Shirley Evans

Born:

Jan 29, 1932

Died:

Jul 10, 2010

About

From Shirley Evans obituary | Music | The Guardian:

The accordionist Shirley Evans, who has died aged 78, accompanied Cliff Richard, Engelbert Humperdinck and Liberace and played Mabel the barmaid in TV advertisements for Carling (“Hey Mabel, Black Label”). But she knew she would be best remembered for leading the Beatles in a singalong on a bus in their 1967 TV movie Magical Mystery Tour.

John Lennon wrote an instrumental in her honour, Shirley’s Wild Accordion, with Evans playing the accordion, Paul McCartney on maracas and yelling “Go on, Shirl!”, Ringo Starr on drums and Evans’s then husband, Reg Wale, on percussion. Intended for the Magical Mystery Tour film and album, it was recorded at the De Lane Lea studios [sic – at Abbey Road], with Lennon credited as producer of a Beatles’ track for the first time. Although Lennon told Evans he hoped the track would make her a fortune, it was cut from the film. An unknown number of copies of Shirley’s Wild Accordion were pressed, but the track was never released and is believed to be still languishing in archives. It remains much sought after by Beatles completists.

The Beatles had spotted Evans playing a gig in Scotland. By then, her skills had already impressed the accordion-maker Silvio Scandalli, who invited her to his workshop in Castelfidardo, Italy: “Signor Scandalli told me that, every once in a while, one of his accordions turned out to be special, that this one was, and that he wanted me to have it.”

Evans was born in Birkenhead, Merseyside, to Sidney Evans, a taxi driver, and his wife, Elizabeth. She attended Conway Street secondary school where she often played piano but fell in love with the accordion. She was playing at Butlin’s holiday camp in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, when she was spotted by Cyril Shane, manager of the publishers Mills Music. After a successful audition with Combined Services Entertainment (CSE), set up by the armed forces to entertain troops abroad, she travelled the world. Among the top-of-the-bill stars she toured with were Tessie O’Shea, Alma Cogan and Russ Conway.

During a spell in Hong Kong in the mid-50s, she wrote and presented a popular children’s television show, Auntie Shirley. In 1959, King Hussein of Jordan invited her to play for the visiting shah of Iran. She was also invited by the Queen to play at Buckingham Palace. Always fun-loving, Evans was once photographed in a bikini on Mount Fuji in Japan, playing On Top of Old Smokey, an image that was widely published. In 1961, Evans married Wale, a percussionist and vibraphonist. In 1968, her oompah accordion riffs, as part of the Norrie Paramor orchestra, could be heard behind the vocals of Cliff Richard when the British entry Congratulations narrowly failed to win the Eurovision song contest.

In the early 70s, she and Wale performed as a duo on a tour of Australia. She later teamed up with the accordionist Donald Hulme and toured the US, the far east and Australia for United Service Organisations (USO), entertaining American troops. Evans and Wale divorced in 1975. The following year, while playing in the Rusty Pelican restaurant in Key Biscayne, Florida, she met Robert Owens, who became her companion. Owens ran International Artists Series, a company aimed at bringing world stars to Florida. She became a director of the company and gained US citizenship in 2000. She wrote the Sandyland trilogy of children’s books, about a small heroic shark called Jawsie, and an as yet unpublished autobiography, The Beatles and Me – and Shirley’s Wild Accordion.