Neil was totally trusted, knew where all the skeletons lay, was loyal and faithful to the Beatles and yet was not at all star-struck. He was more than aware of their foibles, greed, stupidities, unreasonableness, would readily slag them off, moan about their latest outrage. I often used to think, having lunch with him over the years, that in fact he wasn’t really a Beatles fan. It was just something he got caught up in. But it was clear he was part of the family, part of them for ever. So while moaning as all family members do, he would never betray their secrets.
He was well paid, of course, so never needed to do a kiss ‘n’ tell. When I pressed him for inside stories or his take on events at which we had both been present, he used to say he couldn’t remember. Which is what Mick Jagger always says. In Neil’s case, it was possibly because he wasn’t really much interested in the personal stuff. His mind didn’t quite work that way. He had a dry, austere, rather resigned, cynical view of most people, more interested in facts and figures than tittle-tattle. So perhaps he couldn’t have done a revelatory book after all. He was there, no question, but was somehow floating above it all. The Beatles were very fortunate to have him.
MAL EVANS (1935–1975)
Mal Evans joined the Beatles in 1963 as the assistant roadie, helping Neil with the increasingly heavy workload — humping more and bigger pieces of equipment, and soon travelling with the group all over the world.
He’d been working for the Post Office as an engineer since leaving school, then had become a bouncer at the Cavern. He was big — six foot two inches — and burly, while Neil was lean and slender. Neil always seemed a bit of a worrier, rather neurotic, and perhaps a bit resentful when put upon to do demeaning tasks way below his intellect. Mal, however, appeared perfectly content, an affable giant, just pleased to be with the boys and in work, doing anything that was demanded, from keeping the fans at bay — now and again allowing the prettier ones access to the inner sanctums, of course — to bringing cups of tea and going out for cigarettes.
I can see him now, arriving in Abbey Road studios one evening with bundles of socks and shirts, all in their packets, brand new. He’d been asked by one of the boys to get some new clothes, then the others had chipped in, so he’d practically emptied the whole shop, buying everything in sight. The boys clambered over him, fighting to grab the best shirt.
He was always on hand to play occasional instruments, banging a tambourine in ‘Dear Prudence’, hitting an anvil in ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’. And he made brief appearances in some of their films, such as Help!, where he could be seen fleetingly as a long-distance swimmer.
The boys tried out new lyrics on Mal, the man in the street, to see what he thought of them, did he get them, and they would also ask him for suggestions. It was supposedly Mal who first came up with the name Sergeant Pepper. Such contributions have to be put in context. Other people, such as Pete Shotton, have laid claim to various words and phrases of Beatles lyrics, but John and Paul, like many creative people, would ask anyone who happened to be around what they thought. Often they were just trying out ideas they already had, some of which were used, others discarded.
Mal was constantly teased because they all knew that his real love, his first fave in the pop world, was not the Beatles, but Elvis. It was the highlight of his life when he met Elvis, through working with the Beatles. He was a great collector of Elvis records and memorabilia.
When the Beatles stopped playing, he worked for Apple for a time, did a bit of producing on the Apple label, notably with a group called Badfinger. He then moved to America, having become estranged from his wife and two children.
He was, by the sound of it, looking for a new role, not having been able, like Neil, to settle down to a desk-bound life. He was working on his memoirs, supposedly, and had retained quite a few valuable pieces of personal Beatles memorabilia, when he was killed in a bizarre shooting incident in Los Angeles in 1975.
He had apparently locked himself in a room with a gun, in some sort of depressed or perhaps drug-induced state, threatening suicide. The police were called, shots were fired, Mal was killed instantly. He was aged 40, the same age as John when he was shot dead. DEREK TAYLOR (1934–1997)
Derek was the most amusing, most likeable, most urbane and possibly the most talented of all the Beatles insiders who worked with them over the years. He had their sense of humour, sense of ridicule, and John’s scatological way with words.
He was born in Liverpool, worked on local papers, then moved to Manchester in 1962 as northern show-business writer for the Daily Express, based in Manchester. At the time it was a very influential job on what was still a great paper. He covered one of the early Beatles concerts in Manchester, in May 1963, thought they were brilliant and refreshing, said so in his column, and began to write about them regularly, ghosting for a while a Daily Express column supposedly written by George.
He was asked by Brian to ghost his memoirs, A Cellarful of Noise, which was published in 1964. He became Brian’s personal assistant and toured with the Beatles round the world. This lasted until he and Brian had words, supposedly because one evening after a social engagement Derek went off in a posh limousine that Brian maintained had been ordered for him. Brian was left stranded.
Derek moved to America for a few years, from 1965 to 1968, and worked as a press officer for leading American groups. This was why, when I was doing the biography, I didn’t have much contact with him, as he was rarely in the UK.
But I had by chance already met him, before he’d begun working for the Beatles. In 1963, he and I were guests at the Galway Oyster Festival in Ireland, for which the organisers were trying to get UK publicity. Derek was representing the Daily Express and I was from The Sunday Times. Then, as now, young journalists are keen on covering anything which might turn out to be a free piss-up.
I thought Derek one of the wittiest people I’d ever met, and it wasn’t just the influence of the Guinness. We became friends from then on — though he did play a rotten trick on me and my wife. She was with me that weekend, pregnant with our first child, which Derek spotted, though she was only three months gone at the time.
Along with several other journalists, Derek invited us to join him in a farewell party in his room. He wasn’t there when we arrived, but there was a note saying we were to help ourselves to his mini bar till he returned. We emptied it while we waited for him, but he never appeared. He’d checked out very early that morning, telling no one, having paid his own bill. We were left to pay all the enormous extras.
When Apple was formed, Derek returned to England with his wife and family, and became the Beatles’ press officer, enjoying himself hugely: an amused, self-aware, sensible voice among the madness and phoniness of much of the Apple regime.
I went to pick him up one day in Savile Row, before going out with him for lunch. In his office, he announced it was his birthday, so I must have a piece of special birthday cake. A posh, debby sounding young girl came in with a ginger cake, still steaming from the oven, apparently baked on the premises. Derek cut me a slice. It was delicious. So I had another.
Over lunch I practically collapsed, first in giggles and then when my head started swimming. I just hadn’t realised it had been a hash cake, not being used to such things, never having knowingly taken drugs before. Yes, a rather pathetic admission for someone who lived through the Sixties.
Derek went back to America again, then returned in the 1990s to work again with the Beatles, notably on the launch of Anthology.