Liverpool Trip with Beatles legacy link

I recently went on a trip to Liverpool. The meeting I had there was largely a waste of time but it meant I could actually have a good look around the city of culture 2008. I also wanted to see the cavern club.

On the train on the way up I found my seat on an extremely busy Virgin train. I found myself sitting next to a woman who was friendly and chatty. I had work to do but she didn't hesitate to keep the chat coming and after the 5th time my phone cut off (Rubbish Sony Erricsson work phone shite) I thought I would chat letty away to pass the time.

Now please read the following:


July 9, 1968

Oobledee [Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da] goes well and Eric Clapton plays a visit... Off to the pub for toasted cheese sarnies, later Paul went to the pub, with George, Neil and Pete for a pint. John and George guitars — Ringo drums for new version of "Revolution". Put up slide for kids and filmed Julie on it

So, I was on the way to Liverpool for my first visit and I mentioned to the woman that I wanted to see the Cavern club. I then asked her why she was going. Her grand mother was very old and she was visiting her before the inevitable happened. She had been putting this off but realised she should get on with it before it was too late etc etc. She then went to say that her dad worked at the Cavern, in fact he worked for the beatles, their whole career as a band. The above extract is taken from the diary of Mal Evans, Road manager and general best man of the beatles. I was talking to Julie.

I had heard of him but had no idea of the extent of the involvement he had. The last hour of the journey went very quickly, Julie enjoyed talking about him and the experiences she had growing up. She has photos of her as a little girl with all four beatles. She also told of his tragic death in the 70s, shot by the LAPD.

From time to time they find a box of his stuff - sketches, lyrics, photos etc and this gives them a couple of hundred grand here and there. But, as well as the diary he also wrote a book, which has remained unpublished. His mother would not allow it to be published in her lifetime as she felt he was hard done by the beatles.

At Liverpool lime street I gave Julie my card and said let me know about the book. I forgot my mobile number was on my card but I got a text the next day saying it was good to talk on the train and that she had got to see her gran who died while she was there a 7.40 pm. Which is the same time I was stood outside the Cavern.

So I think there will be a book coming out at some point by Mal Evans. For more on Mal see below:

By Scout (Tonto's Stead)

Mal Evans
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Malcolm Evans (May 27, 1935 – January 5, 1976) is best known as the roadie, assistant, and friend to the hugely popular rock band The Beatles.
Evans was working as a communications technician for the Post Office in 1962 when he first heard The Beatles perform at Liverpool's Cavern Club. He eventually became friends with the band, and was soon hired as roadie.
Evans drove the van for the band on tour, set up and tested their equipment, and then packed it all up again.
When The Beatles quit touring in 1966, Evans continued to be friends with the band and to work with them in the studio. Evans even contributed to many Beatles recordings, including lending his voice to "Yellow Submarine", playing the Hammond organ on "You Won't See Me", harmonica on "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!", tambourine on "Dear Prudence", trumpet on "Helter Skelter", contributing background vocals to "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)" and the White Album outtake "What's The New Mary Jane" and counting off the measures in the breaks of the song "A Day in the Life" (Evans was also one of the five piano players simultaneously hitting the last chord of the song). Evans co-wrote the song "Fixing A Hole", from the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, with Paul McCartney but agreed to be paid a one-off fee instead of receiving writing credit.
In the Let It Be film, Evans can also be seen playing the anvil during early versions of Paul McCartney's "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", although he did not play it on the actual recording.
In 1968, Evans discovered the band Badfinger (then known as The Iveys) and introduced them to The Beatles, who eventually signed them to Apple Records. Although not trained as a studio technician, Evans produced several songs recorded by The Iveys and Badfinger in 1969 and 1970. The most notable of these tracks is the song "No Matter What" by Badfinger, which charted on Billboard's Top 10 in December 1970.
Evans enjoyed an executive position at Apple until The Beatles hired Allen Klein in 1969 to reorganize the company. Evans became a casualty during housecleaning the following year. Evans subsequently moved from the U.K. to Los Angeles, enabling him to maintain a relationship with John Lennon who had also moved there[1].
Evans was shot and killed by the Los Angeles police on January 5, 1976, when officers mistakenly believed that the air pistol Evans was holding was an actual revolver.
A suitcase that Evans was carrying at the time, containing unreleased recordings, photos, and other memorabilia, was lost by the police during the investigation, and became known as the lost "Mal Evans Archive". It was reported in June 2004 that an English tourist, Frasier Claughton, bought the suitcase for around $36 at a flea market just outside of Melbourne, Australia, unaware of its contents. By August 2004, however, experts had determined that the documents within the suitcase were in fact photocopies made in the 1990s and declared the "archive" a fake.