Badfinger - British band
Starting off as The Iveys in the late 1960s, Badfinger should
have had everything going for them. They were lucky
to have Paul McCartney's patronage, to be signed to the
Apple label and to have their first hit written by McCartney: Come And Get It. They had other hits,
No Matter What and Day After Day on both sides of
the Atlantic Ocean. They were a talented band and skilled
songwriters in their own right, primarily consisting of Pete Ham, Tom Evans, Bob Jackson, Joey Molland and Mike Gibbins.
They worked
with each of the four Beatles individually,
including as backing on John Lennon's Imagine album. Pete Ham's brilliant ability as a slide guitarist and player of melodic hook lines was recognized by George Harrison, who used Pete on the albums All Things Must Pass and Living In The Material World. Pete was also enlisted for a number of Ringo Starr sessions and recordings.
One of Pete Ham's proudest moments came when Harrison brought him onstage to play an acoustic duet of Here Comes The Sun at the two historic Bangladesh concerts in August 1971. Not surprisingly Badfinger were described as Beatles sound-alikes on occasion.
Tom Evans and Pete Ham wrote the haunting Without You which was covered successfully
by Harry Nilsson, who at first thought
it was a Lennon/McCartney number.
It became a huge international hit. Legal problems with ownership and
royalties for their classic creation however meant that
Ham and Evans didn't receive a penny they were entitled
to for writing such a major hit.
As the years went by this
lack of recognition and financial rewards created other
frictions within the band. Tragically Pete Ham committed
suicide in 1975. Late 1983, after a loud argument with Joey Molland over the telephone, Tom Evans also hung himself.