Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr to Join Joe Walsh for VetsAid Show Jan. 29

joewalsh.com

JOE WALSH & FRIENDS HIT THE JACKPOT: VETSAID 2027 LANDS IN LAS VEGAS FOR ITS BIGGEST SHOW EVER HOSTING THE 10TH BENEFIT AT MGM GRAND GARDEN ARENA FRIDAY, JAN. 29, 2027

NOVEMBER 9, 2026

SPECIAL GUESTS PAUL MCCARTNEY AND RINGO STARR TO JOIN JOE WALSH,

THE KILLERS, THE WAR ON DRUGS, ST VINCENT, LUCIUS AND MORE 

Tickets on sale to the public Friday, Nov. 13, 2026 at 10 a.m. at www.axs.com 

Exclusive Fandiem Donate-to-Win Opportunity for

Trip to Vegas, VIP Concert Experience and Coffee with Joe

live NOW at www.fandiem.com/vetsaid 

November 9, 2026 (Las Vegas, NV) Today Joe Walsh, multi-GRAMMY Award winning musician and Kennedy Center Honor recipient and VetsAid, his national 501(c)3 non-profit veterans organization, announce the lineup and on-sale date for their tenth festival offering. VetsAid 2027 will feature full sets from The Killers, The War on Drugs, St Vincent, Lucius and a super-set from Joe Walsh with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and more surprise special guests. The show will take place at 6:00pm on Friday, January 29, 2027, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in fabulous Las Vegas, NV.

Tickets go on-sale to the public Friday, Nov. 13 at 10 a.m. PT and can be purchased at www.axs.com. Ticket prices start at $200 (not including applicable taxes and fees). Veterans will have access to exclusive tickets and pricing, for details on how to qualify, visit www.axs.com.  For additional details and information, visit www.vetsaid.org. 

“Having spent the past two years at the Sphere and working with the hardworking people of Las Vegas, I want to show them my gratitude and respect,” Walsh explains. “This city has taken such good care of me and my family that it would be my privilege to give back to the large veteran community here and to their families. The VetsAid rock and roll circus is pulling into the MGM Grand Garden and for our tenth anniversary we have our biggest show ever! Join me on stage with my musical heroes Paul and Ringo (and more surprise guests), Vegas’s hometown icons The Killers, the sublime St Vincent and my beloved The War on Drugs and Lucius who are the only acts I’ve ever invited back to VetsAid. Hit the jackpot with us on January 29th! Support our veterans and support each other.”

VetsAid is also partnering once again with digital fundraising platform Fandiem and live music discovery platform Bandsintown to inspire fans to give back and ‘Be Joe Walsh's Guest at VetsAid 2027'. Fans can Donate-to-Win online via fandiem.com/vetsaid for a chance at an all-expenses paid trip to VetsAid 2027 in Las Vegas which will include: round trip airfare and lodging, two seats in the Friends and Family section and VIP access to the Friends and Family Lounge, and a coffee date with Joe Walsh the day before the show.

Now in its tenth year, VetsAid hosted its inaugural show on September 20, 2017 with a concert at the EagleBank Arena in Fairfax, VA featuring performances by Walsh, Zac Brown Band, Keith Urban and Gary Clark Jr. In 2018, VetsAid traveled to Tacoma, WA with a sell-out event featuring Walsh, Don Henley, James Taylor, Chris Stapleton, Haim and special guest Ringo Starr. In 2019, Houston, TX welcomed VetsAid for a blockbuster show with Walsh, ZZ Top, The Doobie Brothers, Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, Sheryl Crow and Brad Paisley. The pandemic moved the festival online in 2020 and 2021 with intimate performances from Eddie Vedder, James Hetfield, Gwen Stefani and nearly 40 other artists from across the United States as well as the debut of new music from Walsh in his studio available via livestream. VetsAid 2022 was an instant sell-out all-Ohio affair with blistering sets from a newly reunited James Gang, NIN, The Black Keys and The Breeders with special guest Dave Grohl in Columbus, OH. 2023 brought VetsAid to San Diego with legendary sets by Jeff Lynne’s ELO, The War of Drugs, The Flaming Lips and Lucius. VetsAid 2025 brought Joe to his hometown of Wichita, KS for a country and blues rock hootenanny with Vince Gill, Susan Tedeschi, Derek Trucks, Nathaniel Rateliff, Ryan Bingham and the Texas Gentlemen and Jimmy Webb. VetsAid is back and better than ever recommitted to curating an exclusive once-in-a-lifetime festival lineup in a different American city each year with a large veteran and military population and this year the rock and roll circus hits Sin City.

As every year, all net proceeds from the concert will go directly to the veterans’ services charities selected through a vetting process coordinated in tandem with the Combined Arms Institute. To date, VetsAid has disbursed more than $5,000,000 in grants. In 2027, VetsAid plans to disburse grants exclusively to organizations based in Nevada or with operations on the ground in Nevada; grant applications are open now via the VetsAid website (www.vetsaid.org/grants). 

Veterans and their wellbeing have always been important to Walsh, a Gold Star son himself. His father was a flight instructor for the first US operational jet powered aircraft, the Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star, and died while stationed and on active duty on Okinawa when Walsh was 20 months old.

Walsh aims to use this platform to raise funds and awareness for the still urgent and significant needs of our returning soldiers and their families. Through the establishment of VetsAid and this annual benefit concert, he aims to give back to those who have given so much in sacrifice for this country.

For more information, please visit www.vetsaid.org.

About MGM Grand Garden Arena

The MGM Grand Garden Arena is home to concerts, championship boxing and premier sporting and special events. The Arena offers comfortable seating for as many as 16,800 with excellent sightlines and state-of-the-art acoustics, lighting and sound. Prominent events to date have included world championship fights between Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson as well as Floyd Mayweather vs. Canelo Alvarez as well as Floyd Mayweather vs. Manny Pacquiao; and concerts by The Rolling Stones, Madonna, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Bette Midler, George Strait, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce, U2, Lady Gaga, Bruno Mars, Coldplay, Alicia Keys, Jimmy Buffett and the Barbra Streisand Millennium Concert. The MGM Grand Garden Arena also has been home to annual events including the Academy of Country Music Awards, the Billboard Music Awards, the Latin GRAMMY Awards, iHeartRadio Music Festival, Pac-12 Men’s Basketball Championship and Frozen Fury NHL pre-season games hosted by the Los Angeles Kings. 

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Elizabeth Freund, Beautiful Day Media / elizabeth@beautifuldaymedia.com

Why was the count-in kept on 1963’s ‘I Saw Her Standing There’?

faroutmagazine.co.uk

“One, two, three, four”: Why was the count-in kept on 1963’s ‘I Saw Her Standing There’?

Tom Phelan

Far Out Magazine

November 8th, 2026

Credit: Far Out / Alamy

Believe it or not, The Beatles’ iconic countdown opening ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ wasn’t quite the rock and roll custom it appears to be now, over 60 years later.

Count-ins were common practice in the studio. As well as leading a performance on stage, a countdown would typically be bellowed in the recording room so the band would come in with the right energy and tempo.

Paul McCartney and John Lennon write I Saw Her Standing There, Liverpool, 1962. 

Photograph: Mike McCartney

Such a vocal intro would be edited out of the master cut, but the occasional countdown would be committed to the final track for whatever stylistic quirk was desired. Elvis Presley artfully hid his countdown on the opening lines of ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ in 1956, and Chris Montez let loose a curious “One – two – one, two, three!” six years later on ‘Let’s Dance’.

Around this time, a young Paul McCartney was penning the earliest sketches of his future Beatles classic. According to band historian Mark Lewisohn, the song, provisionally titled ‘Seventeen’, was first worked out in late 1962 in the family home of fellow Liverpool musician Rory Storm with his band the Hurricanes, featuring one Ringo Starr on drums. It was then further fleshed out in London while visiting his then 17-year-old girlfriend, and finally nailed in McCartney’s famous Forthlin Road Home with John Lennon’s lyrical assistance.

Borrowing a little of Chuck Berry’s ‘Talkin’ About You’ bass riff, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ would wear its rock and roll foundations on its sleeves but brim with that rock-solid songcraft that thrust The Beatles beyond the Merseybeat scene and into the top tier of British pop. Brits would hear McCartney’s ode to young passions on 1963’s Please Please Me LP debut, but Americans had to wait nine months when ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ was issued in December as the B-side of ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ just as Beatlemania was about to crack the Billboard charts.

So, why was the count-in kept in?

McCartney’s raucous “one, two, three, four!” was no happy accident or studio afterthought.

Producer George Martin had seen The Beatles in their Cavern Club element back in Liverpool, and had witnessed just how exciting their sets were. “I knew their repertoire, and I said, ‘Let’s record every song you’ve got, come down to the studios, and we’ll just whistle through them in a day’,” he recalled to 2000’s The Beatles Anthology.

Martin was keen to bottle the electricity they channelled on stage, and came up with the bright idea to keep McCartney’s count-in when cutting the ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ sessions at EMI Studios on February 11th, 1963. Why? Because it sounded raw and captured the Beatles’ live energy straight to record.

Martin was so eager to include the count-in that he actually lifted McCartney’s count-in from take nine and spliced it onto take one. However, a curious omission was made across the Atlantic. While the Capitol issue kept the count-in, the Vee-Jay Records’ distribution of ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ as heard on 1964’s Introducing… The Beatles started the Beatles track on McCartney’s “four”, arguably, wrapping the number in a further air of feverish urgency.

Record Collector Presents… Ringo Starr

recordcollectormag.com

Record Collector Presents… Ringo Starr

The Record Collector Presents Ringo Starr special magazine edition goes on sale on Thursday, 12 November 2026 (with pre-orders ending Monday, 9 November 2026).

With a foreword by none other than Phil Collins, Record Collector Presents Ringo Starr is a dynamic look at the life and career of Sir Richard Starkey MBE, drummer, singer, actor, songwriter, humanitarian, All-Starr and, oh, Beatle. 

We explore his albums, singles, films, furniture (!), musicianship, and, of course, collectables. 

Ring’O Records is assessed as well as an overview of the career of his eldest son, Zak. 

With a full discography, and some of the very best writers, we continue our much-loved solo Beatle series…

🥁 Last week to pre-order Record Collector Presents Ringo Starr with 20% off!

🎟️ Use code RCRINGO20

⏰ Offer ends Monday 9 November.

📅 On sale Thursday 12 November.

Pre-order your copy now

shop.recordcollectormag.com

Sean Lennon-Directed Documentary Set to Screen in NYC

(L-R) From left: Brian Gonzalez, Angela Donhauser, Sean Ono Lennon, Gabi Asfour, and Adi Gil at the ‘threeASFOUR: Full Circle’ premiere at Tribeca in June.

www.theglassonionbeatlesjournal.com

Sean Lennon-Directed Documentary Set to Screen in NYC - Watch the Trailer

Published by John Firehammer

The Glass Onion Beatles Journal

on November 05, 2026

Sean Lennon's documentary about the fashion design collective threeASFOUR is set to screen at New York's Film Forum this weekend.

Details:

Avant-garde designers and best friends Gabi Asfour, Angela Donhauser, and Adi Gil have spent 25 years working together as the NYC fashion collective threeASFOUR. Although they have built an impressive reputation and a following that includes Björk, Marisa Tomei, and Chloë Sevigny, they find themselves struggling to pay the rent on their Chinatown studio while financing the intricate creations for their next runway collection. 

Drawing from a captivating trove of archival footage alongside intimate observations of the trio at work, Sean Ono Lennon forges an affectionate portrait of uncompromising artists who have chosen experimentation over commercial success and a moving reflection on artistic collaboration and creative resilience. 

Presented with support from The Endowed Fund for Emerging Filmmakers and The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Fund

Tickets are available here .

threeASFOUR: FULL CIRCLE

Opens Friday, November 13

SHOWTIMES & TICKETS        $12.00 Member     $18.00 General

DIRECTED BY SEAN ONO LENNON

CO-DIRECTED BY BRIAN C. GONZÁLEZ

Film Forum

209 West Houston St. west of 6th Ave.

Box Office: 212-727-8110

www.threeasfourfilm.com

threeASFOUR

FULL CIRCLE

ABOUT

Founded in 2005 as an evolution of As Four—the design collective established in 1998 by Asfour, Donhauser, Gil, and Kai Kühne—threeASFOUR’s work has earned them a devoted cult following, a Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, global museum exhibitions, and fans like Björk and Chloë Sevigny. Yet behind the acclaim lies an ongoing challenge to exist in an industry that prioritizes commerce over creativity. 

Filmed over five years with unguarded intimacy, first-time feature documentary director Sean Ono Lennon, co-director Brian C. González, and writer/editor Jenny Golden’s partnership mirrors the creative collectivism they capture in front of the camera. The filmmakers bring a fly-on-the-wall honesty, crafting a raw, emotional portrait of three iconoclasts daring to center artistry and collaboration over money and profit.

Upcoming Screenings

Film Forum

Opens Friday, November 13

New, York, NY

Friday, November 13  7pm

Q&A moderated by Rosanna Arquette with Sean Ono Lennon & threeASFOUR

Saturday, November 14 7pm

Q&A moderated by Marisa Tomei with Sean Ono Lennon & threeASFOUR

Sunday, November 15 2:30pm

Q&A moderated by Mike Maggiore with Sean Ono Lennon & threeASFOUR

DIRECTED BY

Sean Ono Lennon

When I first met threeASFOUR, I was immediately drawn to the originality of their work and the philosophy driving it. Gabi Asfour, Angela Donhauser, and Adi Gil approach fashion as a means of connection—between cultures, disciplines, and people. Their designs are rooted in a belief that art can dissolve boundaries rather than reinforce them, and that beauty can be a unifying force in a fractured world. In an industry driven by trends, and market demands, their commitment to ideas, experimentation, and meaning over commercial viability felt radical. Watching them work was deeply inspiring.

As I spent more time with them, I became increasingly aware of how difficult that commitment is to sustain. The fashion industry places enormous pressure on designers to compromise—to produce more, faster, and in ways that fit neatly into a commercial framework. Yet threeASFOUR consistently resisted those demands, even when it came at great personal and financial cost. I began filming because I wanted to understand how artists like them survive—how they protect a vision grounded in principle in a system that often rewards the opposite.

Like many artists, I know what it means to navigate the pressures of a commercial industry while trying to remain faithful to a vision that does not necessarily align with the mainstream. Over time, I understood that this film was not only about threeASFOUR, but about a broader, shared tension: how do we sustain ourselves—emotionally, spiritually, and materially—while making work that resists easy commodification? What does it mean to hold onto an uncompromising vision in a world that measures value in profit? Can the true worth of art ever be quantified in money? I don’t believe it can.

My approach to this film was deeply influenced by the work of the Maysles brothers, whose films shaped my understanding of documentary as an act of empathy. Albert Maysles once told me that the key to documentary filmmaking was to look through the camera without judgment—to approach one’s subjects with openness and respect, and to trust the audience to draw their own conclusions. My collaborators on this film – Co-Director Brian C. González, Editor Jenny Golden, and Producer Beth Levison– and I wanted the filmmaking to be transparent, leaving room for the artists to speak for themselves and inviting the audience into a more direct, shared experience with them.

At its surface, the story of threeASFOUR is about art versus commerce, friendship versus business, beauty versus utility. But at its core, their work is about connection—about imagining a world in which creativity can bring people together rather than pull them apart. Their designs carry a message about interdependence, shared humanity, and our relationship to one another and to the Universe. This film is my attempt to listen to that message, and to help amplify it.

I couldn’t be more proud to help bring their story to the world.

PHOTO CHARLOTTE KEMP MUHL

George Harrison named the Beatles bandmate he'd happily form a new group with

www.guitarplayer.com

George Harrison named the Beatles bandmate he'd happily form a new group with: “I’d join a band with him any day”

By Phil Weller

Guitar Player

Published  November 4 , 2026

Although his solo career was going strong, the Quiet Beatle entertained the possibility of forming a new band with one of his former Fabs

George Harrison photographed in Germany in 1988. (Image credit: Alamy)

George Harrison never had any interest in reuniting the Beatles after the band’s breakup in 1970. While several members collaborated during their solo years — David Bowie even claimed he, John Lennon and Paul McCartney once discussed forming a group — the Fab Four never returned to the studio or stage together.

But Harrison hadn’t completely soured on his former bandmates. As he revealed in a 1974 press conference, he was open to forming a new band with one Beatle in particular.

The Beatles’ breakup came at an unfortunate time for Harrison. After years of being overshadowed by the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership, he was flourishing as both a writer and guitarist. Songs like “Something,” “Here Comes the Sun” and “Old Brown Shoe” proved he could match his bandmates as a songwriter, while his increasingly distinctive guitar work established him as one of rock’s most original stylists.

The Beatles in 1969. (clockwise from left) Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, Harrison and John Lennon. (Image credit: Alamy)

The release of All Things Must Pass, his ambitious 1970 solo debut, vindicated years of frustration. Powered by the hits “My Sweet Lord” and “What Is Life,” it became the most commercially successful solo album by any former Beatle in the immediate aftermath of the split.

By 1974, Harrison was preparing to launch the tour behind Dark Horse with a band that included organist Billy Preston, bassist Willie Weeks, drummer Andy Newmark and a young Robben Ford. During a press conference promoting the tour, he made it clear that a Beatles reunion held little appeal — but revealed there was one former bandmate he’d happily work with again.

“It’s all a fantasy, the idea of putting the Beatles back together again,” he said, as recounted in the book George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters. “If we ever do that, the reason will be that we are all broke. I’d rather have Willie Weeks on bass than Paul McCartney. That’s the truth, with all respect to Paul.

“Paul is a fine bass player,” he admitted, “but he’s a bit overpowering at times.”

Elsewhere in the press conference, Harrison expressed his fondness for drummer Ringo Starr, calling him a player with “the best backbeat I’ve ever heard.”

Harrison made his comments at a press conference for his 1974 tour. He’s seen here performing at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California, November 7, 1974. (Image credit: Larry Hulst/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

But in the end, it was Lennon whom he held in the highest regard.

“John’s gone through all of his scene, but he’s like me, he’s come back around,” Harrison said. “To tell the truth, I’d join a band with John Lennon any day, but I couldn’t join a band with Paul McCartney. But it’s nothing personal. It’s from a musical point of view.”

Harrison may also have been remembering Lennon’s generosity during a September 1969 meeting, when he suggested future Beatles albums should feature a more equal distribution of songs among the four members. Lennon also said he regretted not giving Harrison and Starr the lucrative B-sides to Beatles singles so they could gain greater exposure — and make more money. Two weeks later, Lennon privately announced he was leaving the band, rendering the proposal moot.

Harrison had already worked with Lennon on the latter’s 1971 solo album, Imagine, contributing lead and slide guitar to several tracks. He also played Dobro on “Crippled Inside,” demonstrating the musical chemistry the two still shared.

Aside from his work with the Traveling Wilburys, Harrison continued recording and performing as a solo artist until his death in 2001.

Mal Evans : Meeting Elvis was ‘my biggest day with the Beatles’

www.theguardian.com

Meeting Elvis was ‘my biggest day with the Beatles’, says road manager’s book

Dalya Alberge

The Guardian

Mon 2 Nov 2026

Mal Evans at the Hollywood Bowl in August 1965 with Beatles Paul McCartney and George Harrison. Photograph: Malcolm Frederick Evans Archives

Mal Evans’s tale of historic meeting among revelations in forthcoming memoir unpublished before his death in 1976

Meeting Elvis Presley was “the biggest day of all the years I have spent with the famous Beatles”, the band’s loyal road manager wrote.

It is among recollections in a memoir that Mal Evans had planned to publish, with the band’s permission, before his death in 1976, aged 40, in a shooting by the Los Angeles police. Distraught over the breakup of his marriage, it is believed to have been “suicide by cop” after he repeatedly pointed an air rifle at police.

Now, 50 years later, that memoir is to be published for the first time, having been made available by Evans’s family to Kenneth Womack, one of the world’s foremost Beatles experts and author of numerous books on them.

Mal Evans accompanying Paul McCartney on his arrival at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s transcendental meditation centre in India in February 1968. Photograph: Bettmann Archive

Evans became the Beatles’ roadie from their early days at Liverpool’s Cavern Club, where he had been a bouncer.

He wrote of working with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in diaries and notebooks, while taking thousands of photographs and scooping up discarded lyric sheets, receipts and other ephemera when they were on the road and in the recording studio.

For his memoir, he had hired a stenographer. Womack has all the recordings that Evans dictated into a portable cassette recorder in 1975. The memoir manuscript spans about 95,000 words. Although Womack drew on it for his Evans biography in 2023, the text itself will finally be published in December, titled With the Beatles.

Describing Evans as the Beatles’ first archivist, Womack told the Guardian: “It’s the book Mal was going to publish, taking us into the heart of Beatlemania, reminding us how electrifying it was. He pulls no punches. He shows us the Beatles. It’s very powerful. It’s a treasure trove of new material.”

Mal Evans (top right) and the Beatles descend aircraft steps at Heathrow after flying in from Spain in July 1965. Photograph: Mirrorpix/Getty Images

Its passages include Evans’s first-hand account of the fabled meeting between the Beatles and Elvis – “rock’s greatest heavyweights of all time”, Womack said.

He added: “Mal loved Elvis more than he loved the Beatles, in terms of music. So, for that reason, when they meet Elvis in Bel Air in August 1965, Mal writes page upon page about the experience and what happened.

“There’s been so much debate among writers about that meeting – and now we have this complete record of Mal saying: ‘Here’s exactly what happened.’”

Evans idolised Elvis, writing in one passage: “If there is one day in my life I shall never forget, it is the day when the two biggest phenomena in showbiz met for the one and only time.

“The day the Beatles met Elvis Presley. I was there that day in El’s palatial Hollywood home. And that will always be the biggest day of all the years I have spent with the famous Beatles.”

He recalled that Elvis played them Beatles LPs before finding guitars for each of them. Evans listened in awe as “they began to make the place rock with … improvised beat music”.

Evans’s memoir follows the group from the Help! album through the Magical Mystery Tour EP to the Get Back single sessions and the final studio years.

In one chapter, he wrote of the band’s perilous tour of the Philippines, after they caused unintentional insult in turning down an invitation to an official event with the first lady, Imelda Marcos.

“A large number of the promoter’s staff were wearing automatic pistols in their back pockets … this was brought home to me personally the morning of our departure,” he wrote.

“I had just finished packing when one of the gentlemen entered my room asking for autographed pictures.

“I was in the middle of explaining that I had given away most of the photographs, keeping a few for the plane crew on the way home, when I was cut short by the same gentleman brandishing a gun in my face and repeating the demand. I couldn’t give them to him fast enough.

“This was the prelude to a morning of terror … I waited for the Beatles to arrive, then we proceeded to immigration. We were climbing a stairway inside the airport when suddenly … a dozen men appeared to impede our progress, and started to jostle us.

“It was obvious that they were looking to cause trouble … because of the fiasco the previous evening with the first lady.

“They were standing on our toes, jabbing us with elbows, generally giving us a bad time … I would give my right arm for any of those boys but, under these circumstances, it was most inadvisable to retaliate in any way whatsoever. To stand there and see my beloved Beatles treated so roughly was heartbreaking.”

Womack has pieced together the memoir from material that Evans had stored in “six massive boxes”. It will feature about 400 photographs, including some that have never been seen before.

www.guitarplayer.com

The Beatles’ legendary meeting with Elvis Presley gets a new chapter: “I was there that day”

By Christopher Scapelliti

Guitar Player

Published November 2 2026

Mal Evans documented the 1965 encounter in his unpublished memoir. Now, nearly 50 years after his death, his account is finally coming to light.

The 1965 meeting between Elvis Presley and the Beatles is a highlight of a forthcoming posthumous memoir from former Beatles insider Mal Evans. (Image credit: Presley: Hulton Archive/Getty Images | Beatles: Bettmann/Getty Images)

Mal Evans worked alongside the biggest pop group in the world, but his greatest thrill came when he accompanied the Beatles to meet his musical hero, Elvis Presley.

As the Beatles’ road manager, Evans had a front-row seat as the Liverpool quartet became global superstars. He began working with them as a roadie and bodyguard in August 1963, eventually becoming a trusted insider who accompanied the band on tour and in the studio. He even helped Paul McCartney develop the idea of an alter ego for the group while the two were on holiday in 1966 — a concept that would help give rise to the Beatles’ landmark album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Evans had planned to write a book about his adventures with the group and received permission from all four Beatles to do so. Sadly, he never completed it. He died in 1976, aged 40, after police shot him during a confrontation at his home. Distraught over his impending divorce, Evans had waved an airgun at officers. His death is widely understood as a possible case of suicide by cop.

Now, however, his stories of life with the Beatles are finally being published. Evans’s family made his recordings available to Kenneth Womack, one of the world's foremost Beatles scholars and the author of numerous books about the band. Those include his 2023 biography of Evans, for which he gained access to recordings Evans made on a portable cassette recorder in 1975 while working on his memoir.

“It’s the book Mal was going to publish, taking us into the heart of Beatlemania, reminding us how electrifying it was,” Womack told The Guardian. “He pulls no punches. He shows us the Beatles. It’s very powerful. It’s a treasure trove of new material.”

Among the stories is an account of the Beatles’ August 27, 1965, meeting with Presley at his home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, during the group’s U.S. tour that year.

“Mal loved Elvis more than he loved the Beatles, in terms of music,” Womack says. “So, for that reason, when they meet Elvis in Bel Air in August 1965, Mal writes page upon page about the experience and what happened.”

“There’s been so much debate among writers about that meeting — and now we have this complete record of Mal saying: ‘Here’s exactly what happened.’”

With McCartney at London Airport following a trip to the U.S., April 11, 1967. (Image credit: Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix via Getty Images)

Evans’s admiration for Presley is unmistakable in his account of the encounter.

“If there is one day in my life I shall never forget, it is the day when the two biggest phenomena in showbiz met for the one and only time,” he wrote. “The day the Beatles met Elvis Presley. I was there that day in El’s palatial Hollywood home. And that will always be the biggest day of all the years I have spent with the famous Beatles.”

He recalled that Presley played Beatles LPs for the group before finding guitars for each of them. Evans listened in awe as “they began to make the place rock with … improvised beat music.”

Evans had actually discussed the encounter years earlier in an anecdote included in the Beatles’ 1996 book Anthology. But his recollection also revealed that the day came with one personal disappointment.

Evans in a recording studio sometime in the 1970s. (Image credit: Estate Of Keith Morris/Redferns)

“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 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.”

George Harrison Turned a Bob Dylan Song Into a Beatles Classic

1968, George Harrison visited Bob Dylan at his home in Woodstock.

parade.com

In 1966, Bob Dylan stayed up all night writing a song; two years later, George Harrison turned the chords into a Beatles classic

Dylan and Harrison were later bandmates in the Traveling Wilburys.

By Jacqueline Burt Cote

News Writer

Parade Magazine

Oct 29, 2026

George Harrison, Bob Dylan

New York Daily News Archive / Getty Images

Just like the Beatles influenced countless musical contemporaries, the Fab Four drew inspiration from many of the other talented artists of the era. One of those legendary peers was Bob Dylan, particularly in the case of George Harrison‘s songwriting (which makes sense, considering the pair would later become bandmates in the Traveling Wilburys).

In fact, a song Dylan stayed up all night writing during the recording of his 1966 album Blonde on Blonde inspired Harrison to write a classic track which appeared on the so-called White Album.

The Dylan song in question? “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.”

Sean Wilentz (author of Bob Dylan in America) shared firsthand accounts of the night “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” was written in a 2007 essay for the Oxford American.

“I saw Dylan sitting out in the studio at the piano, writing all night long by himself. Dark glasses on,” recalled Kris Kristofferson (who was working as a studio janitor at the time).

With the aid of Coca-Cola and chocolate bars, Dylan stayed up until four o’clock in the morning working on the lyrics, which have been said to be about his first wife, Sara Lownds.

It wasn’t the lyrics of “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” that Harrison took his cue from while writing “Long, Long, Long,” however…it was the chords themselves.

“I can’t recall much about it [‘Long, Long, Long’] except the chords, which I think were coming from ‘Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’ – D to E minor, A, and D – those three chords and the way they moved,” Harrison explained in an interview shared by uDiscoverMusic.

As for Harrison’s lyrics, they weren’t about a woman.

“The ‘you’ in ‘Long, Long, Long’ is God,” he wrote in his 1980 book, I, Me, Mine.

The recording of “Long, Long, Long” was reportedly a laborious, if cheerful affair, taking 67 takes to complete.

“I don’t mind how long it takes at the moment,” Paul McCartney said after the 29th take.

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