Badfinger… quick history

Today I’m having a Badfinger day.  Christian got me into a Badfinger mood with his Baby Blue Post. I would suggest you read a more detailed version of their story when you can. Their story will draw you in.

Badfinger was a very talented band that had a gift and curse of sounding like The Beatles. Their songs are remembered today but not the band which is a shame. They made some very good albums and at least one great one. This band’s story is a cautionary tale that other bands must consider. This is what signing with a bad manager can do to you.

The members were Pete Ham, Tom Evans, Mike Gibbins, and Joey Molland (who replaced Ron Griffiths).

They started out as the Iveys and signed with the Beatle’s new label…Apple. They released Maybe Tomorrow as the Iveys which was a minor hit.  After that, they changed their name to Badfinger. Paul McCartney wrote their first big hit single”Come and Get It” and after that, they were writing themselves. The hits kept coming… No Matter What, Baby Blue, and Day after Day. They also wrote Without You…a small blues song that Harry Nilson covered…it became a monster worldwide hit. Mariah Carey also covered it and was again a giant hit.

They signed with a manager named Stan Polley and got a massive contract with Warner Brothers after leaving Apple. Things were looking really good. They had hits but they never made it over the hump in being a big-time group. Warner Brothers could have pushed them over the hump…Polley set up an escrow account for the band with the advance money and the money disappeared.

He told the band that he was planning for their future etc…He put them on a small salary and embezzled the rest. He really swindled them and their royalties for their songs were tied up for decades. The band was basically broke. With all of their self-written hits, they should have been set financially for years.

Pete Ham didn’t have the money to pay his mortgage and with a baby on the way, drunk and depressed at the fatal age (for rock stars) of 27 he hanged himself in his garage in 1975. In 1983, after scrambling for gigs, Tom Evans broke and not able to get to any of the royalties due him from co-writing Without You with Pete…hanged himself also.

Pete was a trusting soul and never would believe Polley was cheating them until the very end. His suicide note read…

“I will not be allowed to love and trust everybody. This is better  P.S. Stan Polley is a soulless bastard. I will take him with me.”

They all wrote to some degree but Pete Ham was a great songwriter. He had so much potential. He also was a great guitar player and singer. The other members did write some very good songs but Pete was the special one. 

Stan Polley died in 2009… escaping other scandals without punishment.

Their albums were

Magic Christian Music – This was the soundtrack to the movie The Magic Christian. Come and Get It is on this album and a minor hit called Maybe Tomorrow which is a good pop song.

No Dice – No Dice is where Badfinger starts to be themselves. No Matter What and Without You came off of this album. It also has some other great songs… I Can’t Take It, Blodwyn, We’re for the Dark, Better Days, and my favorite of the album and possibly of Badfinger…Midnight Caller.

Straight Up – This is my favorite album by them. It has Baby Blue and Day after Day but a host of other good songs. Take It All, Money, Name of the Game, Suitcase, Sweet Tuesday Morning, and I’d Die Babe. Joey Molland’s songwriting and singing were very good on this album.

Ass – Their last album for Apple Records and the start of the downward spiral. The songs I would recommend are Apple of My Eye and Icicles.

Badfinger – They just signed a new record deal with Warner Brothers and this was the first album. They recorded this album as soon as they finished their previous album Ass for Apple which was too soon. They should have waited a while before recording this album. This album didn’t do well, and one of the reasons is that it was competing with their previous album. They were released within months of each other because Polley wanted something out. The songs I like are I Miss You and Shine On.

Wish You Were Here – The album was released in late 1974 and was pulled in early 1975 before it had time to do anything because of litigation between their manager and the Warner Brothers. It was released and pulled in a matter of weeks. Warner Brothers saw the money was missing and yanked the album off of the shelves. The songs I like are Dennis and Just a Chance. This album should have been a giant hit. It had hit songs on there waiting to be played. Dennis is one of their best songs. 

Head First – They recorded this album after Wish You Were Here with Bob Jackson after Joey Molland had quit. The album was stuck in limbo for 26 years never released. It wasn’t released until 2000. I went out and bought this the day it was out at Tower Records when I read they were releasing it. On some songs, you can tell they are having problems with their management. The songs that stand out to me are Lay Me Down, Hey Mr. Manager, Rock N’ Roll Contract, and Keep Believing. A good album and I wish it would have had a chance at the time.

They did make a couple of albums after Pete died called Airwaves and Say No More. The song Lost Inside Your Love is the only song that approaches the Badfinger early quality.

Without Pete, the biggest talent was gone. That is not a knock on the others but he was just that good. Tom Evans was a good singer, songwriter, and musician who worked with Pete well and had a great voice. Joey Molland was a good guitar player, singer, and songwriter. The band didn’t lack talent.

In 1997 a CD was released of Pete Hams demos called 7 Park Avenue. It was various demos from his entire career. A follow-up was released in 1999 called Golders Green. The melodies he had rivaled McCartney. He was an amazing songwriter.

Go out and Google Badfinger and more importantly, listen to them. This band needs to be remembered.

Baby Blue… Maybe the most perfect power pop song ever in my opinion.

No Matter What…around 2:02-2:06…Tommy Evans does a cool backup. Not hard but very effective. 

Day After Day

Midnight Caller

Suitcase

A good article on Badfiinger

Unknown's avatar

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

35 thoughts on “Badfinger… quick history”

  2. Pingback: Badfinger… quick history – MobsterTiger

  3. Certainly a tragic story & a warning for other artists about being careful with contracts and choosing a manager. It’s really a shame Polley couldn’t be brought to justice or forced to turn over the funds he absconded with. I didn’t realize they had put out so many albums

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Oh he did more damage to others but not like Badfinger…nothing approached this.
      It’s a shame because Warner Brothers was behind them and were going to promote them. You have a hit writer in Ham and very good writers with the others….even the drummer.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

      1. I mean the big ones were pretty big, sold well, got airplay…but they were on Apple werent they? If so, they each could have probably been #1s if on WB, Columbia, Polydor…as extraordinary as the Beatles were musically, they didn’t do well trying to run that label

        Liked by 1 person

      2. They were on Apple and then switched to Warner Brothers because by that time Apple was falling apart. Pete still didnt want to leave…they shouldn’t have. It would have still worked.

        Like

    1. Thanks for reading Sheila I really appreciate it. Yea that really sucks about the manager doing that to them. He continued his crooked ways but nothing to this extent.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  9. When their first hit came out I dismissed them as ersatz Beatles. (Okay, I probably thought I was hearing the Beatles.) Thanks for letting me know I was wrong. (And I can’t imagine the Beatles stretching out for 8 minutes on a simple tune like Suitcase.) But it’s easy to think, especially when Day After Day sounds like a George Harrison song – maybe because that IS George Harrison on guitar.

    I hate stories of bands being ripped off by management parasites. And I have a soft spot for mahogany SGs. They shouldn’t make them in any other wood or any other finish. 😉

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I certainly thought it was The Beatles. Good catch on Suitcase…the reason they started to do that was to distance themselves from The Beatles. They turned into more of a jam band and live on certain songs.
      The song that shocked me was “Without You”….I never connecting them as writing it. Their verison is just a blues version of it.
      I totally agree on the mahogany SG’s. I have two guitars I want band…number 1 is a Rick and number 2 is a SG…way more than a Les Paul.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  10. First heard of them via my trusty older bro with ‘Maybe Tomorrow,’ which in retrospect sounds sweet and sad now, knowing what the future held for them. I hope Stan is sweating bucketloads now, searching desperately for the non-existent air-con controls, wherever the Hell he is now.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I do hope he is on a molten rock somwehere…a Gene Hunt quote comes to mind obbverse…. “if there is a hell, he’s going there to be poked up the arse with sharp fiery sticks, forever and ever, Amen!”

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  11. I dug Badfinger, maybe it was because they sounded so much like the Fabs, and maybe that was a bad thing, in the end. They sort of faded away and I forgot about them, now I know the reason. Good read, Max.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

      1. My pleasure, Max. I know that artists are sensitive and making music is first, with the business part not what they wanted to deal with. Reading what happened with the suicides, their anguish must have been beyond what they were able to bear 😦 Listening to their music keeps them alive and I think what they would want from their fans.

        Liked by 1 person

  13. Terrible, evil things to happen to a great group. There’s no excuse for what the manager did, but I still don’t understand why Paul or George or somebody couldn’t have thrown a few bucks their way. I mean, the guy couldn’t even pay his mortgage. Oh well, unfortunately the worst happened.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I know…I don’t think they reached out to the Beatles but I thought the same thing. It’s downright tragic. I HOPE they didn’t know what was going on.

      Like

      Reply

  14. Thanks for the shoutout, Max, and you definitely could do a lot worse than having a Badfinger day! 🙂

    I mean what an incredible band – all the songs you highlighted here are true gems! It’s really hard to believe that with all this wonderful music, the Badfinger story is one of the most depressing in rock history. Sadly, a reminder how brutal the music business can be!

    Thanks again for bringing this great band on my radar screen.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks so much Christian. As with Big Star and this band…I was successful at that one job!
      I do appreciate you giving Badfinger time. Give me a Time Machine to when Big Star opened for these guys! That to me would be power pop heaven…the Raspberries were set to tour with Badfinger as well

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  15. Badfinger (the group, not you the author) seems like the kind of band that grows on you with time. The Beatles were more immediate, with hits tumbling out of their back pockets, and notable personalities congealing in one unforgettable group. Perhaps part of the problem with Badfinger was unremarkable personalities??? It could be, could be.

    The group getting shafted by their manager was a brutal lesson in the importance of luck in life. Had they been just a tad luckier, they would have enjoyed material success and perhaps stuck together as a group, making it really big. Luck was withdrawn from them and they spent their twilight years in suffering, becoming shadows of themselves in the process.

    Come to my site and leave some comments, if you like

    http://www.dark.sport.blog

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment