Badfinger: A Truncated History of a Troubled Group

I'm going to be twenty-seven in a few days, an age that dozens of musicians have unfortunately died at. Of all of the musicians that never saw twenty-eight, the one who perhaps came closest was Pete Ham of Badfinger. With a baby on the way, a tapped bank account, the group's seventh album having been pulled from stores before it ever had a chance and the eighth lingering in musical purgatory, Ham was found in his garage three days before what would have been his twenty-eighth birthday, noose 'round his neck. The suicide note blamed it on the group's non-communicative, crooked manager, Stan Polley, whom he vowed to take with him. Nearly ninety years old, Polley has not only outlived Ham, but Tom Evans (another suicide) and Mike Gibbins as well.

Badfinger is one of those groups for whom the bar was set far too high and for whom time ultimately up ruining time and time again. The foursome signed to Apple (lead guitarist/keyboardist Ham, rhythm guitarist Evans, drummer Gibbins and bassist Ron Griffiths- all vocalists) were brought there by Beatle bodyguard "Big" Mal Evans to Apple Records as The Iveys. Their first recordings (the album Maybe Tomorrow and the singles "Maybe Tomorrow" and "Dear Angie") didn't perform to Apple's expectations and the group was overhauled. With assistance from Beatle Paul, they were given a hit song in "Come and Get It" and had their name changed to Badfinger. They didn't even get a say in the matter, the name having come from Neil Aspinall's selection of "Bad Finger Boogie", the original title of "With a Little Help From My Friends". Guitarist Joey Molland replaced Griffiths around the time of the release of "Come and Get It" (with Evans moving from rhythm guitar to bass) and the group soldiered on.

Cobbling together an LP from half of the Iveys' lost long player and new tracks produced by either McCartney or Mal Evans, the group's future looked bright with the placement of their songs in the Ringo Starr-Peter Sellers vehicle The Magic Christian. The "western communism" ideal may have gone up in smoke, but Apple looked like it on the right track and Badfinger were at the forefront of it all. Magic Christian Music may not have been quite up to making the public forget about Apple's flagship group but then, what group or album possibly could? "Come and Get It" was the infectious hit they needed after the failure of "Maybe Tomorrow" and "Dear Angie" to chart, though perhaps it was all thanks to McCartney. The group certainly had to prove themselves though time would soon be their ultimate enemy.

The Beatles had set up Apple Corps as they had started to implode. John Lennon had privately quit the group in September 1969 as Abbey Road was being released, Paul McCartney made his departure public in April 1970. Though all four Beatles would continue to record for the label, the dynamic of the label changed. Badfinger were in the studio in April 1970, working on their first proper album. Badfinger's fortunes suddenly soured with this break-up. The breakup of the Beatles would ultimately signal the end of the label with the first rock group Apple signed eventually becoming the ultimate casualty.

In November, No Dice, that first proper Badfinger LP was released. Instrumentally, the group laid the foundations for the power-pop sub-genre on the album, essentially melding gorgeous harmonies with a raw, driving instrumental backing. Though the Beatles had performed proto-power-pop on their own albums, the term "power pop" would ultimately end up describing music influenced by the group with Badfinger the first and arguably greatest representation of it. Ham's infectious "No Matter What" was the single, hitting the top ten in both Britain and America. Though the album didn't chart at home, in America it hit the top thirty. The press remarked that Badfinger were the new Beatles. Things seemed to be looking up…

With the successes of "No Matter What", the pressure was on to follow up No Dice. Time would derail the group yet again, when Stan Polley, the American manager who had set up Badfinger Enterprises as a management arm for the group in November 1970, signed the group up for ten weeks worth of dates in America. In spite of the truncated sessions, Emerick and the group still managed to record twelve tracks at Abbey Road, Air and Command, some rocking hard, some flowing with power pop sensibilities and others still beautiful ballads. Even with the rushed schedule, the tapes seemed satisfactory to the group and after mixing the album in one day, they dropped it off at Apple Records in March, departing for the ten-week tour.

When Badfinger returned in May, they discovered that Apple co-president George Harrison had decided that the tracks recorded could be better. Nothing from the winter 1971 sessions would be used, though tracks from the album would be re-recorded. With Harrison enlisting himself as producer, the band recorded, the group's fortunes seemed to be turning around, the once Quiet Beatle riding high in the wake of the chart successes of All Things Must Pass, his magnum opus that had featured Badfinger amongst its cast of thousands. With Harrison in the producer's chair, the group cut four tracks, "I'd Die Babe" (with Harrison on guitar), "Name of the Game" (perhaps featuring Gary Wright on piano), "Suitcase" (with Leon Russell on guitar and Klaus Voormann on electric piano) and "Day After Day" (with Russell on piano and Harrison twinning Ham's slide guitar part).

The hastily assembled benefit concert for Bangladesh effectively ended Harrison's involvement with Badfinger's third LP, though he invited the group to tag along to Madison Square Garden, Ham getting to perform a memorable duet with Harrison on "Here Comes the Sun". Months earlier, Evans and Molland had strummed rhythm guitar for John Lennon's Imagine album. If that wasn't enough, Ham and Evans had been featured singing harmony on Ringo Starr's hit single "It Don't Come Easy". Badfinger certainly had to have had a certain something that the former Beatles needed, but helping out the former members of the group that they were being so frequently compared to wasn't the best for them.

With American wunderkind Todd Rundgren doing his best to make the record Harrison would have, the band knocked out Straight Up in a fortnight. Along with the four tracks from the Harrison sessions and perhaps a track or two from the Emerick sessions, Badfinger had produced a worthy successor to No Dice. The worldwide single would be "Day After Day", perhaps not the greatest choice for a group who desperately needed to shake the unfair comparisons to the Fab Four. Unfortunately, the press thought otherwise, desperate for a Beatles album, they mercilessly slammed Straight Up, Rolling Stone going as far to give the album no stars. No group could measure up to the Beatles, but if the Beatles were 99 in terms of producing quality melodic, powerful pop music (one point deducted for "Revolution 9" and "Wild Honey Pie"), Badfinger was at least 92 or 93.

"Baby Blue" would the second single in America and their fourth top 20 hit, peaking at #14 on the Billboard charts. For whatever reason, it was unreleased in Britain. There wouldn't be a fifth hit. By the time Badfinger returned to record what would become Ass, the longest cocktail party was essentially over and save for Badfinger, the various non-Beatle acts had all left the label for different pastures by 1972. Badfinger were among the first to trickle in to the party given by the four kings and they were the last to shuffle off with the four kings bickering amongst themselves. With dwindling interest from the label, the group trod through sessions throughout 1972 and 1973. Upon being informed of Apple's less-than-generous renewal contract for any albums subsequent to Ass, Polley guided the group into a contract with Warner Bros. that was financially generous but which required the group to produce an album every six months. Whatever qualms they might have had, they signed it and got back to work on the still unfinished Ass.

With Ham and Evans tapped out at two songs apiece, Molland stepped up to fill the void, contributing five of the album's ten tracks. This ultimately led to a problem with publishing due to the fact that Molland had never formally signed with Apple Publishing. With Polley seizing on the technicality, the album was held up indefinitely. It seemed as if Ass would become a fabled lost album. Ultimately, though, the songs on the album were credited to "Badfinger" as a whole rather than the individual writers remedying the situation for Apple from a legal standpoint. Released after the single, Ham's "Apple of My Eye" (a portrait of his feelings towards the label the group was leaving), Ass came out months after it should have appeared (and didn't exactly showcase the group in their best light), proving yet again that time may have been on the side of some, but that it wasn't on the side of Badfinger.

The group's self-titled first album for Warner Bros. was supposed to have been titled For Love or Money, the title a wry comment on their decision to leave the label they had signed to five and a half years earlier for the supposedly greener pastures of Bugs Bunnyland. If Ass was a portrait of the group losing everything that they had once held dear, Badfinger (For Love or Money) showcased a group revitalized, the album a true successor to Straight Up that pointed towards brighter days ahead. In America and Japan, the single was "I Miss You" but it went unreleased in Britain where Molland's "Love Is Easy" was issued. The Beatles may have once charted singles on multiple labels at the same time but "Apple of My Eye", "I Miss You" nor "Love is Easy" would have much of an impact.

In yet another cruel fate, Apple and Warner Bros. didn't consult one another when it came to releasing Ass and Badfinger. In America, Ass came out in November 1973 and Badfinger in February 1974. Britain got Badfinger in February 1974 and Ass the following month. As a result, in either market, the two releases effectively cancelled out one another's chances to chart. The group, though disheartened, had to go on- this was, after all, 1974 and a band was only as big as their last record, or records in the case of Badfinger, and with the failure of either Ass or Badfinger to chart, the pressure was on to make an impact with album seven.

Wish You Were Here appeared ten months before Pink Floyd's album of the same name. Finally finding the perfect balance between the gorgeous harmonies and the heavier feeling, perfecting the power pop sub-genre, the album seemed as if it were certain to impact the group positively. After the Ass/Badfinger debacle, the group certainly could use it. Ham's pen was refreshed, with Badfinger's leader and hit songwriter contributing four and a half of the eleven album tracks with the countryish "Shine On" (a co-write with Evans) having the most commercial appeal. But Wish You Were Here disappeared mere weeks after its release, Warner Bros. having started legal proceedings against Badfinger Enterprises due to Polley's shady actions. Ham quit the band just prior to a tour for the album, replaced by keyboardist/guitarist Bob Jackson. Informed of Warner's decision to drop a Ham-free Badfinger, Ham duly returned. After the tour, Molland split, finally having had enough of the disastrous manager who was making their lives a living hell. Jackson stuck around for the duration.

The group's eighth album, Head First, was recorded shortly after the release of Wish You Were Here, Polley coaxing Ham, Evans, Gibbins and Jackson into the studio rather than back onto the road. In two weeks, the band cut ten tracks that confirmed that they had finally found a comfortable balance with Wish You Were Here. The legal issues that would lead Wish You Were Here to be pulled and to Ham ending his life resulted in Head First being rejected and subsequently unreleased until 2000 when Snapper Music issued a rough mix of the album with a second disc of bonus tracks and demos. Though good sports about going into the studio, the lyrical content was darker than ever before, especially on Evans' "Hey, Mr. Manager" and "Rock 'N' Roll Contract", two double barreled blasts towards Polley. Ham was less direct, writing "Keep Believing", a sort of reconciliation towards Molland that only obliquely criticized Polley.

After Ham's suicide, the remaining members went their separate ways. Gibbins became a session drummer, drumming on Bonnie Tyler's hit "It's A Heartache". Molland was a part of the group Natural Gas but their sole album was a flop. Evans and Jackson were part of The Dodgers, another flop. Molland and Evans reformed the group in 1977, putting out two albums, Airwaves for Elektra in 1979 and Say No More for the Atlantic subsidiary Radio in 1981. Each spawned a top 100 single, but tensions caused Evans and Molland to split, each touring with his own version of Badfinger. Another bad contract signed with a Milwaukee promoter a bit too fast by the Evans-Jackson Badfinger (briefly featuring Gibbins as a hired hand) left the group with no tour dates, money, food or prospects. Upon breaking the contract and returning to England, both Evans and Jackson were sued, Evans for five million dollars. Faced with such monetary problems, Evans followed Ham by committing suicide in November 1983. Gibbins issued several solo releases before dying in 2005. Molland still tours with a group that goes by "Badfinger" (Gibbins was briefly a part of it), but without Pete or Tom, it can't really be Badfinger.

The cards seemed to be stacked against the group. Awful management and poor judgment can destroy a band but it destroyed none as badly as it destroyed Badfinger. There are the success stories of both those who deserve success and those who don't. There are also stories of the never-was. Badfinger's story was a case of the should-have-been. Talented writers, singers and players who were produced by some of the best producers the music world had to offer, it seems as if success was assured, but good timing seems to be quite a bit and Badfinger had little of that.