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Ending up the week, I thought I would offer one of the favorite, overlooked and sadly underrated bands of the early 70s. Badfinger had all the earmarks and the massive early successes anyone would think could sustain a band for the long haul. But bad decisions and unscrupulous dealings can make a good thing go south very quickly, and that was the sad fate that overtook Badfinger.
Badfinger had four consecutive worldwide hits from 1970 to 1972: “Come and Get It” (written and produced by Paul McCartney, 1970), “No Matter What” (produced by Mal Evans, 1970), “Day After Day” (produced by George Harrison, 1971), and “Baby Blue” (produced by Todd Rundgren, 1972). Their song “Without You” (1970) has been recorded many times, and became a US and UK number-one hit for Harry Nilsson in 1972 and a UK number-one for Mariah Carey in 1994.
After Apple Records folded in 1973, Badfinger struggled with a host of legal, managerial, and financial problems, leading to Ham’s suicide in 1975. The surviving members struggled to rebuild their personal and professional lives against a backdrop of lawsuits, which tied up the songwriters’ royalty payments for years. Their subsequent albums floundered, as Molland and Evans alternated between co-operation and conflict in their attempts to revive and capitalise on the Badfinger legacy. Evans died by suicide in 1983 and Gibbins died from a brain aneurysm in 2005, leaving Molland as the group’s only surviving member.
Here is a concert from their 1973 period. It’s not one of the milestone concerts by the band, and you get the feeling things aren’t going very well. But at the time nobody knew.
Here is Badfinger, recorded by BBC Radio 1 at The Paris Theater on August 10, 1973.
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