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| Badfinger performs at the original Cavern Club |
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| Badfinger with George Harrison |
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| Harry Nilsson with Pete Ham and Tom Evans (writers of Without Out) |
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| Mal Evans with Kathie Molland |
Many books are called "The Tragic Story," but I think the story of Badfinger truly deserves those words. In reading the book Without You: The Tragic Story of Badfinger, I really realized just how tragic it was for these Apple music recording artists. It was a long book, and while I knew how the story ended, I kept waiting for things to get better. It never did -- things just get worse and worse.
Badfinger (originally called The Iveys) started out as a band during the height of The Beatles but never tried to be like them. However, because they caught the attention of Mal Evans and got signed onto Apple Records, plus Paul McCartney wrote their first hit song, they were constantly compared to The Beatles. They HATED it. As much as they loved the Beatles and appreciated everything they did for them, they quickly were tired of answering questions about the Beatles and being treated as 2nd-rate Beatles.
That didn't stop them from associating with the Fab 4. George Harrison especially appreciated Badfinger and asked them to perform at Bangladesh and on All Things Must Pass. It Don't Come Easy was first offered to Badfinger before it was given to Ringo (can you imagine anyone but Ringo singing that song?)
But even with hit songs for themselves, concert tours all over the world, and a #1 song for Harry Nilsson that they wrote -- Badfinger could never make it big. They were always broke. They were mismanaged and lost money. Joey Molland's wife, Kathie, was the cause of a lot of issues for the group. The drummer, Mike, left the group for a while, and they had another drummer until they got Mike to come back. Promises were made to them that never happened. Egos seems to get in the way. Badfinger should have been a lot bigger than they were. And it all lead up to the sad death of Pete Ham and later Tom Evans.
The book was very interesting, and I read a lot about the group that I never knew. I didn't think it painted Joey Molland in a very good light, but then again, it didn't paint much of anyone in a good light. The Badfinger story is messy, and the author did a good job of telling the story in spite of the difficult subject. I thought the book was longer than it needed to be, but that might be because the chapters were long. I don't like to stop reading in the middle of a chapter, and that might be why it felt like such a long book. This book was written in the early 2000s, and it is now outdated in some parts, but overall, it was an interesting book.
Song Title should be "Without You," not "Without Out."
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