{"id":6886,"date":"2025-03-05T15:53:31","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T15:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=6886"},"modified":"2025-03-05T15:53:31","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T15:53:31","slug":"badfinger-lost-found-head-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shindig-magazine.com\/?p=6886","title":{"rendered":"Badfinger – Lost & Found ‘Head First’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After gathering dust in a Warner Brothers tape vault for 50 years, Head First<\/i> now gets a proper release. <\/span>MICHAEL BJ\u00d6RN<\/span>\u00a0talks to surviving member Bob Jackson about<\/span> the long lost BADFINGER album<\/span><\/b><\/b><\/p>\n

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Nineteen seventy-four was a busy year for Badfinger, but for the wrong reasons. By October, they had already released two albums for Warner Brothers, the record company they had signed with when Apple Records crumbled. The self-titled Badfinger<\/i> unsuccessfully collided with the release of Ass<\/i>, their final album for Apple, and the stellar Wish You Were Here<\/i> became the victim of continuing financial altercations between their manager Stan Polley and Warner Bros.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It was also financial motivations that saw Polley pushing for yet another album as he booked Apple Studios for 11 days in December. That\u2019s hardly enough time to pull yet another album out of the hat, but that was beside the point. <\/span>\u201c<\/span>Stan Polley said, <\/span>\u2018<\/span>Put what you want on it, it doesn’t matter<\/span>,’\u201d remembers Bob. \u201c<\/span>We talked about this as a band and couldn’t see the sense in it. But what could we do?<\/span>\u201d Bob Jackson,<\/span> formerly lead vocalist and keyboardist of hard-rock band Indian Summer,<\/span> had in October replaced main songwriter Pete Ham. Pete had suddenly left due to tensions in the band, but had just as suddenly returned. This had briefly turned them into a five piece for a UK tour with Man, until guitarist Joey Molland instead left, reconstituting them as a four piece. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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With little time to think, they brought together what material they could muster up and entered the studio. However, Chris Thomas, who had been producing them since the Ass<\/i> album, thought it was all to rushed and bowed out. He was replaced by <\/span>Kenny Kerner and Richie Wise<\/span> who had made their names discovering and producing Kiss.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Lack of preparation and time for rehearsals made the recordings chaotic, and rumours about financial wrongdoings were swirling. <\/span>\u201c<\/span>Everyone was discussing these things; all the difficulties about the recording, the knowledge that something was wrong in the management<\/span>\u2026\u201d remembers Bob. \u201c<\/span>The one thing we maintain<\/span>ed <\/span>though<\/span>,<\/span> is we wanted to make a really good job of it.<\/span>\u201d And despite all odds stacked against them, they did. With all excellent Pete Ham demos that since have appeared, it seems the album could potentially have been based on stronger material. But it isn\u2019t easy to think straight under duress<\/span> \u2014 <\/span>and Pete Ham<\/span>\u2019<\/span>s thoughts weren<\/span>\u2019<\/span>t necessarily straight at this point<\/span> anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Still, there is much to like here. The opening track \u2018Lay Me Down\u2019, that <\/span>Pete Ham<\/span> hurriedly put the final touches on in the Apple Studios lounge before recording, should have been a monster hit in any fair world. And the dynamic <\/span>\u2018<\/span>Passed Fast<\/span>\u2019<\/span> co-written by Tom Evans and Bob Jackson is another winner. <\/span>\u201c<\/span>We wanted to make it quite dramatic<\/span>,\u201d comments Bob who was likely influenced by the drama around them at the time. Such influence is also present on his <\/span>lugubrious<\/span> \u2018<\/span>Turn Around<\/span>\u2019<\/span>. \u201c<\/span>It was like look at the terrible place we<\/span> we<\/span>re in<\/span>,\u201d explains Bob. That same place is also visited by Tom Evans\u2019 on the claustrophobic <\/span>\u2018<\/span>Rock <\/span>\u2018<\/span>n<\/span>\u2019 <\/span>Roll Contract<\/span>\u2019<\/span>. \u201cT<\/span>he general feel is a bit doom<\/span>y<\/span> and gloomy<\/span>, lyrically,\u201d agrees Bob. <\/span>\u201c<\/span>Superficially, you think, well, that’s a happy go lucky kind of tune<\/span>,\u201d he continues, referring Evans\u2019 <\/span>\u2018<\/span>Hey Mr Manager<\/span>\u2019<\/span>. \u201c<\/span>But when you listen to the lyric, it’s like<\/span>, \u2018Whoa!\u2019 <\/span>It’s a cry for help.<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sadly, the project was immediately caught up in legal battles with Warner Bros when Polley took the advance that had been placed in an escrow account. <\/span>\u201c<\/span>We were in the middle of it. Our cheques stopped, it really was awful,<\/span>\u201d <\/span>says Bob. <\/span>\u201c<\/span>And of course, that led to the chain of events that led to Pete getting so depressed.<\/span>\u201d <\/span>Pete Ham committed suicide on 24th April, \u201975, and there was no more Badfinger.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Bob Jackson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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For 48 years the master tape was thought lost, and the only available copy of the album was a rough engineering mix that Bob helped get released in 2000. But then he came across remixes on YouTube that implied someone had access to the master. After much wrangling with Warner Brothers, it turned out they had them after all. Stan Polley had told the producers not to mix the master tape in London, but instead bring it back to the USA. \u201c<\/span>They did<\/span>, and <\/span>that was handed in<\/span> to <\/span>Warner B<\/span>rothers<\/span>,\u201d concludes Bob, who now managed to get access to it and also the right to finally mix and release it. \u201c<\/span>I really wanted to make it true to the rest of the Badfinger catalogue,<\/span>\u201d says Bob. \u201cI<\/span>t was a central tenet of mine <\/span>n<\/span>ot to have it step outside.<\/span>\u201d And the result indeed fits in the Badfinger catalogue. It might not be up to the masterful Wish You Were Here,<\/i> but the fact that they could make Head First<\/i> in next to no time with rampant confusion all around them, shows they were still a band at their musical peak. \u201cE<\/span>verything that the band was going through, all the problems and hurdles<\/span>\u2026 <\/span>it kind of brought us together quite quickly<\/span>,\u201d concludes Bob with both sadness and pride.<\/span><\/p>\n