Without You-The Tragic Story of Badfinger: A Book Review Ba

Badfinger performs at the original Cavern Club 

Badfinger with George Harrison 

Harry Nilsson with Pete Ham and Tom Evans (writers of Without Out)

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. 

https://amzn.to/3TfAKYl

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Cavern Days

 

Meeting Debbie

photo taken by Linda (Eastman) McCartney 

 

Paul McCartney met Debbie on October 25, 1968 at the Cavern Club.  I met Debbie on April 1, 2023 in New Jersey.   

One more time at the Cavern

 August 3, 1963

Classic McCartney

 

Cavern Rehearsal

January 30 or 31, 1963
 

The best way to spend your lunch break

 January 11, 1963

Last night at the Cavern for 1962

 December 16, 1962 

Back from Hamburg

 

Have you all seen these Cavern photos?  I did not locate these photos.  I have been seeing them a lot on Facebook and I just took them from there. 

What the fans are saying is that the shots had to have been taken after The Beatles returned to Liverpool from Hamburg in 1961.  Things to notice is that they are wearing regular shirts but leather pants.   Their hair is starting to grow out, and George is playing his Futurama guitar.  

Beatles rehearse at the Cavern

 August 22, 1962

Lunchtime at the Cavern

 August 7, 1962 

Last show at the Cavern

 August 3, 1963 

I wonder what was on John's mind when this photo was snapped. 

Polythene Pat Remembers

 

Polythene Pat Remembers

By Mike Evans

Written in 1974

 

The longest-standing Beatles fans in the world are an elite of Liverpool girls who followed them on their first gigs around the local jive hall circuit.  They sent them letters (and got replies!) during their long stays in Hamburg and wept as success snatched “the boys” away forever.  Most of these original fans are now in their late twenties and early thirties, but they’ve remained loyal to the group who once chatted to them between sets, leaning against the Cavern coffee counter.  One such devotee is Pat Dawson, now a working mum but then schoolgirl Pat Hodgetts.  She recalls clearly the first time she saw The Beatles.

“A girl friend dragged me down to a lunchtime session at the Cavern to have a look at this funny group.  We went basically to have a laugh – and there they were, all black leather and greasy.  They still had their hair like Teds, that was before John and Paul went on holiday to Paris and had theirs cut flat.  George’s was still greasy for some time after that.”

As their local following on Merseyside mushroomed – a year or more before their first single – a sort of class structure emerged between the original fans like Pat who were on first-name terms with the group and the newcomers who swelled the ranks at gigs but tended to gawk rather than talk to The Beatles.

“They (The Beatles) would come into the Cavern, go down the bandroom, then come back to the coffee bar and chat to us all.  I think the main thing was there was a hierarchy of people who’d been watching them a lot time, and they were quite matey with us.  They used to pull birds from this group, but when the newer fans arrived they were already beginning to get “distanced”.  The older fans tended to like them for their music, and as fellas in the personal sense, whereas the newer ones liked them because they were Beatles.  This was long before they made records or anything, but they were already a big bult thing in Liverpool.  It wasn’t like seeing people who were stars, you still saw them as a bunch of lads you might get off with.”

Pat accumulated a vast collection of early Beatles’ memorabilia much of it consisting of family snaps “bootlegged” by the fans.   “There was a fantastic trade in snapshots – as opposed to publicity photos of the group – that the girls themselves gook, or make got off a friend of a friend of George’s cousin or something like that.  I’ve still got one of George sitting on the dustbin in his backyard.  I used to plague the life out of Mike McCartney for photos.

What a lot of us would do, if we couldn’t afford to travel to a gig AND pay admission, would be to go anyway just to watch them arriving and leaving, and listen through a window or stage door.  When they arrived we’d act as if we just happened to be there, nothing to do with The Beatles being on.”

 

The all-night queuing outside the Cavern, and the week-long queue for one of The Beatles’ welcome home from Hamburg gigs, have become legendary.

“There was a night when five or six of us huddled in the Cavern doorway to get a good seat for the show the next night.  IT was really dark in Mathew Street, and the police used to check every hour or so to make sure we were okay.   Anyway, this car was creeping up the street, we couldn’t see it wasn’t police, and when it got alongside a voice said “What the hell are you all doing here?”  It was Ringo and Paul!  We told them we were waiting to see them and with a “Y’must be bloody mad,” they were off into the night.  Half an hour later they were back with hot pies and tea for us all from the all-night stall at the Pierhead.”

Such was the premium on a seat in the front row – although gradually the “old” fans like Polythene Pat as she was then known (Polythene Pam?  Who knows?) had to compete with a growing following of new faces.

“The lads used to play the Death March when people fainted in the front row.  Mind you, that was when they got a bit famous and there were new people in the front row they didn’t recognize.   I remember before their final Hamburg trip there was a feeling at the lunchtime session that it was one of the last times we’d see them like this.  ‘Love me do’ had been a minor hit, and there was a certainty in the air that they were about to happen and John sang ‘To Know Him is to Love Him.’  And when he finished the group could feel sadness in the audience.  Instead of fooling around into the next number like usual, they were fumbling and looking at each other.  Everyone was just numbed.”

“The night Bob Wooler announced as they were going onstage that ‘Please Please Me’ had reached number one, it was awful because the reaction was the opposite to what they expected.  Everyone was stunned.  That was the end of it as far as we were concerned. 

Good rockin' at the Cavern

 April 1962 

Rehearsals at the Cavern

 

January 30 or 31, 1963 

Lunchtime at the Cavern

 January 11, 1963 -  Just another lunchtime concert at the Cavern Club.   

Get Back Observations: Maureen loves The Beatles

 

Get Back Observation #3:  Maureen Starkey loved The Beatles.

Maureen was one of the original Beatle fans.   She would go to the lunchtime Beatles performances at the Cavern Club to see The Beatles perform.   She was a 15-year-old girl and had a crush on the new Beatles drummer, Ringo.   Maureen wasn't any different than any of the other Cavern girls.   She got there early and tried to get in the front to see The Beatles.   She hung around outside the Cavern and got Ringo's autograph at one point.    She was one of the earliest Beatles fans.

Photo by Astrid Kirchherr

In time, Ringo asked her to dance at the Cavern and the two began to date.  As we all know, Maureen and Ringo were married and eventually had three children together.   

In the "Get Back" film, we see Maureen a few times.   One of the times happens to be the day that George quits and Paul jokingly tells her to learn a few chords over the weekend and she will be in the band.   It was also on that day and during the million and one discussions about where to have the final concert for the film.  One of the places mentioned that day was the Cavern Club.   The only voice you hear when that idea was tossed out, was Maureen with an enthusiastic "yeah!"    She loved the idea of seeing her favorite band back where she first saw them. 

The performance is on the roof of 3 Savile Row and Maureen is one of two Beatles wives that watch the performance.  You get the idea that she was not going to miss it.   It was cold and supposedly she gave her red jacket to her husband, but Maureen was rocking out the entire time.   Yoko looked pretty miserable on the rooftop.  John even asks her when it is done, if she was alright.   I think Yoko was cold and was not having fun.   Maureen was the complete opposite sitting next to her.   She was shaking her head and smiling the whole time.    The one song that she REALLY got into was "One After 909."  I realized that this was not a new song to her.   The Beatles performed "One After 909" at the Cavern Club.   I think that while they performed that song, Maureen was taken back a few years earlier to when she was 15 and at the Cavern.   However, she did not have to fight her way into the front seats -- she had the best seat in the house.     Of the people that witnessed the rooftop performance only two people -- Mal Evans and Maureen Starkey had also seen The Beatles perform at the Cavern in Liverpool. 

I'd always known that you could hear Maureen cheering at the end of the last "Get Back," and Paul says, "Thanks Mo!" to her.   However -- I just didn't realize how much she enjoyed the entire performance and that she wasn't Maureen -- wife of Ringo Starr during that show, but Maureen -- original fan of The Beatles. 

I purposely posted this today, December 30, in remembrance of Maureen.