The Dramatic Conclusion of Badfinger… And the Lost Album You’ve Never Heard
How could things possibly get any worse?
Just two years earlier, Badfinger had plenty of reasons to be optimistic. Having released four hit singles in a row – three of which were solid top-10 hits and the fourth making it to a very respectable #14 on the charts in early 1972 – the future was looking mighty rosy indeed for these talented lads.
A couple of years after that last hit, as 1974 was wrapping up, things were much different. During that time, they switched from the Beatles’ Apple label — which was a sinking ship at that point, so one can’t begrudge them for that – to Warner Brothers, a label with plenty of success stories of its own and plenty of money and clout to keep Badfinger a household name. Their first Warner Brothers album was a mixed bag. It had a few good songs, but it was recorded too soon after their final Apple album, and the band clearly needed more time to recharge their creative batteries. Continuous touring during those couple of years didn’t help matters either, but the boys in the band needed to make some money somehow.
Speaking of money, all four members — Tom Evans, Mike Gibbins, Pete Ham, and Joey Molland — were in somewhat dire straits by this point. An unfortunate decision had been made in 1970 to enlist New York businessman Stan Polley as their business manager. Whatever money the group made over the next few years mostly went into holding companies controlled by Polley, who then conducted a lot of shady business maneuvers. The story is too convoluted to explain here, but the end result was Polley made plenty of money off of Badfinger while the band paid a huge price financially and spiritually.
Anyway, in late 1974, Badfinger released their second Warner Brothers album, Wish You Were Here. Artistically, the album was a huge success. All four members were writing strong material, and the performances were top notch. It deserved to be a hit, and all these years later, it still holds up as one of the best albums of the 1970s.
Unfortunately, after the album was released, some questions regarding missing escrow money — see Stan Polley above — resulted in the album being eventually pulled off the shelves by Warner Brothers mere weeks after its release. Stress and turmoil were already running rampant in the Badfinger camp, and soon after the album was released, the tea kettle finally exploded. Once the dust settled, guitarist and songwriter Joey Molland left the group and keyboardist Bob Jackson had joined.
Soon after Wish You Were Here was released, the band was pressured by Polley to get back in the studio and record a third album for Warner Brothers so that another advance could be sent his way. It’s safe to say that wasn’t the exact way he put it, but that’s the reality of the situation. It would be an understatement to say the band wasn’t recording under ideal circumstances. Not much time had passed since the Wish You Were Here sessions had wrapped up, and now they needed to write and record another album!
Most groups wouldn’t have been able to pull it off, but somehow Badfinger did. In December of 1974, while the previous album was still being promoted by their label, the renovated Badfinger recorded 10 songs and submitted them to Warner Brothers as their third album for the label. Given the title Head First, the tapes were initially accepted by the label in early 1975, but Warner Brothers ultimately rejected the tapes for reasons involving the financial mess that had engulfed the band.
The situation never improved, and as a result, Pete Ham – one of the original members, and the guy who wrote most of those hits just a couple of years earlier – committed suicide on April 24, 1975. It’s very telling that he called out Stan Polley in the note he left behind.
At this point, Badfinger was officially dead as well. Joey Molland teamed up with Tom Evans for a couple of reunion albums a few years later, and various versions of “Badfinger” toured with an original member here or there, but it was never the same. Tom Evans’ suicide in 1983 certainly made it more difficult for what was left of the original group to have any kind of certain future.
As the 1980s plodded along, Badfinger started to get some long-deserved respect. Even though — or because — none of their records were in print, record collectors were paying a decent chunk of change to get their mitts on the music from Badfinger’s glory days. Finally, in the early 1990s, Badfinger’s Apple material was reissued on compact disc, and their two released Warner Brothers albums were eventually issued on CD in Germany and were fairly accessible if you knew of a music store with a decent import section.
Ah, but there’s still the nagging question: Whatever happened to Head First?
Before tackling that question, let’s take a few moments and talk about the album itself. The tapes delivered to Warner Brothers were rough mixes and were meant to secure some sort of cash advance in light of the impending legal troubles on the horizon. Personally, I don’t think this was meant to be a proper album, but rather, the band was hoping to buy some time to spruce it up.
Having said that, the Head First album, despite a couple of throwaway tracks, holds up as a testament to how talented these guys were as songwriters and performers, especially given the terrible times they were experiencing.
Check out the first track — and in a perfect world, their next hit single — “Lay Me Down”:
Pete Ham was a mighty talented songwriter, which makes his eventual suicide all the more heartbreaking. Had it seen the light of day in 1975, “Lay Me Down” could have been the hit single the group had been waiting for since “Baby Blue” made the top 20 in 1972. Ham sings the song with conviction and offers up a brief but tasty guitar solo, and the harmonies are pure Badfinger bliss. It hides the darkness that was slowly creeping up on the band very well.
Ham’s other main contribution to the album was “Keep Believing”:
On the surface, the singer sounds like he’s wishing a former lover the best, and that may very well have been the intention. However, it has been suggested that Ham wrote this song as a parting wish of good luck to departed member Joey Molland. Check out the lyrics:
I couldn’t wish you any bad
I only miss the many highs we’ve had
Our problems made it hard to smile
But I still loved you all the while
I can’t deny that times have changed
I only wish we could have rearranged it
We were the pawns in someone else’s game
Keep believing you can make it now
Keep believing you can work it out
Keep believing you can make it now
Maybe I’m giving Ham too much credit, but I like to think he wrote it to Molland as a fare-thee-well kind of song.
As mentioned before, Joey Molland was a principal songwriter for the group. With his departure, the group had to step up and provide some strong compositions to fill the void. Tom Evans had written his share of material over the past few years and held his own, but the material he provided for Head First was outstanding.
Unfortunately, the Head First version Evans’ “Rock ‘n’ Roll Contract” isn’t available on YouTube, but the lyrics reveal just how aware he was that the group was being taken for a ride by their business manager:
You made me your slave
Whatever God gave me
You took to the grave
Now it’s gone
I gave you my heart
Whatever God gave me
You took to the grave
Now it’s gone
Yeah, it’s gone
The reformed Badfinger re-recorded the song in 1981, but it lacks the ferocity of the Head First version. It’s the definitive anthem for any rock group who has been taken advantage of by people claiming to have their best interests in mind.
Another Evans track that is on YouTube, and in a similar vein, is “Hey Mr. Manager”:
You got no feeling
You been dealing all the wrongs
The lives you’re stealing
Lord I think you should be gone
Hey Mr. Manager
You’re messing up my life
Hey Mr. Manager
Don’t think I need that kind of strife
One might find it a bit monotonous to constantly hear about the business problems a rock group is having, but it helps tremendously that the songs are so well written and expertly performed.
Thankfully, not all was doom and gloom with Evans. He co-wrote a couple of lovely tunes with Bob Jackson and Mike Gibbins, including “Moonshine”:
Hopefully by now you believe that Badfinger still had plenty to offer in 1975 despite the problems the band was facing.
This brings us back to the question: Whatever happened to Head First?
Initially, Warner Brothers shelved the album, and over time, the master tapes went missing. In 1990, Rhino Records issued a compilation of Badfinger’s Warner Brothers material and somehow included four tracks from Head First. At some point after that, a bootleg appeared that contained the entire album, but the recording quality left a lot to be desired — unless you don’t mind hearing what sounds like a 30th generation tape copy of the album, with hiss and dropouts galore.
Finally, in 2000, Snapper Music released all the original Head First tracks — taken from a low-generation tape that thankfully surfaced — along with an extra disc of demos. Unfortunately, it’s been out of print for a while, so it’s now a pricey item unless you’re lucky enough to find a used copy at your favorite CD store.
Whether or not it’s worth the collector’s prices is debatable; what’s a sure thing is that it’s worth checking out. Head First is not the starting point for introducing somebody to Badfinger. That honor falls to the classic albums Straight Up and Wish You Were Here. However, if you’ve digested everything else and haven’t heard the last recordings made with Pete Ham, you owe it to yourself to seek it out.
It’s hard to not focus on what might have been if things had worked out better for these guys, but as a swan song, Head First is a fine farewell. As Pete Ham wrote in “Keep Believing”:
I would have liked for things to last
But now I know the time has floated past
We were the thorns and we became the pain
Keep believing, you can find a way
Keep believing, you can find the day
Keep believing, you can make it stay
