as@brunix.UUCP (Alex M. Stein) (10/06/84)
<There is no real perfcetion...>
Yes, the song is "Day After Day" and, since Badfinger is my favorite musical
entity in the universe, I thought I'd pass on some information:
The Ivies were an English group thought to be Apple Records' best bets (not
including the Beatles). Mal Evans, the Beatle's Road manager discovered them
and got Paul McCartney to listen to a tape of theirs. McCartney promptly
changed the group's name to Badfinger, after McCartney's original title for
"With A Little Help From My Friends" ("The Badfinger Boogie"). The group
consisted of: Pete Ham (vocals, guitars, keyboards), Tom Evans (vocals, bass),
Joey Molland (vocals, guitar, keyboards, looking exactly like Paul McCartney),
and Mike Gibbons (drums).
The Beatles all tried to help push Badfinger over the top. Their first
success was McCartney's "Come and Get It," written for Ringo's movie "The Magic
Christian." They also backed up Ringo on his "It Don't Come Easy"
single, played at George's Concert for Bangladesh, and on John's "Imagine"
album. They enjoyed several other hit singles ("No Matter What," "Baby Blue,"
"Day After Day"), before leaving Apple Records. Harry Nillson had a huge hit
with his recording of Badfinger's "Without You" in 1972. The group worked with
producers like Geoff Emerick, Chris Thomas, George Harrison, and Todd Rundgren.
When Badfinger left Apple, lawsuits and injunctions prevented them from
following up on the success of "Day After Day." By the time all the legal
problems were settled, momentum was lost forever. The group's manager
embezzled a tremendous amount of money, and Warner Bros. yanked their best
album out of the stores two days after it was released. The band broke up
in 1975. Less than a week later, Pete Ham, who wrote most of their best
(and best-known) songs, killed himself. Molland went on to form a horrible
group called Natural Gas. Mal Evans was to have produced Natural Gas, but
instead he got himself killed in a shoot-out with police in Los Angeles.
Tom Evans spent his time installing carpets in California.
In 1979, Molland and Evans reformed, resurrecting the name Badfinger to
record "Airwaves." They made the mistake of trying to recapture their old
sound and the record sounded fluffy and lightweight. Two years later, "Say
No More" featured a more coherent sound that built on the past without
attempting to simply recreate it. Tom Evans killed himself shortly before
Christmas of 1983.
DISCOGRAPHY:
THE IVIES: *The Ivies Apple Records, 1968
SOUNDTRACK: The Magic Christian Commonwealth/UA, 1969
BADFINGER: *Magic Christian Music Apple, 1970 (w/"Come And Get It")
**No Dice Apple, 1970 (w/"No Matter What,"
"Without You")
**Straight Up Apple, 1972 (w/"Day After Day,"
"Baby Blue")
Ass Apple, 1974
*Badfinger Warner Bros., 1974
**Wish You Were Here Warner Bros., 1975
*Airwaves Elektra, 1979
**Say No More Radio Records, 1981
NATURAL GAS: Natural Gas Private Stock, 1975
JOEY MOLLAND: *After the Pearl Earthtone, 1984
Most of these records are long out-of-print. You can find them sometimes in
used record stores and sometimes in Cut-out bins.
*Recommended
**Highly Recommended
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"I can't forget this evening Alex M. Stein
Or your face as you were leaving Brown University
But I guess that's just the way the story goes..." brunix!as