Sad news reaches us that the last original member of Badfinger – guitarist Joey Molland – died over the weekend, aged 77.
According to the band’s Facebook page, Molland passed away on Saturday (1 March) surrounded by his partner Mary, his sons and other family members. It’s known that he hadn’t been in the best of health. Mary had launched a GoFundMe fundraiser before Christmas after he had a bacterial infection due to diabetes – his health insurance didn’t cover the physical and occupational therapy he needed.
“Thank you, Joey...for keeping the band's music alive for so long and for being a friend to us all,” the Facebook post concluded.
Badfinger made their name as one of the few successful bands to sign to The Beatles’ Apple label. Their first album was the soundtrack to the Ringo Starr/Peter Sellers movie The Magic Christian and their first UK hit Come And Get It was gifted to them by Paul McCartney, after his bandmates turned it down for inclusion on Abbey Road.
Later the band played the Concert For Bangladesh that was organised by George Harrison and Molland himself contributed guitar to a number of classic solo Beatle tracks, including Lennon’s Jealous Guy and I Don’t Want To Be A Soldier and several tracks on Harrison’s All Things Must Pass album.
Badfinger's best-known song was a ditty named Without You, which had been an album track on their 1970 set No Dice, but as repurposed by Harry Nilsson quickly became a standard. Nilsson’s version was a worldwide Number one, as was Mariah Carey’s cover when it released in the mid-1990s.
By then, both its songwriters had left this earthly realm. Badfinger’s story will always be shadowed by tragedy – vocalist/ guitarist Pete Ham committed suicide in April 1975 after he had been told the band had been swindled out of all their money by their ‘manager’, the fraudster Stan Polley.
Eight years later, his co-writer Tom Evans hanged himself after a bitter argument with Molland about the royalties relating to Without You.
The band continued on and off in various iterations down the decades. Molland was still touring as recently as last summer when it seems ill health finally forced him off the road.
