Living the Beatles Legend

October 2, 2023
Biographer Womack (John Lennon 1980) provides an exhaustive chronicle of Beatles’ road manager Malcolm Evans, from his days as a patron of Liverpool’s Cavern Club, where the band got their start, to globe-crossing tours with the Fab Four between 1963 and 1966. Evans became the group’s road manager in 1963 and adopted a jack-of-all-trades role: cameoing in promotional videos; singing harmonies on recordings; briefly serving as managing director at Apple Records, the label the Beatles formed in 1968; and even co-writing such songs as 1967’s “Fixing a Hole” with Paul McCartney, though he didn’t receive credit or royalties. After the band’s 1974 breakup, Evans managed John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr and nursed dreams of becoming “a star in his own right,” though his life came to a tragic end at age 40 when he was shot by the police during a domestic disturbance. Womack’s account is full of thrilling moments—the 1973 theft of Harrison’s prized guitar “Lucy” and Mal’s efforts to get it back being a highlight—even if it’s sometimes bogged down by minutiae (every broken guitar string seems recorded) and the author’s fawning hyperbole (“For the Beatles themselves, the highlight of the European sojourn was the Italians’ wide-eyed wonder at the image of colossal Mal lugging their equipment”). Still, devoted fans of the band will find much to cheer about.

October 15, 2023
Overstuffed biography of the towering Beatles factotum whose life ended in tragedy. Mal Evans (1935-1976) gave his life dates as August 3, 1963, when the Beatles first brought him on board, to May 20, 1975, when he foresaw dying in a New York hotel. He lasted a bit longer, shot and killed by a police officer. Womack, a music culture critic for Salon, is a merely competent writer but diligent researcher, and he corrects the long misapprehension that the gun-obsessed Evans was waving a harmless air rifle: It was a real rifle with live rounds. Otherwise, this overlong book is both a blend of well-known facts and a peek into Evans' trove of Beatles arcana and his own sprawling, long-lost diaries, which give a day-by-day account of the band's career. Those entries touch on sometimes prickly personalities and difficult situations, as when John Lennon blamed Evans for the loss of a purloined guitar, as well as high points--e.g., when Evans saved the Beatles from death from a shattered windshield by punching it out and driving the windowless tour van against arctic winds, with the lads piled up atop each other for warmth, "a bonding moment, to be sure." A modest revelation: Lennon threatened to the last moment to ask his audience at the band's first Royal Command Performance to "rattle your fucking jewelry" until Evans dissuaded him. Evans' self-destructive spiral is the familiar rock story of too much money, booze, and cocaine. Less well known are the intricate, sometimes nasty band politics that held him back from higher positions in the pecking order, though he was essential to the Beatles operation and, indeed, contributed everything from lyrics to McCartney's "Here, There and Everywhere" to tambourine on Harrison's "What Is Life." For Beatlemaniacs with room on their shelves for yet another book.

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October 27, 2023

In 1976, Mal Evans, the road manager and personal assistant to the Beatles, died and left behind unpublished memoirs and diaries. Nearly 50 years later, music critic Womack (John Lennon 1980: The Last Days in the Life John) has incorporated these texts with original research. The result is a biography of Evans (1935-76) and his time within and without the Fab Four. The book initially revels in Beatlemania and Evans's friendship with the group, gradually giving way to Womack's take on the undocumented growing pressures on Evans, especially following the band's breakup. The biggest issue with the book is not clearly indicating who the targeted audience is. The type of readers who would reach for this volume are already well-acquainted with many Beatles stories presented here. On the other hand, readers unfamiliar with Beatles lore would probably not seek out such an esoteric volume. Still, many may find this book to be long overdue. VERDICT A commendable tribute and welcome companion to the promised upcoming volume, the second in a two-book project that draws deeply from the Evans family archives.--Gregory Stall

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