Back in the early 1970s, when the British band Badfinger was all over the radio airwaves with hits like "Come and Get It", "Day After Day," and "Baby Blue", every DJ who played them made the inevitable comment that they sounded a lot like the Beatles. Well, duh. Of course they did. The band had been signed by the Beatles' Apple label in 1968, when they were known as The Iveys, and Paul McCartney wrote and produced "Come And Get It," which was the song that put Pete Ham, Ron Griffiths, Mike Gibbins, and Tom Evans on the rock and roll map of fame. Unfortunately, the band didn't just sound like the Beatles, they shared similar managerial woes with the Fab Four.
After making American businessman Stan Polley their manager in 1970, Badfinger toured extensively and made lots of money, but were soon plunged into financial disarray when Apple bit the dust and their subsequent contract with Warner Bros resulted in missing escrow money and a debilitating loss of income when the label pulled the band's album, Wish You Were Here from record store shelves. Soon after, three days before his 28th birthday, band founder Ham hanged himself in his garage, leaving a suicide note in which he said some damning things about Polley and apologized to his girlfriend, Anne, and her son, Blair. His daughter Petera was born a month later.
The surviving band members packed it in after Ham's death, forcing bassist Evans to work briefly as a London cabbie, a situation that did nothing to alleviate the depression that had enveloped him since his Ham's suicide. Evans' pain was made even more acute by the fact that he had seen Ham's body after rushing to his bandmate's house following a frantic call from Ham's girlfriend. Guitarist Joey Molland, who had replaced original axeman Griffiths in 1969, formed a new version of Badfinger in 1977, with Evans back on bass, but despite a subsequent tour and a minor hit with "Love Is Gonna Come At Last" on the Electra label, the new incanation of Badfinger fell prey to similar financial difficulties as before, compounded this time by creative differences between the new band members. By the early 80s, Molland and Evans were touring with respective, competing versions of Badfinger. Beleagured by lawsuits stemming from the early days of the original band and still battling depression, Evans began making nostalgic references to Ham, telling friends and family members. "I want to be where he is." In November of 1983, following a heated phone exchange with Molland regarding legal and financial woes, Evans followed his late friend's lead and hanged himself in the garden of his home in Richmond, England.
Molland and yet another version of Badfinger, which included original drummer Mike Gibbins, toured throughout the remainder of the 80s, finally disbanding in 1989, when Gibbins left the band for good. Gibbins died in his sleep at his home in Florida in 2005. Molland can be found here, still making the best of what remains of Badfinger's name and legacy.
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