Another nice day today; it is 38 degrees and sunny. You won't break a sweat taking a walk, but you also won't freeze to death either. We finally got a dusting of snow a few days ago, but it hasn't taken the grass over yet. And there are just 12 days until Christmas. What a mild winter.
I finished Living the Beatles' Legend, The Untold Story of Mal Evans today by Kenneth Womack. I may have mentioned earlier that the Mal Evans story is one the long lost puzzle pieces to Beatles history. His story seems like some kind of fanciful, poorly written novel, but it is completely true. In fact, it make be a great movie "based on a true story."
This book is a well-researched, well-written page turner. I loved it.
Prior to joining the Beatles, Evans trained as a telecommunications engineer for the General Post Office in Liverpool. He had a perfectly respectable job with a decent pension, a wife and a child on the way in 1961.
Then one day in that year, he took his lunch break at the Cavern Club in Liverpool and his life changed. Because of his size (he was 6'3" which, at the time, was a massive man) "Big Mal" stood out. He took a liking the band on stage, rather oddly called the Beatles, and quickly befriended them.
Before he knew it was was moonlighting as a bouncer at the Cavern Club and, as the band's popularity spread, began working as their second roadie, taking care of the band's equipment while original road manager Neil Aspinall took care of the Beatles themselves. Along with band manager Brian Epstein and Derek Taylor (later Tony Bramwell) handling the press, these four made up the entire Beatles "entourage" during the touring years. Hard to believe, but it is true.
Evans was indispensable to the Beatles. He was also embarrassingly underpaid his entire life by the Fab Four.
When he was home, which wasn't often, he appeared to be a doting father and caring husband.
But he was out the door the moment the phone rang, whether to buy new guitar strings for George or accompany Paul on an African safari. Sadly, he lived a compartmental life and truth be told, he was a shitty father and an even shittier husband.
Evans lived the life of a rock star away from home, or at least lived on fringe benefits of being part of the inner circle of the biggest band in the world. Evans was unfaithful to his wife any chance he got (which was often) and he would be away from home for months at a time. Sure he would call home and write letters, but was known for his hard-partying ways and womanizing. And truth be told, the Beatles themselves were hardly choirboys.
When the Beatles stopped touring, Evans tried his hand at record producing (in fact, he produced Badfinger's "No Matter What," a song my own band plays), and he liked to think of himself as a professional lyricist, which is what he focussed on "later" in his life.
I say later in quotes because Evans only lived to 40 years old. Evans had alienated his family and moved to L.A. after falling in love with a younger woman. He was already struggling with drug and alcohol addiction when his wife filed for divorce. This should hardly have been a surprise to Evans. but he felt he could have the best of both worlds. At this point, in late 1975, he started spiraling out of control.
He wrote a last will and testament on a piece of tablet paper while inebriated on January 3, 1976. The "will" rambled incoherently and he asked the Beatles to play at his funeral.
The next day, January 4th, he called a friend and asked them to look after his wife and children, should anything happen to him.
That evening he proceeded to get drunk to the gills and high on cocaine and loaded a Winchester rifle, which he kept in the bedroom. His live-in girlfriend begged him to put the gun away and then called police when Evans locked himself in their bedroom. When police opened the bedroom door, Evans was sitting on the floor with the gun pointed downward. He was told to drop the weapon. He told the police "No. Blow my head off!" and he suddenly raised the rifle to a shooting position...
My guess is Evans probably did not have mettle to turn the gun on himself, but he knew the police would end it all if he pointed the weapon at them. It is clear he was suicidal and had a plan.
It is strange to think that four years and 11 months after he died, one of his former employers, John Lennon, was also killed by gun violence. Lennon was also 40 years old.
