WITHOUT YOU – The Sad Story Of A Sad Hit

Dan Matovina has made it his mission in life to spread awareness of Badfinger, principal songwriters Pete Ham and Tom Evans in particular, and to do his best to prevent others from taking credit for, or benefit from, their work. 

        In the mid-nineties Dan approached me as editor at Omnibus Press to publish his book Without You: The Tragic Story Of Badfinger but I declined, believing it had insufficient commercial potential. This was probably a mistake but I gave Dan some editorial guidance and agreed that if he self-published the book Omnibus would distribute it in the UK on his behalf. This he did in 1997 and not only did it attract a slew of positive reviews, both in the UK and US, but it sold out its original print run.

Dan produced a revised version in 2000, and a few copies of this can occasionally be found on Amazon for prices in excess of £400. More recently he has authorised a kindle version which is easily obtainable. He has plans to produce a third edition that will include all the information he has gleaned in the meantime, and bring the story up to date with the death of drummer Mike Gibbons in 2005 and attempts by guitarist Joey Molland, who in 1969 took over from original member Ron Griffiths, to recreate Badfinger around himself. 

        I wrote quite a bit about Badfinger for Melody Maker. In 1971 I visited them at their large communal house on Park Avenue, a leafy road between Hampstead and Golders Green, where I also met their UK manager, a slightly creepy figure called Bill Collins who, born in 1913, seemed a bit too old for the job to me. I even saw them perform at Carnegie Hall in New York where I encountered Stan Polley, who looked after their US affairs and in the fullness of time would be exposed as an unrepentant fraudster. 

        Pete Ham, Tom Evans, Mike Gibbon and Joey Molland were nice, friendly guys with a bit of a chip on their shoulders about how the media relentlessly compared them with The Beatles, to whose Apple label they were signed. In fairness, the assessment was to some extent valid from a musical standpoint but it probably didn’t help that their first hit, ‘Come And Get It’ (1969), was written by Paul McCartney. Never intended for The Beatles, Paul’s demo of the song can, however, be heard on their third Anthology set.  

        Badfinger went on to record dozens of great power pop songs across six albums with stunning vocal harmonies but diminishing returns. They had two more big hits, ‘No Matter What’ and ‘Day After Day’, but are probably best known nowadays for ‘Baby Blue’, which in 2012 was used on the soundtrack to the hit TV series Breaking Bad, and – even more so – the timeless ‘Without You’, a massive hit for Harry Nilsson in 1972, and again for Mariah Carey in 1994. 

        Even after the success of Nilsson’s ‘Without You’ something intangible seemed to be holding Badfinger back, and it wasn’t until tragedy struck in the form of Ham and Evans’ suicides – in 1975 and 1983 respectively – that the enigma was solved: they’d been swindled out of millions, and the creeping realisation of this, coupled with dire financial circumstances, had crippled them irrevocably. Had they been managed honourably, the royalties from ‘Without You’ alone would have kept both Ham and Evans in comfort for the remainder of their lives.  

        Dan Matovina and I have remained friends and in his Badfinger mission Dan is now facilitating the release of CDs of demos by Pete Ham and The Iveys on behalf of the estates of Ham and Evans, and also former Iveys member Ron Griffiths. Knowing my ongoing interest in Badfinger, about two months ago Dan sent me his two most recent CDs, a Pete Ham Demos Variety Pack, with 23 tracks, opening with Ham’s original demo for ‘Baby Blue’, and what he calls The Iveys Golden Delicious Demos 1966-69, with 20 tracks, some of which became Badfinger recordings. 

        Of particular interest to anyone who finds the Badfinger story as fascinating as it is tragic, is the closing track on The Iveys’ disc, which Dan has called ‘Without You (Early Demos Evolution Edit)’. It’s five different early attempts by Ham and Evans at their most famous song, strung together to form an intriguing demonstration of how ‘Without You’ grew from an idea into reality. 

        The first attempt finds Pete Ham vamping piano chords as he croons the song’s first two verses, the melody intact, but with ‘party’ instead of ‘story’ on the third line. The chorus, however, with its famous line ‘I can’t live if living is without you’, is unrealised and, instead, Ham sings ‘If it’s love that you need’ to a different tune, then breaks off to de-dum-de-dum the next few unwritten words. It breaks off at 1.29. 

        The second attempt, if it can be called that, finds Tom Evans alone singing a song he’s composed called ‘I Can’t Live’ which at this stage is yet to be married to Ham’s earlier song, and was, indeed, entirely unrelated to it. Evans’ song hovers around a similar (but certainly not identical) melody with the words, ‘And now it’s gone I can’t seem to find happiness and good times that I left them all behind, Or is it just another way to let me know that in this life you only reap after you sow.’ After stretching for a high note on ‘sow’, he leaps confidently into the refrain that will become the chorus to ‘Without You’ with its familiar ‘I can’t live…’ opening. This breaks off at 2.22. 

        The third take finds Ham playing his song idea on acoustic guitar, chopping away at chords in the manner of the Everly Brothers, singing solo on the familiar verses one and two, Evans’ alternative lyrics from take two having evidently – and wisely – been jettisoned. “Around that time chronologically he asked Tom if he could try combining his song’s verses with Tom’s song he’d called ‘I Can’t Live’,” says Dan. “This made a new song, which was demoed by The Iveys and, later, Badfinger.”

        In Ham’s hands, the song has now come together, its plaintive melody ringing free on the rhythmic guitar chords. This peters out at 3.20 and lack the chorus…

        … which is stridently sung by Evans at the start of take four, the acoustic guitar having given way to electric with a hint of percussion deep in the mix. This is very brief, less than 30 seconds before there’s a reprise of take one, with Ham at the piano, singing the first verse again – it might be the same take as the opening – before he roams dreamily into a higher register, la-la-la-ing McCartneyesque, and resolves the now completed song on a final piano chord. The whole thing lasts 4.30.

        Unfortunately, the Ivey’s home demo of what became ‘Without You’ is unusable – “Almost erased,” says Dan – and while the Badfinger home demo is unavailable for release for copyright reasons, I’ve been able to hear it. Joey Molland appears on this, singing in the background and contributing a rather thin guitar solo towards the end. The title ‘Without You’ was suggested by producer Geoff Emerick when his studio recording was completed for its inclusion on Badfingers’ second LP No Dice in 1970. On the EMI tape boxes, it was still titled ‘I Can't Live’ until the very last minute. 

        Badfinger’s released version of the song opens with just lead guitar, bass and drums before Ham sings the opening verse over an acoustic guitar, similar to the third take of the demos, with Evans and Molland joining in on the chorus. Although the guitar solo is improved and there’s a much longer fade, next to Nilsson’s highly produced, highly orchestrated version, Badfinger’s final version of ‘Without You’ still sounds almost like a demo itself, not least because the magnificent Nilsson recording has become as well-known as any standard song you care to name. Mariah Carey, of course, turned it into a power ballad that blew the roofs off all nearby buildings, her extraordinary voice leaping into the stratosphere with all the bells and whistles she could command. 

        In his book Dan Matovina explains how after the deaths of Ham and Evans, others in the Badfinger story benefitted by suing for a share of the songwriting royalties generated by the song’s extraordinary and ongoing success. What Dan has done in arranging Pete Ham and Tom Evans’ demos for what became ‘Without You’ on this CD demonstrates without a shadow of a doubt that it was these two, and these two alone, who composed this song and that only these two, or their heirs, deserve to benefit from it. In a better world that would have been the case.  

        These Badfinger CDs can be obtained at Http://www.badfingerlibrary.com

BADFINGER - Carnegie Hall, March 1972

This third story about Badfinger was written less than a month after the last and involved a trip to New York to see them headline Carnegie Hall, my second ever visit to the US. Aside from the show, details of which appear below, I can remember going out for dinner with the group afterwards and driving through Central Park in a stretch limo with them and their US manager Stan Polley, the guy who shafted them big time. Polley was adamant that I accompany them, seemingly concerned that if I didn’t I might go elsewhere after the show and find something else other than Badfinger to write about.

         What I also remember about this trip was that a Scottish Jock The Lad I knew, who in a few years’ time would make a name for himself in the footnotes of the UK punk scene, was ‘staying’ in the same hotel as me. When I returned from my late dinner with Badfinger I bumped into him in the lobby and on his arm was a groupie whose charms he was evidently promoting. “She’s yours for $20,” he said. I declined. He then explained that he’d lost his room key – I suspect he didn’t actually have a room – and begged me to allow him to stay in my room which, as it happened, had two double beds. In the end I let him and he brought the girl along too. By this time her rate had dropped to $10 but I still wasn’t interested. Had I been, I thought provision of the adjoining bed ought to have been payment enough but he was a Scotsman so ’nuff said. Either way, I fell asleep to the sound of their congress.

         But I digress, a bad habit of mine. Back to Badfinger…

Come to New York, they said, and see Badfinger. It seemed like a long way to go to see a British Band, but the idea had its merits. For a start, Badfinger topped the bill at the skyscraper city’s Carnegie Hall last week, and they don’t often play in their home country anyway.

         To say that Badfinger were “bigger” in America than over here in Britain would be an understatement. They’ve just had a big hit in the States with ‘Day After Day’, and they sold out the Carnegie. Second on the bill, incidently, was Al Kooper, and people are only just beginning to realise that Nilsson’s ‘Without You’ is a Badfinger number.

         Badfinger packed the Carnegie – a hall comparable in size to our own Rainbow Theatre, but more plush. It’s doubtful whether the group would fill the balcony at the Rainbow on the strength of their British successes. Badfinger/Al Kooper bill would definitely be reversed over here.

         Badfinger have been lying low for some time now, always there but never here, if you see what I mean. Too many people are inclined to dismiss them with a remark about their associations with The Beatles or Apple, and moderate chart success is their only reward for six years in the business.

         So they turned their sights on America with successive tours as a supporting act, until now when they can make a coast-to-coast trek topping most of the way and pulling in the crowds. The Beatles have helped, of course; the Bangla Desh appearance, and Harrison showing up at a press conference last year – but in the main Badfinger have themselves to thank.

         They are, in fact, one of the few groups who can claim British descendency but who attract a bigger audience in America. Humble Pie seem to be another, ditto Savoy Brown.

         But back to Badfinger, whose music is very different from Pie and Savoy Brown. They’re not a heavy band, but neither are they teenybop. On stage they’re remarkably heavier than you’d expect, but on record they rely – like the Beatles did – on bloody good songs, harmonies and guitar work. They don’t go on at length, and instrumental breaks are kept to a minimum. They’re doing what many groups today would consider to be out of date: but they get away with it because Badfinger are great song writers.

         It’s a three guitar/drum line up with the lead singing shared between bassist Tom Evans and guitarists Pete Ham and Joey Molland, who also share the lead work. On stage, the only resemblance to The Beatles is when Tom and Joey share the same mike; you can’t say the same thing for their records though.

         For the most part Badfinger’s stage act comprised self-pinned numbers – songs from their new album Straight Up and a smattering of tracks from their last record No Dice. They are put over virtually identical to the recorded sound. The only real action comes during a bluesy version of Dave Mason’s ‘Feelin’ Allright’, and at the end when, like so many other bands, the group turn on to a string of old 12-bars.

         That’s when the guitars of Joey and Pete come to life. They can both handle the instrument well, and they trade licks like they’ve known each other for a long, long time, and they have. Tom’s voice, too, comes into its own in these rock numbers. He growls the words, screaming out the lyrics until his throat can stand no more. His vocal chords are a complete contrast to Joey and Pete, who take the softer numbers in turn. And Tom’s bass is as funky as you could wish.

         Drummer Mike Gibbins sits behind an enormous kit, seemingly content to keep things moving instead of extroverting his talents. Percussion doesn’t play that big a part in Badfinger.

         There’s an acoustic part to the set too, with all three guitarists turning to acoustic instruments and singing sweetly a la CSN&Y. Tom picks out the notes on an oversized lute on ‘Sweet Tuesday Morning’, while Joey sings a trifle nervously and Mike taps bongos. It’s in complete contrast to the rock numbers, and the standard three-part harmony songs, but versatility is often a rare commodity in rock.

         It was a pretty young Carnegie audience, and what they’d been waiting for were the group’s hits, ‘No Matter What’ and ‘Day After Day’. The latter was preceded by a presentation by an Apple man of a gold record for a million sales. The gold record was actually George Harrison’s ‘My Sweet Lord’ – but nobody could see.  It was hoped that Allen Klein would show up to make the presentation: he’d asked for four tickets and he might have been there but nobody saw him.

         Backstage at the Carnegie was very crowded, but Badfinger shrugged off the inevitable groupies and camp followers. There’s record company men, with their wives, sons and daughters, budding musicians who somehow broke the none-too-tight security net and their girlfriends, and a disc jockey or two and the roadies.

         Manager Bill Collins is there too. He’s an interesting character with long graying hair who looks a bit old to be managing a group on the brink of success.  You’d expect a young trendy instead of a father figure like Bill, who shows a devoted concern for the group. He’s certainly got faith in them but he’s worried about pushing them too hard.

         He seems almost too honest and straightforward to be mixed up in the rock business – but it’s difficult to steal a march on him. His faith in Badfinger is resolute. He’s worried that not too many people realise that Nilsson’s current hit is a Badfinger song.

         The group too are as dedicated as rock musicians can be. With the possible exception of Tom Evans, they’re far from ravers. Pete Ham and Mike Gibbons are both married, and Joey Molland is engaged. They were visibly nervous before the Carnegie Hall show, which was probably the most important of their career.

         It was regarded by all as successful by New York standards. There were two encores, and a knowledgeable young lady behind the scenes assured me they were several times better than T. Rex who had played the Carnegie the previous week.

         Badfinger’s initial rise to  status in America may well have been due to the Beatles influence – there was a time when the fans thought Paul McCartney played bass for them – but now it seems they are winning through on their own merit.

         The most unusual fact about the Badfinger case is their lack of support in Britain. More live appearances and a couple more hit singles could well bring them to T. Rex status in the country.

BADFINGER - February 1972 Interview

Joey Molland must have pulled the short straw when it came to being interviewed by me in February 1972, as none of the other members of Badfinger put in an appearance, most likely because they were sleeping off hangovers caused by the previous night’s festivities resulting from the US success of ‘Day After Day’. The second Badfinger interview was done at the offices of the group’s newly appointed PR company in central London.

Joey Molland has a cheeky grin, which isn’t in evidence this morning. Last night he was celebrating, and this morning he's alternating between a bottle of aspirins and strong cups of coffee. Cigarettes too are part of his cure for the hangover caused, apparently, by the news that Badfinger are about to make number one in the American singles charts (they didn’t, at least not in Billboard – CC).

         Staying up late to celebrate is one thing, but getting up early to do interviews is another; especially when it's the fourth time he's been dragged from his Hampstead home to central London before noon this week. For the first time since their formation, Badfinger have employed a publicity man – and it could be that Joey's regretting it already.

         Badfinger are one of those peculiar British groups to whom America is more like home than England. They do most of their live appearances there, and consequently sell more records there than they do in this country. They are also still living down the endless criticism that they sound too much like The Beatles for their own good.

         They've just released a new album, Straight Up, and there's no doubt that the similarity to The Beatles goes a lot farther than the Apple label in the middle.  Twelve songs, vocal harmonies, guitar and piano backing, not heavy but not bubblegum, catchy riffs here and there and a reference to revolution in one song: surely the resemblance is too obvious. George Harrison even produced four of the tracks for them.

         “I don’t think about the resemblance to The Beatles,” says Joey, visibly wincing that the old, old subject crops up again. “It might sound like The Beatles but that’s what we sound like. We just play a number the way we feel it should be played.”

         Their association with The Beatles has helped them achieve their current success in the States. On their first tour, audiences were under the impression that McCartney was a member of the group and although  this story is firmly buried today, the fact that The Beatles like Badfinger has meant audiences are more prepared to listen sympathetically to their music.

         “George is like a demi-God in America,” said Joey. “And if he likes us then other people will give us a fair listen. They don’t just come because George likes us, but they are more prepared to give us a hearing. I met Pete Townshend in New York and he said he likes us too. It makes you feel much better to know that respected musicians like what you are doing, even if some of the kids don’t.”

         At the weekend, Badfinger left for another tour of the States. This time it's for two months and includes about 30 concerts on a coast to coast basis. Why did the group virtually ignore England when it came to live appearances?

         “We could like to do a big concert tour in England, but we would like to be sure we could get a good audience who like what we are doing. If we went on tour with a heavy group, they would expect us to play heavy music. We could go if we wanted to but it would probably ruin everything.

         “We will definitely be doing a tour of England. Everybody wants to make it in their home country, and we do too, but we are not sure whether the audiences will accept us.”

         Joey admits that young fans are probably responsible for Badfinger's single success in America – not unlike the current T-Rex phenomenon in this country – but maintains that album sales are predominately to over eighteens. “People in America seem to dig songs more than in England.  Over here they would rather you went out on stage and played a guitar solo for half an hour.

         “We seem rather isolated in England and we always seem to be away whenever we get into the charts so we can't follow up a record success with big promotion to help it to the top or anything.

         “We don’t feel we have deserted Britain, because Britain never made us like it did some groups. Every group in the world wants to go to America and play there. When we go next week, we are topping the bill at the time. We are playing the Carnegie Hall in New York and topping over Al Kooper. It's a lot easier not to top the bill because you don’t have the pressure of following everybody else and being expected to be the top act.”

         Straight Up was recorded in the comparatively short time of seven weeks. It follows an album make by Badfinger but scrapped at the last minute because the group felt it wasn’t up to the standard. Playing piano on some of the songs are virtuosos Leon Russell and Nicky Hopkins but neither are credited on the sleeve of the album – because the group don’t want it to sell on the strength of their names.

         “People would just say that here's another band using Leon Russell and Nicky Hopkins,” says Joey. “We don’t want to make a big thing out of the fact that they are playing on the record.”

         How big a part did Harrison play in the production? ”He just advised us. He has a lot of experience of taking a number and seeing through it and knowing how to arrange it. We are happy with the album considering all the upheavals and personality changes we were going through at the time.”

         Did this mean that internal troubles might split the group? ”I am sure we all feel like leaving the group at some times but we're not going to break up. There is no point. It's like we are all solo artists playing together because we all write and have our own styles, but we can slot into each other's ideas. It's a good arrangement.”

BADFINGER - January 1971 Interview

I did my first story on Badfinger in January 1971, heading up to north London to the communal house they shared in Golders Green, a large detached mock Tudor place on a winding hill. It was sparsely furnished but there was plenty of evidence that its occupants were musicians, guitar and leads littering the floor and cups of tea resting on amps. I seem to remember that one or two of their girlfriends were in residence too, as was their manager Bill Collins, a big bloke with prematurely white long hair who seemed to me to be a bit too old to be their manager, a bit too set in his ways, rather like a slightly eccentric schoolmaster.

         I didn’t know much about them when I went to that house, only that they’d had a hit single with ‘Come And Get It’ in 1969 and ‘No Matter What’ was doing well when I interviewed them. That first hit was written and produced by Paul McCartney and, perhaps inevitably, I began by asking them about The Beatles connection which turned out to be a bad move. They were heartily sick of this line of questioning as I was about to find out. 

"Everyone who interviews us wants to talk about The Beatles.  Sure, we were influenced by the Beatles, like ten million other groups.

“There are a million groups copying Led Zeppelin at the moment but nobody bothers to criticise them for it.  We like melodies and songs and we get called a second Beatles.”

That's Pete Ham talking. Pete is guitarist, singer, and keyboard consultant with Badfinger, a group strangely ignored in this country since their chart success with ‘Come And Get It’ a year ago. Now they're back in the charts again with ‘No Matter What.”

Badfinger are trying desperately these days to shake off the “new Beatles” image, and there's a lot of truth in what Pete said about Zeppelin. Perhaps it was the Apple label, a McCartney-composed hit and the soundtrack to The Magic Christian (which starred Ringo) that did it.

The situation is just as bad (or good), in America, where Badfinger are far more successful than in this country.  Their recent three-month tour over there went down a bomb, and they're looking forward to returning soon for another lengthy stay.

Badfinger live in a big house in Golders Green and signs of their increasing wealth are littered around.  A large blue Mercedes truck stands in the street, and workmen are currently putting finishing touches to a mini-recording studio – sound-proofed for the neighbours' benefit – on the ground floor.

Guitars and amps are scattered about, but bedrooms don’t display the untidiness of most group houses. Perhaps their tidy nature is reflected in the tidy songs they write and sing.

Peter Ham appears to be the father figure. Liverpool accented Joey Molland sits crosslegged and grins cheekily. Tommy Evans, the bassist who – I can't help it – looks remarkably like McCartney, starts sentences but doesn’t finish them, and drummer Mike Gibbins says very little.

“Badfinger has been my only group so I'll tell you about us,” says Pete to my initial question. “We were going as The Iveys when we joined Apple to make some demo tapes. That was two and a half years ago and that was when Badfinger was born. Joey joined us about then and we decided to start again with a new name.

“It was then that we did ‘Come And Get It’ which became a hit. Just before then we had done a song called ‘Maybe Tomorrow’ which we thought was going to be very successful but it wasn’t.

“When it didn’t do anything it was quite a blow to our own judgment but, 'Come And Get It’ came along and we did that instead. That was very big in America and we did an album which also did well over there so we went over for 12 weeks.

“We did 35 college dates over and had our minds blown in various directions, a week to get used to the place but when we did it was great. It was unusual for us to play to people who were sitting down and watching and listening for a change.

The people there seemed to have come specifically to see you instead of just to see another group to dance to.”

“The Beatles have done us a lot of good,” admitted Joey after a bit of pressing. “To have been associated with them has done us a lot of good because they are great people.”

“What we would really love is to be accepted in this country but it doesn’t seem as though we are yet,” said Tom.

“We're not complaining but it's a fight for us in England,” added Joey.

“English people think of us as the group that did 'Come And Get It.' Full stop,” said Pete. “They don’t seem prepared to listen to other things we do, but in America they view every number separately.”

Essentially a melody group, how do Badfinger rate the current wave of heavy bands? “Boring,” said Joey. “A lot of it is a load of rubbish. They play a guitar riff and write a number around it. They should try writing a number and finding a guitar riff to fit it. That’s much harder.

“I think people will get back to more melodic things soon. They have all learned to improvise now and the will use this in writing good songs. That is what we are trying to do.”

BADFINGER - 'Baby Blue' & Other Matters

In the final episode of Breaking Bad last year, Badfinger’s song ‘Baby Blue’ suddenly formed the backdrop to a key moment in the story. What great taste, I thought, as it’s one of my all-time favourite songs. In the weeks that followed it created a welcome buzz around the group and their song, and I did a Facebook post about it which attracted plenty of likes. I always thought there was a great deal of affection out there for Badfinger, so I’ve revisited that post and will follow this up with the three stories I wrote about the group for Melody Maker in the early seventies. Firstly, though, I need to set the scene…

There is no more tragic story in the history of rock than that of Badfinger, the Welsh group signed to Apple; protégés of The Beatles, fleeced by an unscrupulous American manager/conman and hung out to dry, bringing such poverty and depression that chief songwriter Pete Ham and bassist Tom Evans took their own lives. These two wrote ‘Without You’, the massive hit, first in 1972 for Harry Nilsson and then in 1994 for Maria Carey, and covered by dozens of others, which should have guaranteed their financial security for life.

         ‘Without You’ is a superb ballad but ‘Baby Blue’ is more rhythmic, bristling with pop magic, and one of many songs Pete Ham wrote for the love of his life, name of Dixie. Its cascading, arpeggio-style guitar riffs, all garnished with just the right amount of distortion, fabulous vocal harmonies and all-round melodic bounce grab me every time I hear it; a minor US hit in 1972, no chart action at all in the UK, criminal really as it’s such a wonderful record. A bit Beatlesy, especially the Harrison-like guitar solo and flourish at the end, this was perhaps the monkey on Badfinger’s back, the constant comparison with their patrons who, sadly, turned their backs on them when civil war broke out in the Beatles’ camp in 1970. I interviewed Badfinger for MM three times, the first time at their communal house in Hampstead in 1971, and saw them at Carnegie Hall in 1972 on my second ever visit to New York; a great little band and nice guys too.
         You can probably buy ‘Baby Blue’ for less than a quid from iTunes nowadays and I can’t recommend it enough, but beware – there’s a ‘best of’ album out there recorded solely by Joey Molland, now the only surviving member of the original band, and session men, which purports to be a Badfinger album and it’s well dodgy. Without realising this, I bought it from HMV a few years ago and took it back the next day demanding a refund from a surprised assistant to whom I explained that despite what it said on the front it wasn’t a Badfinger album at all and ought to be removed from sale. She didn’t argue but must have thought I was some kind of nutcase, banging on as I was about some group she’d probably never heard of.

         In 1997 Omnibus Press distributed Without You – The Tragic Story of Badfinger by Dan Matovina, the only decent book on the band, which now goes for silly money on Amazon. Although we didn’t publish it I was happy to help Dan editorially and I understand he’s working on a new edition.

         The Badfinger legacy ought to be about the brilliance of their music but unfortunately the undercurrents of disharmony that plagued them during their active life continue to this day. The estates of Pete Ham and Tom Evans are at odds with Joey Molland who owns the trademark of the name Badfinger. The issues between them are many and varied but in the main involve Molland making misleading statements about the construction of songs that were composed entirely by Ham and Evans, not least ‘Without You’, as well as perpetuating the name Badfinger in groups that fail to live up the standard set by the original which, of course, didn’t include Molland in its early days anyway. For the record, drummer Mike Gibbins who had at times allied himself with Molland, died in 2005. Managers Bill Collins and, especially, Stan Polley, who must share the blame for the misfortunes that befell the group, died in 2002 and 2009 respectively.

         Fans are therefore advised to avoid the ‘official’ Badfinger site (just as they’d be advised to avoid recent recordings attributed to the group) and visit instead the Badfinger Library site - http://www.badfingerlibrary.com – and, on Facebook, the Badfinger/The Iveys page and the Badfinger (open group) page

         Tomorrow, the first my MM stories about this great but tragic band.