriter. He has songs published, and one of them appears on the 1973 Ringo album  (“You and Me (Babe)”, co-written with George Harrison). A great example of when the world begins to pigeonhole you, you must deal with those perceptions.

CS:

But again, and this is a very important point that the book captures, he was never looked down upon by any of the Beatles. There was equality between him and the band….

KW:

That’s right, and I think we see that with Lily, Mal’s wife. Lily understands his role in the band. She may despise it, and be jealous of it at times, and what it means and its effect on her family. But she is the one who points out that they (the Beatles) all value him and at times would fight for access to Mal. I think this is an interesting tension. I think a certain number of readers will understand, because they too have had jobs where they were integral to an organization….and no doubt Mal was integral to being in that studio. But of course, he knew he was great at it, and he loved it.

CS:

Speaking of Lily, as a sign of the times, I found it to be so heartwarming to learn of the historical correlation between the Beatles being born out of a church fair and Mal meeting his wife Lil, at a Wirral funfair. You dedicated the book to “Lily of Allerton”….What did you learn about Lil Evans?

KW:

I think Mal and Lily loved each other and she went as far as she could. I mean, when your husband is living with another woman in another country (California), I don’t know what you do that that point. She had her northern (England) pride, and in the end, she finally reached her limit. But remember, she was the only person who stuck by him when in 1963 he announced that he was leaving his well-paid, comfortable, pension-eligible job at the telephone company to haul equipment for a long hair band that no one knew was going to be around for the next six decades, let alone six weeks. His family told him he was crazy for giving up his middle-class job, but Lily understood. For the longest time and years later, she had a belief in the possibility of his change. That never developed. Lily left us in July of 2023. Her son Gary, along with her daughter Julie and I had planned to dedicate the book to her long before her passing. She is the unsung hero of this story.

CW:

As Lil too got caught by the huge Beatles tsunami, did you find there was camaraderie with another hard-times wife in Cynthia Lennon?

KW:

Lily was good friends with her, and Cynthia would often visit their home in Sunbury and would bring Julian with her. There was no doubt that they had a close relationship and Lil also had close ties with the Badfinger families as well (as the families still hang today). Lily liked and got on well with the four Beatles, she was quite fond of George. She enjoyed going to premieres and the fun times of that world. She just understood the tragedy and irritation of the downside.

CS:

Speaking as a member of the deep Beatles society, (of which you too are a member) we are all on a continual search for material that offers new insights and facts into the well-worn Fab story. You are the first author to have access to the unfinished manuscript of his autobiography, his diaries, self-recordings, and notes for his memoirs, thus Living the Beatles Legend delivered a bumper crop of new material for us all! What was one new factor that took you by surprise?

KW:

That’s a tough question because there are so very many. For me, when I first opened his diaries, I went to May 9^th, 1969. This was the day when the Beatles had a big, balkanized split up after a big argument. Although they continued to work together for the rest of that summer (on the Abbey Road album), this was the day when the other three told Paul they were moving ahead to sign up with Allan Klein as their manager, leaving Paul by himself. I wanted to see how Mal reacted in his diary to the events of that day. I include it in the book, which is a copy of Mal’s entry. It is a drawing of Paul losing his ever-loving mind (as we all would)! That floored me. At that point, I knew we had a very special archive.

CW:

Then in the middle of all their post-Beatle’s infighting, the miracle of all miracles happens. We see one of the few times the four players are in 100% agreement. That is, the four ex-Beatles give their full written permission to Mal to go ahead with his request for an autobiography project with seemingly no issues. What does that say to you?

KW:

My gut was they would never stand in his way. I take it as a respectful and trusting friendship. It’s a kind of love. I’m not sure he needed their endorsement, you know. But given their relationship, I am sure Mal saw no other way to approach it. I think he was also signaling to them what we now know of the original memoir draft, that it was not going to be an ugly tell-all. Ringo told Mal to tell the truth, and from what I see, he attempted to do just that. I have not put this into words before, but I think in some ways Mal was writing his memoirs as an explanation of his behaviors. Mal was not a daft man; he knew that there was a day of reckoning. You have to ask, why do people write diaries? I think Mal even asks that. He knew when you write something for posterity, it may one day function in that way.

CS:

The book portrays a person split between the once-in-a-lifetime historical activities he had access to, and his Northern Man’s need to be there for his family. I couldn’t figure out if his driving motivation was the love of being with the Beatles or the magnet of the celebrity, he was gaining….or both?

KW:

It almost has to be both. I go to his quote: “I can live on it, it’s better than food and drink.” So, I think that quote speaks to his access to that rarest of celebrated air, he’s clearly attracted to that. But he was genuinely proud of the association with the band as well. He was gratified that he was making a contribution and that he was making a difference in their work and lives. So, those things for him were real. That’s a dangerous combination for a guy who has a family because the family lost pretty much all the time.

CS:

Yes, dangerous, and I was taken aback by how much he seemingly partook in the debauchery of the day, he tried everything the Beatles tried. I was almost disappointed in that part of his story; I wanted him to be a Boy Scout!

KW:

Yeah, I wanted him to be a Boy Scout too. I think it’s a tribute to his well-rounded persona that I can get to the end of this project and still love him. I think I came away loving him in the same way I love John Lennon. Because they were both part of an extraordinary thing, but yet they are very honest about their flaws. While he wasn’t necessarily honest to his family, we now see he was honest in his documentation as to who he was and what the band meant to him. As for the extracurricular activities of that era, the Beatles had big appetites, and Mal, because he was a gentle giant, had a bigger one.

CS:

I know you toyed with several titles for the book but landed on what would have been the title he was planning to use. What brought you to that decision?

KW:

Yes, we toyed with many titles. Beyond it being a nod to Mal’s memoir’s original title, we came back to this one because it really captures exactly what Mal was doing. He was living the Beatle’s life…. in real-time.

CS:

At the book’s vivid tragic end to Mal’s life, you draw upon notes and diary entries to what was going on in his mind, along with interviews with his then-live-in girlfriend Fran Hughes. Is it a script of a man who wanted it to end? Will history always be in the position to speculate that he was in the mindset to end it all?

KW:

I don’t think we’re guessing anymore. I think the archives make it pretty firm now. There is just too much evidence there. We have Mal showing Fran how to winterize their home, we have Mal writing a will, we have Mal saying to Fran too many times “I want to go out in a hail of bullets.” And then Mal engineers exactly that scenario. He tells Fran to call the cops. He subsequently points a gun at the police, who had ran up the stairs to their home where Mal had locked himself in. There is a four-year-old in the next bedroom, he didn’t give the cops much of a choice. Knowing that police do what police need to do in those moments,  he seemingly designed it that way. The book provides full investigative details, it’s a tragic ending.

CS:

Last question, with the hundreds of books written about the Beatles, this one is truly unique. With that, have you thought that this is one submission that both Paul and Ringo may pick up and read? It’s the only one that tells the story of their old dear friend.

KW:

If so, I think they are going to see a loving portrait of their friend, who loved them and stated so many times. I think all of the Beatles are well portrayed in the book, and they loved Mal back. If anything, this burnishes the band’s mystique in a good way. It’s a complete book about Mal, and it was written with his children’s (Gary and Julie) desires in mind. They wanted an unflinching portrait of their dad. That’s what we got.

Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans will be released this week by HarperCollins’ Dey Street Books imprint. A second book of reproductions of Mal Evans’ archives (diaries, manuscripts, drawings, etc.) will be released in 2024.

-Steven Valvano

Fair use image from Living the Beatles Legend: The Untold Story of Mal Evans