Sunday November 8, 2020 “Baby Blue” Badfinger
You would think that the first band signed to the Beatles Apple record label should have been a resounding success.
Badfinger, originally The Iveys, and the first band signed to the Beatles label recorded five albums for Apple and toured extensively, before they got caught up in the chaos of Apple Records' dissolution.
They were basically the band on George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass album/CD, had several big radio hits and sales of more than fourteen million albums/CDs, but the band was being crushed by bad contracts, poor management, a record label being run by artists who were not really businessman and Badfinger was broke...and broken.
The pressures were so great that they drove main songwriter and frequent lead singer Pete Hamm to take his own life. Several years later guitarist Tom Evans would unfortunately follow Hamm’s example and also commit suicide.
In addition to the Todd Rundgren produced “Baby Blue”, Badfinger had hits with “Come & Get It” (written/produced by Paul McCartney), “No Matter What” and “Day After Day”. They also wrote and recorded “Without You” which Nilsson had a much bigger hit with.
A really talented band surrounded by such sadness.
Stay safe and well...and yes that is Kenny Rogers doing the intro.