This is later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews podcast war What You Hear Weekday
Afternoon's on the Drive. Kenneth Walmack is one of the world's foremost writers and
thinkers about everything Beatles. He's written many volumes before about the topic, and
his newest creation is Living the Beatles Legend, The Untold Story of mal Evans.
Let's start with who Malcolm Evans was, Kenneth Womack. Well, he
was the guy who essentially handled all of the needs of the Beatles. He
was their fixer. He was the fellow who set up their equipment tore it
down. He was the guy who would stay up all night with him while
they mode these amazing recordings. He really was a jack of all trades,
and he was there for them throughout the entire time of Beatlemania and beyond.
Did he start before the Beatles caught on? Oh? Yes, he had
known them them when Pete Best was still in the band in nineteen sixty one,
and he was there as they were gearing up for their first number one
Stringles. In fact, he helped with the promotion, and then when things
got really hot in summer of sixty three, punintended that mouth stepped up and
joined them full time, left his really pretty good job with the British Post
Office to help out the boys. How did he meet them initially? Was
he just going to maybe one of the clubs where they were performing. Oh?
No, He was absolutely at the cavern. Right he went down those
steps, He heard the rock and roll and just thought, man, this
is for me. Sounds like Elvis. He loved Elvis like a lot of
folks during those days and for now, and that was too much for him
to resist. They asked him to be a bouncer because he was a big
guy, but only because it would help him get close to the band.
It was just so into the music and when it time, because they were
so familiar with him and trusted him when the king times more, mal was
really the natural choice. The book is about Malcolm Evans, the beatles longtime
roady, personal assistant and devoted friend. Kenneth Womack is the author of this
little known chapter in the life of the of the Beatles, living the Beatles
legend, The untold story of mal Evans. What is it about the Beatles
music? I mean, I'll tell you what I experienced when I first heard
it, and it was early seventies. Sister had just bought the Sergeant Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club band album, the Beg's remake for that film that they did.
I heard the music and I thought, well, let me go back
and hear the original, and I started looking and listening in the original.
And I shared a house with a lot of people, so I would have
to put on the headphones to listen to music so as not to disturb everybody.
But I think putting on those headphones and hearing what they were doing engineering
one was for that time for me was Wow, this is amazing. The
production value of these songs. Yeah, they are incredibly well made. You
know, we can chalk that up to George Martin. You listen to the
Beatles and then you compare them to most, if not all, the acts
in the nineteen sixties. They just sound better. And a lot of that
has to do with working at EMI in Northwest London. It also has to
do with George Martin, who is just the perfect producer for them. But
those recordings are going to stand the test of time because they don't sound like
some scratchy outtake from you know, Days Gone by they are very well recorded,
and of course then you throw in the fact that these guys could really
play, and you've got something. Well, it's amazing too. None of
them are classically trained, yet a lot of the production value of the music
was I think that's where Martin came in, and because he had recorded so
many classical recordings, and when the Beatles would say we want it to sound
like this, he would say, yes, I know exactly how to do
that. But back to mal Evans, which is what the book is about,
Kenneth Walmack is with us, and I guess Mal also had a sense
of discretion because you didn't hear that much about him, No, you didn't,
and he understood that in ways that again we should be really impressed with,
because you know, these were different times. Mal understood his role and
he understood that part of his job was to be discreed. Like you said,
if part of his job was to hang back so that you know,
the Beatles would have space, was his job was to make space. His
job was to move people along. But at the same time he was very
cognizant of not wanting somebody to say, wow, those Beatles treated me really
badly. He didn't want those kinds of stories out there, so he would
be very careful to ensure that folks felt like they got their money's worth,
that they got their times worth. But they didn't. Kenneth Womack, he's
one of the world's most foremost writers and thinkers about the Beatles. And this
book is about the living of the Beatles. Legend the untold story of Malcolm
Evans, one of their confidants and roadies. And did he endeared himself to
all of the members? Then? I gather not just one or two.
Oh No, he was very close with all four of them. When the
touring days thankfully ended in nineteen sixty six, his family and him moved from
Liverpool down to London so they could be in the center of where all the
boys lived. Mal had to have working relationships with everybody, and he was
so good at it. They would sometimes get jealous of each other. Whoever
had mal really storing that particular day. He also contributed to speaking of the
production value of the songs, He contributed to some of the background instrumentalists and
lyrists. Yeah, he played on a good two dozen songs or so.
You know. He would help out if they needed a word here and there,
he would. You know, somebody needed to play a piano note,
he would do it. You know, it didn't matter. He plays on
that gigantic chord. At the end of the day in the Light, oh
Mal was they just had so few people in their orbit, which was probably
smart of them in retrospect, because you know, if you don't have an
entourage that you're constantly traveling and what round with, you get more work done.
You're not having to tend to the entourage. So you know, having
only Mal and Neil asp and all the other the other road manager with them
meant that they got a lot more done. You mentioned that chord. That's
one of my favorite production values because I've listened to it again and again and
again and you don't even hear any breathing, which is incredible considering how they
would record songs back then. That's yeah, a day in the Light.
I taught it last week in class and what the it's a map work.
It is just incredible. You can hear Mal counting down the measures before the
during the orchestration, because they needed a way to get from the verses to
the middle section with McCartney. What what a Tube. I mean that thing
is, that's one of the great works, along with The Wasteland and you
know Ulystes of the twentieth century, Kenneth Wolmack. The name of the book
is Living the Beatles Legend, The Untold Story of mal Evans, available everywhere
you get books. And we thank you for joining us today, Thanks for
listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to
listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation