Badfinger They Sold a Million

MAN ON PA: Today is a really important day for this city.

Today is a day we honour one of our sons.

APPLAUSE

In April 2013,

people from all over the world came to Swansea in South Wales to

pay tribute to Pete Ham, an unsung hero of British pop music.

Today I believe is a long overdue event in Swansea.

It's recognising Pete, Pete Ham, and what he did,

not only for Swansea but for the music scene in general.

When we unveil the plaque, we'll honour Peter,

but we put on record that if you are a kid from Swansea,

you can still do something amazing and you can change the world!

Amongst the guests were Pete's partner Anne and his

daughter Petera, who grew up in Glasgow without knowing her father.

This is Peter's daughter, Petera.

It is very emotional for me,

especially when I hear the Welsh accent.

Petera, my daughter, is unveiling the plaque, which is lovely for me,

for her to be doing that.

Although I didn't know my dad, I still feel very close to him

through all of his music and everything my mum tells me about him.

Many people don't get to hear things about their father after

they go, at least I've got his music and I'm just very, very proud.

APPLAUSE

This is the story of Pete Ham and his band, Badfinger.

# No matter what you are

# I will always be with you

# Doesn't matter what you do, girl

# Ooh, girl, with you... #

In a business where tales of rip-offs and shattered dreams

are ten a penny, the story of Badfinger is the stuff of legend.

It is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, I think.

In their short time together,

Badfinger made some truly great music.

# Be a part of it all

# Nothing to see, nothing to say

# Nothing to do. #

They were a highly respected band from the masters at that time.

The band's leader and creative driving force was Pete Ham.

Together with band-mate Tommy Evans, he wrote the classic Without You.

# I can't live

# If living is without you... #

Many people I have worked with since, guys who write songs

that are very successful, to a man they all say,

"I wish I'd have written it."

Most of the stories you ever hear about the band really are all

pretty sombre but there was so much good stuff

and happiness as well, it wasn't all doom and gloom.

# I am a joker, just a joker

# I make people laugh and they see the half that is happy... #

BEVERLEY TUCKER: He kind of felt as though it was his duty

to cheer everyone up, be the joker.

He cared as much for people around him,

more so than he did for himself.

The band started out in the mid-1960s, they originally called

themselves the Iveys after Ivey Place in Swansea where they rehearsed.

Peter was born and brought up on Townhill in Swansea.

The Swansea scene was like Liverpool without the record interest.

You could play seven nights a week, twice on Sunday

if you wanted to, the scene vibrated with energy.

We would play all South Wales down to Pembroke, Pembroke town,

Haverfordwest up to Cardiff, Newport, up the valleys,

then the bigger bands would come in and we would support them.

We supported The Who.

The Yardbirds, the Merseybeats.

The Moody Blues, Pink Floyd at Swansea University.

The only ones we didn't support where the likes of the Beatles

and the Stones, I suppose.

One night in 1966, at the Regal Ballroom, Ammanford,

they met the man who would set them on the road to stardom.

We noticed an elderly gentleman with a moustache and a black corduroy

jacket stopped in his tracks, turned round and stared at us.

Then he came to the dressing room and said, "I like what you do, lads."

"I really think you are a good band, you could go far."

Bill Collins became the band manager and took them

to London to live with him in his house in Golders Green.

Before we moved away, he had a meeting with all the parents

and said that he can't promise anything but hard work

and blood, sweat and tears, I think he called it.

Churchill's...

It was everything it was purported to be in London, at that time.

I am so glad I was part of it.

It was a struggle to start with in the house

because there were two bands living there, he had the Mojos,

which occupied part of it, and we were crammed into the loft.

We used to sleep on camp beds the first nine or 12 months

we were there!

For two years, the band travelled the country gigging solidly.

Whenever they were more at home at Golders Green, Pete spent

every minute in a makeshift studio Bill had put in the house.

It was a sweatbox in there, it was 10x10, a soundproof cube.

Pete used to spend most of the night...

He did most of his songwriting overnight.

It is incredible what he used to put down, and he used to speed up

the guitar solo and slow it down and play it back

and it would sound like Pinky and Perky.

Always experimenting and looking for something new.

Literally at the age of 19 and 20, for a year and a half,

he created all kinds of mini masterpieces with

tonnes of background vocals and it is astounding stuff.

No-one at that time of that ilk was doing anything like what

Pete Ham was, but he was doing it alone in this room.

BEVERLEY: Pete was very shy when I first met him.

It was only after I had known him

for a couple of weeks

that his sense of humour really came out, which...

..was what drew me to him, really.

Pete always found it easier to express his emotions

through his music, so if there was a particular situation,

maybe we'd had an argument or something, his way of

apologising to me or stating his side of the case would be through songs.

The hard work was starting to pay off, but there were changes in the air.

Dai Jenkins was replaced by Tommy Evans from Liverpool who

became Peter's main songwriting partner.

Pete was writing about his life

and the way the world was changing around him.

Knocking Down Our Home was his response to the urban

redevelopment of his hometown of Swansea.

# I heard the news today

# They're going to move us far away

# Seems that our home must go

# They're going to build a motorway. #

The song was one of several demos Bill Collins sent to the

Beatles' record company, Apple. Paul McCartney heard it and loved it.

And The Iveys became the first band signed to Apple.

I suppose you could say it was like all our Christmases coming at once.

Of all the labels to get offered a record deal with, Apple. Come on!

By the late '60s, music and fashion were changing

and Apple felt the band needed a make over, so The Iveys became

Badfinger, named after a Beatles song, Badfinger Boogie.

To help them along, Paul McCartney gave them a song

he'd written for a film called The Magic Christian.

# Make your mind up fast

# If you want it any time I can give it... #

Next thing they knew, they had a top five hit single

and were on Top Of The Pops.

Come And Get It on Top Of The Pops, I think

that was the peak time for Pete and the rest of the members,

the smiles, the excitement is written all over their faces.

It is pure ecstasy.

But one person didn't make it to Top Of The Pops. Ron Griffiths,

who had been with the band from the start and played on

Come And Get It, was replaced by Joey Molland.

My demise from the band was simply because I was married

and it went against the grain.

My little boy Jason was in the house, Tommy would

put his stereo on in the early hours of the morning and wake the baby up.

Maureen, my wife, obviously wasn't best pleased because the baby

was being woken up and it seemed as if I was being edged out.

I wasn't happy about going, certainly I wasn't.

I came up to live in Hemel Hempstead and ended up doing a production

line job at a farm in Hemel, driving to work on a push-bike,

6-2 and 2-10 shift while Come And Get It was in the charts.

# You'd better hurry cos it's going fast. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Next stop - America.

We picked up the tour bus in New Jersey,

and we kicked off in New Jersey.

It was endless, endless,

500 miles a day sometimes on a...

on a Greyhound bus.

Pete had his Super 8 camera running the whole time.

# So listen to my song

# Of life... #

America seeped into Pete's writing and inspired

one of his most powerful pieces of social commentary.

Pete had a very strong sense of justice.

As he saw it, so many in America had so much,

and then there were so many that had virtually nothing.

He found it very disturbing and said,

"There could be a revolution, they must do something,

"and it's up to the youngsters..." the people of our age then,

"..to try and turn this around and make the whole thing fairer."

# There's no good revolution

# Just power changing hands

# There is no straight solution

# Except to understand... #

The first thing people have to do

before they try and do anything about the world

is admit that they've got a lot of faults themselves,

and admit that there is no real perfection.

People get too obsessed with ideals,

the perfect world or the perfect human being,

and there's no such thing.

So all, basically, that song says is realise our imperfections

and talk about them and then try and do something about it.

The band returned to Britain and went into Abbey Road Studios

to record their new album, No Dice.

Hidden away at the end of side one

was a song which would change their fortunes for ever.

The boys had been in the studio for quite a few nights,

and Pete said, "Right, I'm not going in the studio tonight,

"we're going out for the evening."

Just literally as we were walking out the front door,

Tom popped his head round and said,

"I've got an idea for a song, come in the studio."

And Pete said, "No, I promised Bev, we're going out tonight."

I said, "No, it's fine," and he said, "No, I promised you,"

and I said, "Look, I don't mind, I'm smiling."

And he said, "Your mouth's smiling, but your eyes are sad."

# You always smile but in your eyes your sorrow shows

# Yes, it shows... #

As soon as I heard that line,

"You always smile but in your eyes your sorrow shows,"

there were quite a few tears shed.

Pete had got this verse and a chorus that he'd written.

He wasn't very happy with the chorus, and Pete...

And Tommy, conversely, had the opposite thing, you know,

he had this chorus, wasn't very happy with his verse,

and, at Pete's suggestion, said,

"Why don't we just amalgamate these two bits?"

# I can't live

# If living is without you

# I can't live

# I can't give any more.... #

The two songs were joined together, and Without You was born.

A few weeks later, the band were back in the studio.

In the room next door, singer Harry Nilsson was recording his own album.

He called Badfinger in to listen to his new single.

# I can't forget this feeling... #

They were chuffed to meet this fellow,

you know, and Pete did admire him,

he loved Harry's solo records that he had done,

so he said, "Would you come in the studio

"and just listen to this track I'm doing?"

And they were just sitting there listening,

and they're hearing Harry Nilsson covering Without You,

and then you can imagine, when the chorus came in,

everybody struck, I mean...

And he sings that big note, they said they were floored,

they were like pinning themselves against the wall.

# I can't live

# If living is without you

# I can't live

# I can't give any more... #

Immediately, it became a worldwide sensation.

Everybody was covering it - Shirley Bassey, Andy Williams,

Engelbert Humperdinck, Frank Sinatra.

I mean, everybody was covering it or doing it live.

# I can't give any more.... #

They achieved the goal of every self-respecting songwriter

in that they wrote a standard, you know, which is...

I mean, that's up there with White Christmas, isn't it?

George Harrison took an interest in Badfinger,

producing them in the studio

and asking them to play on his own records.

George was particularly impressed with Pete.

Pete was still quite in awe of George

and couldn't quite believe that he was good enough to play with George,

even though everyone kept saying to him,

"He would not ask you if he didn't think you were good enough."

I met George Harrison some years later

and was having a conversation with him,

and he told me how in awe of Pete he was,

and Pete never knew that.

George produced songs for Badfinger's next album,

including the hit single Day After Day.

# I remember finding out about you... #

And on one song in particular,

a slide guitar thing that Pete had come up with,

George was so keen that in the studio

he said, "Look, why don't we just do this together?

"I mean, this would be great double tracked."

So he got really involved - not only in the production,

but also sort of playing on the record.

SLIDE GUITAR PLAYS

George chose Badfinger to be part of his backing band

at the legendary Concert for Bangladesh

at Madison Square Garden in 1970.

Pete was just so excited.

It's one thing going in the studio with George,

but to be on stage with George,

and for George to have asked him, erm...was...

..the highest compliment he could have got from anyone.

By now, Badfinger should have been very comfortably off,

but the money was not coming through to the band.

He was changing for the gig and had on what I thought was a pair of...

I don't know, comic shoes - the soles were coming away,

like the old vaudeville comedians or something like that.

And I said, "Oh, part of the act, do you do a comedy number?"

He said, "No, those are my stage shoes."

I said, "Well, you can't wear those on stage,

"you're the local idol coming back."

He said, "They're the only ones I've got."

Badfinger's eccentric manager, Bill Collins,

had encouraged the band to put their finances

in the hands of an American businessman named Stan Polley.

When the band started to get successful,

Bill kind of got out of his depth.

He did things that he thought were right for the band,

but...they weren't.

# Money... #

I believe that Polley meant well,

although he was a very astute businessman, you know,

he knows all the tricks,

and he told us, he said, "I know all the tricks,

"but if you play ball, I'll play ball,

"and we'll all get along fine, and we'll all finish up millionaires."

He was the archetypal manager with a big cigar

and, you know, "I'm going to take you guys to the stars,"

all that sort of business, and it seemed OK at first.

Polley's first move was to get Badfinger away from Apple Records

and signed up to a new deal he'd negotiated with Warner Brothers.

He dazzled Bill and the band with talk of huge cash advances

and said that, for tax reasons,

the money should be paid into a series of different bank accounts

which he himself would control.

He said, "We'll put it all in a pot,

"and by the time we've reached the end of the album deals,

"you know, you'll all be very rich people.

"But in the meantime, we'll just be on a basic salary, I'm afraid."

And of course, not knowing any better

and wanting to think the best of people,

the band went along with it, you know.

All around New York in a big limo,

and he said, "And it's no good you reading this contract."

It was three inches thick.

But he said, "Basically, you've got to understand..."

And he talked and talked and talked and drummed into my mind

that we had a 3 million deal to make six albums in three years

and, uh...

This was all in the back of a limousine in New York City?

Yeah, riding around in the dark.

# Well, I'm sorry, but it's time to make a stand

# Though we never meant to bite the loving hand... #

Pete was a very loyal guy and didn't want to split away from Apple.

You know, that was like leaving part of the family again.

And I think that was a terrible strain on Pete.

Pete was so grateful for the opportunity they gave him

and his band and he wrote a song called Apple Of My Eye.

How many artists write a song about their record label?

Usually when they're about to leave, they're angry, but that was Pete Ham.

# But now the time has come to part... #

There were changes too in Pete's personal life.

After his relationship with Beverly ended, he had several girlfriends.

He was a man who very much needed to be in love.

Finally, he got together with Anne, and she soon discovered

she was pregnant.

This was heaven for Pete, you know, family man,

and suddenly he was going to have his family

and he'd lived for all these years, you know,

in essentially a bedsit in Golders Green. I mean, that's

what it was, living on very little money, even during all the successes.

# MUSIC: "Matted Spam" by Badfinger

# Can you feel the change?

# It's coming

# Can you feel it?

# Yeah... #

Pete set up a home with Anne in Weybridge, Surrey,

just a mile down the road from Tommy Evans and his wife Marianne.

He was just a lovely, lovely guy.

Beautiful nature, you couldn't have asked for a better partner,

he was so kind, loving.

He wanted to be left alone to go out and play his music but he was...

You have to be hard to be in the music business

and Pete was not like that at all.

Pete was very happy, you know,

he wanted to do loads of stuff with the house.

Everything seemed OK until the cheques stopped coming.

The cash advances from Warner Bros had disappeared.

So too had Badfinger's American manager, Stan Polley.

Loyal and trusting to the end,

Pete refused to believe Polley was ripping them off.

Then Warner Bros sued the band for the return of their money

and Badfinger were effectively shut down by their own record company.

I remember myself, Tommy

and Pete going to the management companies in London saying,

"Look, we're in this terrible situation and we'd really just like

"to continue our career, we just want to play."

And the companies were sort of saying,

"Well, who are you with?" And we'd mention the set-up

and they'd say, "Well, when you get out of that, come and see us."

We could have written all that off if we could have just

carried on and started again, do you know what I mean?

But it was difficult to start again.

MUSIC: "Hey, Mr Manager" by Badfinger

# Hey, Mr Manager

# You're messing up my life

# Hey, Mr Manager

# Don't think I need that kind of strife... #

Pete felt like he was a big brother.

When life got in the way and things happened with Pete

and he took a step back and looked at where his life was going,

he thought, "I'm letting everybody down."

He'd have a smile on his face

but he put cigarette...stubs out on his hand. It was like self-harm.

Yeah, I mean, this shows the extent to which he was burning

up inside, really. I mean, he felt awful, obviously.

And he played me some tapes...of new stuff.

One song really kind of stuck with me, it was a song called Ringside.

# Take a seat by the ringside... #

# MUSIC: "Ringside" by Pete Ham

# Watch them scrapping for your blood... #

If you listen to that lyric, it's such a sad thing

because he's likening his situation to, yeah,

gather round at the ringside and watch me going down.

# I can't bear to feel the sorrow

# Of the evil that you've shown... #

Pete had been making these calls to try

and ascertain what was happening at the American end, could never get

through to Polley, but in the end, one guy worked there,

Stan Poses, who had a bit more of an empathy with us.

He spoke to Pete and, unfortunately, he revealed that...

He basically said outright that yeah, Stan Polley isn't very wholesome,

he's not a good person, he is ripping you off.

He said all the things that Pete didn't want to hear, really.

It was the last straw for Pete.

All he'd ever wanted to be was a musician.

Now, he felt that everything he and the band had worked for had

come to nothing.

He went to see Tommy.

They went for a few drinks at the pub,

drowned their sorrows a little bit, I guess.

Tommy drove Pete back to his house and Pete got out and said,

"Don't worry, mate, I've got a plan.

"I know what to do.

"I've got a way out of this, don't worry. Bye."

Later on in the morning, there was

this panicky phone call from Anne and she spoke to Marianne

and Tommy and said, "There's something awful happened,

"something terrible."

So, Tommy rushed round there

and found Peter hanging in the garage.

Pete was just 27 years old.

He left a suicide note which read,

"I will not be allowed to love and trust everybody. This is better.

"PS, Stan Polley is a soulless bastard. I will take him with me."

Anne returned to her home town of Glasgow and five weeks after Pete's

death, she gave birth to their daughter who she called Petera.

People had said to me after it, "It was terrible what he did,

"leaving you with the baby." I could never say that.

I wish I could but I could never say that about Pete

and I know that he wasn't himself when he did that.

The doctor had explained to me that his mind had probably just gone.

I understand that Polley, who had actually taken life insurances

out on everyone, was trying to cash in a policy on Pete, you know.

Even after this terrible event,

he was still trying to make money on it somehow, you know.

Meanwhile, Pete's band-mate

and best friend Tommy Evans was slowly falling apart.

When he died, Tommy didn't have anybody he could talk to,

write songs with, his other half was gone so he felt lost and lonely.

Many times he said, "I want to be there where he is."

Everything went wrong for Tommy as well - tax problems,

taxman after him, somebody sued him for five million -

so everything just collapsed.

Tom tried really hard after Pete died.

He kind of tried to make it better, not just for him

but for Pete, but they got set back after set back.

Eight years after Pete's death, Tommy also hanged himself.

I was angry with Tommy when he took his life.

Too many people had gone through enough with Peter's death

cos you don't tend to bury friends before you're 30.

One's...one's bad enough.

Two's too many.

MUSIC: "Coppertone Blues" by Pete Ham

It all happened a long time ago but for those who lived through it,

the story of Badfinger, the friendships and the music, live on.

# No matter what you do... #

Now, it's time for a new chapter to be written.

On the 20th of August, 2013, Petera gave birth to Pete's first

grandchild, who she called Luca William Ham.

# No matter what you are

# I will always be with you

# Doesn't matter what you do, girl

# Ooh, girl, with you. #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd