Mal Evans was present on 28 August 1964, the night Bob Dylan introduced The Beatles to marijuana. He sampled the drug with the members of the group, and helped Paul McCartney fulfill a somewhat unusual request.
I discovered the meaning of life. And I suddenly felt like a reporter, on behalf of my local newspaper in Liverpool. I wanted to tell my people what it was. I was the great discoverer, on this sea of pot, in New York. I was sailing this sea and I had discovered it.I remember asking Mal, our road manager, for what seemed like years and years, ‘Have you got a pencil?’ But of course everyone was so stoned they couldn’t produce a pencil, let alone a combination of a paper and pencil, so it was I either had the pencil but I didn’t have the paper or I had the… I eventually found it and I wrote it down, and gave it to Mal for safekeeping.
I’d been going through this thing of levels, during the evening. And at each level I’d meet all these people again. ‘Hahaha! It’s you!’ And then I’d metamorphose on to another level. Anyway, Mal gave me this little slip of paper in the morning, and written on it was, ‘There are seven levels!’
As The Beatles’ love of the drug grew, Evans and Neil Aspinall found their duties changing once more.
Reefers are hard to avoid in The Beatles’ story. All the time, Mal and Neil would sit in Studio No. 2 behind the sound baffles while we were working, rolling them up and smoking.
While Lennon, Harrison and Starr lived in the stockbroker belt in south east England, Evans often joined McCartney and Aspinall in the clubs of London after The Beatles’ recording sessions. A particular favourite was the Bag O’Nails, where he mingled with the stars of swinging London.
Mal Evans was present in America in 1965 when Lennon and Harrison had their second LSD experience, and Starr took the drug for the first time. The occasion later inspired John Lennon’s song ‘She Said She Said’.
Paul wouldn’t have LSD; he didn’t want it. So Ringo and Neil took it, while Mal stayed straight in order to take care of everything. Dave Crosby and Jim McGuinn of The Byrds had also come up to the house, and I don’t know how, but Peter Fonda was there. He kept saying, ‘I know what it’s like to be dead, because I shot myself.’ He’d accidentally shot himself at some time and he was showing us the bullet wound. He was very uncool.
Anthology
On the same tour they met Elvis Presley, whom Evans had greatly admired for years.
It was a thrill, but it was the biggest disappointment of my life in one way. I really am a big Elvis fan – at six foot three I’m one of the biggest. So I prepare my outfit to go and meet Elvis – send the suit to the cleaners, nice white shirt and tie – really ponce myself up. But when the suit came back from the cleaners, they’d sewn the pockets up. Now, I always carry plectrums – picks, they call them in the States. It’s just a habit. I’m not even working for them [The Beatles] now and I’ve still got a pick in my pocket at the moment.So when we get there, Elvis asks, ‘Has anybody got a pick?’ and Paul turns round and says, ‘Yeah, Mal’s got a pick. He’s always got a pick. He carries them on holiday with him!’ I went to go in my pocket for one – and there they were, all sewn up.
I ended up in the kitchen breaking plastic spoons, making picks for Elvis!
That was a disappointment. I’d have loved to have given Elvis a pick, have him play it, then got it back and had it framed.
Anthology
As The Beatles’s tours became more hectic towards the end, Evans found his role becoming more pressured. Concerts would go ahead often with scant regard for safety, and the crowds were ever more fervent in their adulation of the group.
Open-air concerts in the States were terrible. When it looked like rain in the open air, I used to be scared stiff. Rain on the wires and everybody would have been blown up, yet if they’d stopped the show, the kids would have stampeded.
Anthology
In June 1966 The Beatles toured the Philippines, where they unintentionally snubbed the first lady, Imelda Marcos. The group lost their police protection, and were forced to make their way to Manila airport alone. When they arrived The Beatles and their entourage were repeatedly shouted and spat at, and were shoved and punched by officials and the gathered crowds.
Once on the plane Mal Evans was ordered off, along with Brian Epstein and press agent Tony Barrow.
They all had to get off, and they looked terrified. Mal went past me down the aisle of the plane breaking out in tears, and he turned to me and said, ‘Tell Lil I love her.’ He thought that was it: the plane was going to go and he would be stuck in Manila. The whole feeling was, ‘Fucking hell, what’s going to happen?’
Anthology
The three were eventually allowed to board again, once Epstein gave the authorities all the money The Beatles had earned for their two concerts. The experience was perhaps the key event which led to the group’s decision to end touring.
Wow, truly an unsung Beatle hero.
I grew up with Mal in Waldgrave Road Liverpool. He was the nicest, politest, friendliest kid you’d ever meet. Our families often got together for sing-a-longs and what no-one seems to know is that Mal could play the banjo like no other. He and his sister Pam used to belt out “Last Train to San Fernando” and we’d all sing our heads off. Great, wonderful days.
Eunice, it would be great to hear more reminisces from you!! Hope you still come here!
I remembered just yesterday reading (long ago) that Mal used to tune their guitars for them before their shows, and I think there’s an outtake where Lennon’s 12-string goes out of tune (probably on “You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away”) and he says something like “I’m defunct” and calls for “Mal”, so I was wondering if he had any musical background, and this post seems to clear the matter up. There’s also his claim that he helped write “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” with Paul–I’d always thought that his input would have been on the lyrics, but perhaps he contributed musically.
Faulty memory correction: it was the outtake of “Long Lost John” on a non-12-string guitar where we calls to Mal and says he’s “defunct”. So strike that connection.
Mal Evans counting out the bars. Evans’ voice was treated with gradually increasing amounts of echo. The 24-bar bridge ended with the sound of an alarm clock triggered by Evans. Although the original intent was to edit out the ringing alarm clock when the section was filled in, it complemented McCartney’s piece – which begins with the line “Woke up, fell out of bed”
Who is Eunice? Never heard of her! Mal could never ay the banjo!!! I should know! I’m his sister! The only train Eunice is on is the gravy train. False memory syndrome!!! June Mitchell nee Evsns
Wow, that ranks right up there with “stolen valour” in America, where some guys try & pretend they’re military combat veterans when they weren’t even in the military.
Cool beans! That’s terrific, he seemed like a really good guy, had to be since the Beatles kept him around all those years. Too bad trigger-happy LA cops gunned him down, course I think that was the era of famous/infamous right wing-nut Darryl Gates tenure as police chief. By the way, in ’68 they covered up the assassination of RFK by the again, infamous security guard, Cesar Eugene Thane, NOT Sirhan Sirhan.
After reading this, I noticed on the sleeve of my Rubber Soul album, credit being given to Mal ‘organ’ Evans on Hammond, on the You Won’t See Me track.
Mal worked his bloody arse for these guys. And he cames to such a tragic end, none of the lads turned up to his funeral. What a sad thing. Being paid a pittiance during their prime years as well.
At least Paul didn’t even go to his dad’s funeral. Some people just don’t go to such things.
They didn’t attend Epstein’s memorial service either. Why? It would have just turned it into a big media circus. Perhaps – just maybe – they were taking the family’s feelings into account…….
I agree with you that perhaps the reasons why none of The Beatles attended Brian’s funeral or Mal’s funeral was out of respect for their bereaved families and not wanting to attract unwanted attention or harassment from the media or paparazzi at a mournful event.
Just imagine what would’ve happened had John, Paul, George and Ringo gone to Mal’s funeral together – the media could well have gotten wind of it and perhaps the tabloids might’ve fabricated stories about them getting back together again permanently.
They did turn up for Epstein’s service in black suit and tie. They didn’t attend the funeral. They were asked by the Epstein family not to attend (press mania) etc.
Robu, If they did show up for Mal’s funeral it would be a mess. With the funeral center on The Beatles NOT Mal.
Precisely, Phillip – it made sense for them to not attend, out of respect for the privacy of Mal’s bereaved family, and also not to attract the media.
No doubt, but you gotta remember, if one of them had shown up it would have deteriorated into a frkn circus. That being said, they could have provided for Mal’s ex-widow & his son, but there again they did allow her to auction off some of his Beatles memorabilia w/o jacking her up in court over it.
Hi sagedaddy,
I lived in Sydney in the sixties when my Dad wrote to me from Liverpool and said Mal was coming to Australia with the Beatles. (I remember thinking,’who the heck are the Beatles’?) Well, my husband managed to get tickets to their show, and he didn’t want to come so I invited an 18yr old girl, Robyn, from work to come with me. After the show, we got a cab to the Sheraton, and had to be dropped off at the end of the street so we literally had to elbow our way slowly to the hotel. I told one of the security guys that I was there to visit a friend in the hotel and he let us through. I went to the counter and asked for Mal. Shortly after, he stepped out of the lift, saw me, absolutely amazed, spread his arms out lifted me in a big twirl. (I was liftable in those days!) We went up to his room which was directly opposite the emergency door. He always stayed in the same hotel room with his door open wherever they toured and I soon knew why! Two young girls had somehow escaped the notice of the guards and climbed the stairs and I watched as they crept through the door, but there was Malcolm who kindly but firmly sent them back. They begged and begged him to get a Beatle to meet them but he had to refuse.
The next thing we heard was a voice in the corridor calling out “C’mon lads, it’s waving time” Next thing Paul walked through the door and Paul said “Hello girls” and Mal introduced us and we shook hands. (Robyn nearly collapsed when she saw him because Paul was her ‘heart throb’!) Next, Ringo appeared, he wasn’t well and he was in his pajamas but had a jacket on. Then John and George joined them and Mal said to me “Come on, you’ve got to see this”. We followed them into an empty room with doors to a verandah, and Mal stood us in front of a side window. Well! You should have seen/heard the crowds below. From one end of the long street to the other, there were masses of people everywhere. Even the Hilton hotel opposite had faces filling every space in every window, some standing on chairs waving like mad!
After, we went back to Mal’s room,and we were joined by George, who sat and chatted away to us. He had a broken guitar string in his hand and I asked him for it! At work the next day I was being offered ten shillings an inch for it which I refused and gave it away later on to a relative.
I went back to Liverpool for a holiday and caught up with Mal’s mother who told me the truth about Mal’s death, but that can wait for another time as my fingers are hurting! By the way, Mal would have just turned 79 now and he was three years younger than I am.
Eunice! I can’t believe I haven’t looked back here in a year!!! Thanks so much for your recollection of this memorable time in your life!! Please get in touch with me at peterhicks@mac.com so we can communicate further. Of course post more here too if you want to!
Great story and thanks for it! What’s the truth about Mal’s passing?
G’day from Australia,
He was shot by the LA Police.
I knew him when we both worked for GPO Telephones in Liverpool.
I last saw him in 1963 when we were removing old equipment in preparation for an upgrade at Sefton Park telephone exchange.
It was sad end to his life as I knew him as a top bloke.
He was also the president of the Elvis Presley fan club on Merseyside.
Roy, I’d love to hear more about your time working with Mal at GPO Telephones! I remember him saying once that he used to get teased at work for loving Elvis Presley!!
Roy – I’d love to connect with you regarding your memories of working with Mal Evans. I’m working with author Kenneth Womack on the authorized biography of Mal and we’d love to hear from you. I can be reached at peterhicks@mac.com
I somehow can’t believe that one of the Beatles wouldn’t take care of him for life after the end of the group. I mean, Paul had many relatives who he was more or less supporting, why not Mal, who went through all the tours for them and gave the best years of his life for them? I don’t understand how you can start out in a van, living in an apartment with a guy, and when you hit the lottery walk away from him?
Harrison gave the family about five grand after he died. Lennon joked when Mal’s ashes were lost in the “Dead mail.” Paul sued to stop his family from auctioning off lyrics to Beatles songs. Of all the Beatles I liked Paul the least.
The proceeds from the handwritten lyrics were given to to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, liverpool
Your comment about PM suing.. is just scratching the surface. Take it from one who knows…..
Well, you can’t just leave us hanging like that…what really happened?
Selfish is the only word, greatness in music doesn’t mean greatness per say
Mal was a grown man, capable of taking care of himself. No one was obligated to “take care of him”. He made his own decisions.
Such sillyness…….
I agree with much of what you posted here on this page about Mal. You’re right: The Beatles were not Mal’s primary caregivers nor were they obligated to be in that capacity, but rather, Mal was a grown man and had to take full responsibility for his own actions, words and choices, regardless of whether the outcome or consequences were good or bad.
According to a UK Inflation calculator, 38 quid a week is now £705 in modern currency, so he actually had a decent salary. You’re also correct that if he was so unhappy with his pay, he could have very easily changed jobs, and I also believe that if he really was as dissatisfied with his wages as he stated in a 1969 diary entry, he could have quit working for them anytime he wanted and either find employment elsewhere or move back to Liverpool to return to the telephone engineering industry.
I also feel that Mal should’ve been grateful that he crossed paths with The Beatles or he would have been a Monday-to-Friday telephone engineer in Liverpool his whole life and the world wouldn’t have known of him.
George did say that he found a note about how much they were earning in 1963 Neil and Mal were being paid £25 a week in 1963, which is £535 in today’s money, and that’s not bad either. The Beatles were making £4000 apiece (£85,659.26 in modern currency) and Brian Epstein took home £2052 (£43,365 in modern currency) so this was actually not band for their status of 1963 and it clearly belies a lot of these biographer’s statements that Brian was a poor and incompetent manager when he clearly was not, as he brought The Beatles to stardom and managed other acts as well.
Mal was mentioned a few times in the “Anthology” documentary, so it’s not like The Beatles made any effort to erase him from their history and they also mentioned Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best plus archived footage of John being interviewed as well as audio of him speaking.
that is still only 45000 bucks a year in 2021. peanuts for being their PA and roadie.
I disagree that it’s peanuts. Yes, it may not be as much as the other Beatles or Brian Epstein were making, but it’s still a relatively decent salary.
I do apologize for the typo and what I meant was that with the inflation calculator, the money that they were making was actually not bad for their 1963 status.
As MikeP and I have stated, Mal was a grown man and fully responsible for his own decisions and none of The Beatles were obligated to look after him.
Hey George gave his own sister only 2000 a month and when he died , his wife cut that out completely
I have to agree with you on that. The way the Beatles treated Mal is inexcusable. In my mind it’s the worst thing they did throughout the groups existence. I’m not saying they should’ve given him millions of dollars, or an equal cut of the groups earnings, but at least give the guy more than the pittance that they did. At least with Neil, he ended up with a decent net worth, I know it was well into 7 figures, by the time of his death. Mal, and his family, had nothing.
I can vouch for that ?
Neil continued to work for them, and got paid for his efforts, and Mal didn’t continue to work for them, and didn’t get paid. Simple as that, really.
Sorry, but I disagree with you. As I said, Mal had a decent weekly salary of 38 quid a week and yes, it wasn’t exactly glamourous, but not chump change either, and if he didn’t like his pay, he was allowed to change jobs anytime he wanted.
I think the worst thing that The Beatles did throughout their existence was John, George and Ringo going with Allen Klein as their manager after Brian died and it turned out to be a big mistake, something that John himself conceded in 1973. Paul, on the other hand, did the right thing and refused to sign with Mr. Klein, preferring his new father-in-law Lee Eastman.
It’s far from the worst thing. 535 dollars in 1964 was a lot of money and as any econ. 101 teacher will tell you it’s not just the net amount but the buying power of that era. Mal was not hurting.
I do agree with you they should have given him SOMETHING when he resigned, but they didn’t. It was a different era and beleive it or not, I don’t think it was expected.
The worst, well documented thing ‘two’ Beatles did, was infinitely worse and well-documented.
Cheers
What happened to Mal’s book??
Yeah, it should have been better for Mal, for sure, and I think there’s not one of the band who would disagree. Unfortunately, the band exploded with shrapnel flying everywhere and the band members went flying into addictions, therapy (or lack of it) and recriminations. There was definitely a desire to break with the entirety of what The Beatles & Co had been. Also, being all from Liverpool, there’s a certain tendency not to appear as ‘skint’ at any time. Of The Beatles, only Paul at this point was facing up to knowing how much money he had to deal with rather than just signing bills (and that was because he had actioned a freezing of assets in court). He has said that during the period, he and Linda were living off HER earnings and there’s no reason to disbelieve it. All requests for cash out of the Apple pot had to go through a receiver.
With Paul and Linda having to live on Linda’s money, I think you mean the period when Paul was suing John, George and Ringo to dissolve the partnership in London’s High Court and had asked for a receiver, so as a result, The Beatles’ money was frozen for a time.
Paul himself admits that suing the other three was the last thing that he wanted to do, but he has stated that he did not want Allen Klein to exploit or milk their artistic legacy dry.
I know Paul is blaming Allan Klein for everything bad these days but he did re negotiate their deal with EMI and got them allot more money. Also why would any of the other 3 want Paul’s Father in Law to be their business manager.
Paul was right about Allen Klein – he was a very dishonest man and according to Peter Doggett, no such rehabilitation has ever afforded to Mr. Klein the way that it was to Yoko and Linda, because he entered their story as a villain from a central casting and he never escaped it.
I feel that John, George and Ringo should’ve apologized to Paul once he was proven to be right about Klein, something that John himself conceded in a 1973 interview, and according to Peter Doggett, this moral victory perhaps liberated Paul creatively and motivated him to work on what is undoubtedly Wings’ best album – “Band on the Run”.
Brian Epstein did renegotiate their contract with EMI on the 27th of January 1967 and presumably, this would’ve included an increased royalty rate.
What a tragic ending to his life. It was also too bad he was not needed by the Beatles after the split.
When Mal was shot and killed by the L.A. police, he was brandishing an air rifle, not a 30/30.
So? What were the cops supposed to do when Mal pointed it at them? Ask “Uh, excuse me, sir. Is that a real weapon or just a toy?” ?
One of the many who were cast adrift when the beatles split, the band really did not have a good record of looking after their friends and organisation post split. To be fair the guys all had pretty major things going on in their lives and its possible they would have got round to helping mal out.
By all accounts evans was a gentle giant who did everything he could to help the group. The beatles story has it’s fair share of tragedy thats for sure.
Ah, yes. That mindset that says a perfectly capable human being needs to be “looked after” and “taken care of”. SMH. No one held a gun to his head. If he didn’t like his wages, he could’ve walked at any time.
BTW, his widow did pretty well selling the Beatles memorabilia that Mal had collected.
From what year was “Long Lost John” recorded? Was it from the sessions for his first solo album?
Hang on. He was ok with the Beatles. Even after the split. He played tambourine for John on Instant Karma. He’s in the video. It’s true he didn’t get a large salary. But that is really Brian Epstein, not John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Listen, I am sure they all knew HE would be a millionaire at some point. He had lots of memorabilia! All he had to do was write his memoirs.
exactly , the Beatles themselves did not manage payroll or HR for god s sakes .
“Long lost John” is an outtake from the “Plastic ono band” album, autumn 1970, along with “don’t be cruel” and a couple of others, there’s only John, Ringo and Klaus on it, I think it’s originally a skiffle number.
Wait a second, I’m not sure why any of the Beatles HAD to somehow “take care” of Mal?. He was a friend and he worked with them. He could have gotten paid more, but there’s no reason why they were somehow obligued to care for him after the band’s split. He was perfectly able… has it even been suggested that he was in a bad economic situation?
I agree with this. Additionally, I don’t know the buying power of 38 pounds a week in 1968. Perhaps he wasn’t paid well, but I’ll bet all his travels and any other need of his own were paid for by the corporation. So, while he may not have made a lot of money, all or most of it was probably free of expense.
In 1968 £28 p/week was the average salary. So, £38 per week was buttons for what he was doing.
Seems like if Neil was properly paid, why not Mal? After all, he was the main go-to-guy for the day-to-day. Seems like he was paid as little as possible, and was common for Brian, but Mal made so much happen in their lives so should have been paid like twice as much, or more. Any comments on that, please?
Also, strange that Paul couldn’t admit his part in writing Sgt. Pepper?!? I guess only they knew the truth about that. That one credit would have set him for life. Again, any comments?
Mal’s salary of £38 a week, as I said previously, is £673 in today’s money – if you want proof, just follow this link and you can get ideas of what money The Beatles made back in the day is worth in modern currency.
still only 45000 a year in 2021 that is peanuts.
As a lifelong Beatles fan and retired professional musician myself I have to say given the money the Beatles machine earned and the life blood Mal gave the Beatles they indeed should have paid him more at the very least. The butterfly effect is real and some noticeable things would have been different without Mals involvement in the group and he was an integral part of the Beatles engine.
So what happened to the book?!
My recollection was it was not Mal who met the Police at the door in Let it Be, but a rather dapper looking chap in a frock coat.
Yes. Not Mal. It was a man who I met a couple of time while in London as an apple scruff. I remember I was surprised to see him when I saw the documentary. I even scream at the theater. ” My friend!”…
Mal wasn’t cast aside on the split. He received a ‘thank you’ name check from John on the Imagine LP & from George on ATMP and LITMW. And he gets a songwriting credit with George on the ‘Ringo’ album.
So he was still part of the Fab Three’s circle at least up to late 1973.
He could have and should have been looked after better, both financially and emotionally. To me Mal is the saddest tale in The Beatles story. He was a broken man in the 70’s.
Mal was a perfectly capable man, able to “look after” himself. He made his own decisions.
Judging by this end, that is not true.
It is sad story indeed. But there is something even more sad. And that’s to see supposed fans a judging and sentencing The Beatles for things they don’t know. They were not there to see what happened, they never met the Beatles, but they jump to conclusions without thinking twice. So they didn’t to Mal’s funeral… therefore they are assholes. Come on. I never go to funerals. I don’t like to see my friend in coffins. I am not an asshole. They don’t know at all what were their reaction to Mal’s death. They don’t know their feelings. They know John’s joke. But they don1 know what was inside John’s heart. So maybe they were terrible people indeed with no feelings. I also never met them to know what were they like. But the truth is that there is no evidence they didn’t care for Mal. But they don’t hesitate to bash them. That is not only sad. That is really shameful.
Us fans have read every article we can get our hands on, watched every interview and documentary out there, swapped stories and opinions between ourselves over many years, so we are well informed and placed to give our views and opinions, and almost every fan feels the same about how Mal was treated after the split, even money aside, how he was treated emotionally. I mean Paul saying to him ‘I don’t need anyone to make the tea’ when he asked if he could help him in the studio in late 1969. That really hurt him and I can see why it would.
Well maybe Paul knew that Linda was capable of making cups of tea, given that she was a very good cook and she wrote and published lots of vegetarian cookbooks in her later years, hence that he didn’t need Mal; besides, Abbey Road Studios had tea ladies or suchlike in their canteen and Mal was not an employee at the studios.
My father and Mal Evans worked together at the then GPO in Liverpool. When they went to the lunchtime show at the Cavern, the Beatles were having some problems with amplifiers, and being electrical engineers Mal and my dad offered to take it away and fix it for them – which they did, on GPO property, with GPO equipment and in GPO time! The Beatles’ management at the time was so impressed they offered both Mal and my dad jobs as roadies. But my dad, just married and with a new mortgage as well as a new wife, decided it was too risky to give up a regular, salaried job for life on the road.
I wish I knew more about the story, but my father passed away last year.
Hi Elaine – I’m working on the authorized biography of Mal Evans with author Kenneth Womack and we’d love to connect with you regarding your father’s memories of working with Mal. You can reach me at peterhicks@mac.com
As a life long beatles fan and amateur historian I have to say the Mal situation was very bad. Epstein lined his own pockets, later Neil made sure he did well too. As Mal has said they were surrounded by people on the take. Mal was a gentleman and that is often a failing in this life.
I love the music but I doubt they were very regular guys. John was full of himself, the drugs made it worse, remember the peace thing was quickly forgotten about. George was moody, lazy and petty. Paul extremely narsacistical apparently friendless. Ringo, well Ringo was just along for the ride.
Epstein and Neil are to blame for Mals demise. Epstein in the 60s and Aspinal in the 70s.
They were not regular guys at all. They were rock superstars – fabulously wealthy, worshipped wherever they go, devoid of any privacy, having people comment on every single aspect of their lives, etc. Rock superstars are not regular people. The Beatles IMO did quite well at handling being rock superstars. (Paul McCartney “friendless” “apparently”?? Source for this?)
That’s not very say about the four Beatles – they were all human beings like any other and Paul has lots of friends, including celebrity friends. He was also sad when his wife Linda, whom he genuinely loved very much, died of breast cancer and even George stated in the Anthology that not only were the four of them friends with each other, but also very, very close to each other. He even said that he still liked Paul and the media was just looking for sensationalized stories to sell.
Brian was not a dishonest man and I just can’t understand why a lot of sensationalistic biographers vilify him and inaccurately portray him as being a crummy manager – the adjectives of “crummy” and “dishonest” were more applicable to Allen Klein. He admitted in an interview that he was too conscious of ideas rather than finance behind ideas and all four Beatles were devastated when he died.
The Beatles were very lucky to have Brian as their manager, whereas Badfinger were very unfortunate to have a very evil man named Stan Polley managing them.
You can’t blame Brian or Neil Aspinall for Mal’s downfall – as MikeP and I have stated, Mal was a grown man and fully responsible for his own choices.
Mal did say in one of his 1969 diary entries that he found it hard to live on the £38 that he took home every week and was broke to the point of having to ask George for money, but if this was true, then his financial problems were his own doing.
The Beatles were not responsible for Mal’s financial problems if he was living beyond his means and squandering it on drugs or expensive things that he couldn’t afford – that was his responsibility, not theirs.
His annual salary comes out to be about 50000 US dollars a year in 2021 numbers.
Yes, he got allot of travel as being part of the team which is normal for any business.
Was Mal mentioned on the Beatles Anthology Television presentation?
If so, did he get a bunch of money from that? I heard Pete Best finally got a bunch of money because he was mentioned in that show.
“Getting mentioned” won’t earn any money (BTW, he’d been dead almost 20 years when the Anthology came out). Best got paid for the performances that were included in the Anthology.
Pete Best got a bunch of money because he was drumming on some of the old tracks and Paul made sure they were included on anthology so Pete finally made his millions
Pete best got money because he played on some of the earlier Beatles records which were released in the Anthology series. So he got royalties from that. Nothing else as far as I know.
Pete Best interview with a rude and insulting David Letterman.
According to the inflation calculator 38 pounds a week is now worth 656 pounds a week in today’s numbers.
so roughly 35000 pounds a year.
Not a heck of alot.
You would think Neil Aspinall would have helped the guy out as Apple President. I understand that the other Beatles probably didn’t want him hanging around and being a Beatles remembrance token.
Mal also had a sister named Pam.
Lots of Paul bashing for what? Paul didn’t do anything wrong, did he? He just was responsible for the last three albums in terms of getting his lazy band-mates to want to work! Hasn’t history and now a pretty obvious video account in Get Back prove that Paul was grossly misjudged by the world for the demise of the band. Now he is also responsible for Mal being broke!?!?
Holly, I agree with you about all this unwarranted Paul-bashing over the years, and it’s disgraceful to blame him and Yoko for breaking up The Beatles as well as Mal’s financial problems.
As I said, if Mal was really broke, that was his responsibility, not Paul’s.
I’m glad to find a thread open here, particularly this one. This probably belongs under Beatles conspiracies thread but think that thread is probably closed. I’ve read an interesting Mal conspiracy that had YouTubes showing he’d lost a great deal of weight in the early seventies then went on under his real name in the mid seventies as a teaching assistant in English at a US college and finally a guy with a pic resembling him was located online and he allegedly then was a CEO of his own tech company. I always thought his diary/book he was working on in the mid seventies which disappeared then much later was found in an old trunk. Thus, even Mal has his own conspiracy.
However, now I read about the “villainous, narcissistic Paul tropes” from a person or two here who implied was “solely” responsible for not seeing about Mal later and upping his salary and “we don’t know the half of his villainy” though John was closer to Mal later and saw him far later than villainous Paul did. I don’t doubt Mal helped in different ways with several Beatles endeavors, but think his help with the sgt pepper song has not been verified and very oddly he didn’t sue and kept working for them a few more years. The diary that’s found does truly show he was the Beatles gopher as had to keep John in white socks regularly. From my reading on Mal and his education and background, he was very talented with electronic things and it’s odd that he couldn’t go on with a career in that except his depression over his divorce prevented that.
Kenneth Womack, one of the World’s foremost Beatles Scholars, told the Observer: “It turn out that Mal was actually arrested that day they play on the roof but manage to get out of it only when Paul went into his PR mode and changed the Copper mind after the event.”
It is among the behind-the-scenes revelations in Evans’s previously unpublished diaries, manuscript and photographs to which Womack has given access to and he is writing a book about Mal Evans.
Still can’t get over how some people just don’t get it when it comes to the Beatles “taking care” of Mal instead of casting him aside after years of faithful service, including by the way, giving up a, yes unglamourless, job with a PENSION at the GPO or whatever Brits call their Post Office. “Taking care” of someone as it’s used here, doesn’t mean literally taking care of a person like a child or invalid, it’s more associated with $$ or ££, an economic term in a slang fashion, not literal.