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Health & Fitness

The "Other" John Lennon

The world is aware of the message of peace that John Lennon promoted. Few know of his fellow Apple Records star who echoed the same call.

“There is no real perfection…… There'll be no perfect day……
Just love is our connection……….. The truth in what we say”

Peter Ham; “Perfection”

From the Badfinger album, “Straight Up”, 1972; Apple Records

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The late 1960’s and early 70’s has often been dubbed “The Hippie” or “Peace & Love” generation of the United States.  True enough.  Chart-topping, politically-tinged songs from recording artists such as The Byrds, The Mamas & The Papas, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, and countless others echoed the youth call for peace, brotherhood, and love.  This period also coincided with Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have A Dream” speech and call for integration.  In 1971, John Lennon released his classic anthem of this genre, “Imagine”.  The lyrics of this masterpiece captured the foundation and goal of the world peace movement, and resulted in Lennon being rightfully crowned as the quintessential visionary of the on-going “world without war” dream.  Lennon’s tragic assassination in 1981 only enhanced his legacy.

Coincidentally, during the Beatles Apple Records years of the late 1960’s, they signed an obscure band from Wales by the name of The Iveys, who later changed their name to Badfinger.  The creative genius of the band was guitarist/pianist Peter Ham, who also was the main song-writer.  Badfinger landed four Billboard Top Ten hits while with Apple:  “Come and Get It”, “No Matter What”, “Baby Blue”, and “Day After Day”, the last three of which were written by Ham.  The band’s pinnacle achievement however, was a collaborative effort by Ham and bass player Tom Evans, “Without You”, which the band had recorded and included on their 1970 album “No Dice”.   However, it was American singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson who heard and fell in love with the song and recorded his own version of it, resulting in a Grammy Award for him in 1972.  Badfinger became smoking hot and with the backing of the Beatles and Apple, seemed destined for rock stardom.  They toured the United States on four occasions in the early 1970’s in support of their albums, and like many of his musical contemporaries, Ham was emotionally troubled by the stark contrasts in the working class and living conditions that he witnessed in the US.  He and Lennon, whose bands shared the same recording studios and production company, had very similar traits. An honest and trusting person by nature, Pete could neither understand nor accept why people of all walks of life could not love and care for one another.  These personal convictions, though admirable, would ultimately result in the destruction of Badfinger and the deaths of both Peter Ham and band-mate Tom Evans.

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The dissolution of Apple Records in 1973 coincided with Badfinger’s need for professional management representation, which they received (or so they thought) in American businessman Stanley Polley.  Polley’s stable of recording artists at the time included Al Kooper and Lou Christie.  He immediately negotiated a multiple-album, multi-million dollar recording contract for the band with Warner Brothers.  In 1974, Polley took advantage of the band’s trusting nature and lack of legal guidance.  The contract the four members of Badfinger signed was rife with legalese which essentially funneled all of the band’s earnings to Polley.  Modest monthly salaries for each member were to be distributed while the majority of monies were controlled by Polley for future disbursement.  Unfortunately, within months of this arrangement being consummated, Polley stopped paying the band and pilfered over $100,000 from a Warner Brothers escrow account, resulting in Warner halting distribution of the band’s most recent album and suing Badfinger.  Calls and correspondence to Polley went unanswered. Unable to tour, bereft of record-selling proceeds, and their personal savings depleted, the group, especially Ham, became deeply despondent.  On the night of April 24, 1975, after discussing their financial duress with best friend and fellow band member Tom Evans for hours at a pub near their respective residences, Pete returned to the home he shared with his fiancee, Anne Herriot, who was eight-months pregnant with their first child.  Anne found Pete the next morning, hanging from the rafters of his attached garage/recording studio, a suicide.  Pete was just three days short of his 28th birthday.  He left behind a note which read in part, “I will not be allowed to trust and love everybody.  This is better.  P.S.  Stan Polley is a soulless bastard.  I will take him with me.” 

Badfinger quickly dissolved upon the death of Ham, despite several attempts to later resuscitate it collectively and later independently by Evans and guitarist Joey Molland. Following Ham’s death, Evans and Molland had maintained an on-going dispute over the band’s royalties for “Without You” as well as other monetary issues.  Tom was particularly despondent after Pete’s suicide.  In the years ahead, fighting bouts of depression and more financial challenges, Evans struggled to move on minus his best friend and song-writing partner.  His wife, Marianne reflected later, “Tommy would often say ‘I want to go where Pete is.  It’s got to be a better place than down here’.” On the night of November 18th, 1983, Evans and Molland had a particularly bitter row during which Tom threatened Joey that he was going to kill himself that night.  Molland scoffed at the suggestion.  The following morning however, Tom’s six year old son, Stephen, discovered his father hanging from a willow tree in the backyard of their home.  Tom Evans, like his friend Pete Ham eight years prior, committed suicide by hanging.  He was just 36 years of age.  Upon receiving the phone call informing him of his brother’s death, David Evans expressed little surprise. “When I heard the news about Tommy, I knew exactly what had happened.  He was never the same after Pete’s death.  It devastated him.” 

Few people are aware of the saga that is Badfinger, and the tragedy that befell Pete Ham.  Like his idol, contemporary, and Apple Records stable-mate, John Lennon, all Pete wanted from life was to impart peace, truth, love, and understanding.  Too, like Lennon, he died prematurely and tragically, but their message continues to breed through their music, which in the eyes of their fans, is indeed “Perfection.”

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