Pete Ham (April 27, 1947 — April 23, 1975) was born in one of the rougher areas of the port city of Swansea, Wales, the third of three children. A very active, adventurous, and moody youth, his biggest passion in life as a boy was music — his father was a fan of big band music and his older brother played the trumpet. Ham began playing the mouth organ at age four and then turned to the guitar, at which he became extremely proficient, in the '50s. He got his first guitar in 1959, and in the early '60s formed a trio, called the Panthers, with two friends, playing the music of the Shadows, Cliff Richard's backing band. The group later became a quintet and began using other names, including the Black Velvets and the Wild Ones. Members came and went around Ham, and one of the new additions in the early '60s was bassist Ron Griffiths (born October 2, 1946), whose earliest musical inspirations included the Shadows and the Ventures. The group, with Ham, Griffiths, and guitarist Dai Jenkins at its core, eventually settled on the Iveys, after a street in Swansea, and also as a tribute to the Hollies, not to mention their appreciation of the American song "Poison Ivy."

In 1965, Mike Gibbins (born March 12, 1949) became the Iveys' drummer. Gibbons, a very powerful player, helped push the band to a new level of proficiency and by the end of the year, the group was being booked as an opening act for local appearances by the likes of the Who, the Yardbirds, the Moody Blues, and the Spencer Davis Group.

By 1966, they had a new manager in Bill Collins and were based in London, where they continued to make a name for themselves, both as a regular backing band for vocalist David Garrick and in their own gigs. It was Collins who encouraged the members of the Iveys to write their own songs — Ham proved the most proficient of the quartet at this, with Griffiths a distant second. By 1967, various record companies and producers, including Decca, Pye, and CBS, expressed an interest in signing them.

That same year, Jenkins left the band and was replaced by Liverpool-born Tom Evans (June 5, 1947 — November 19, 1983). Evans had been playing with a band called Them Calderstones, an R&B-based band whose main influence was Motown. The group was now one of the top outfits to come out of Wales, equally good at loud rock & roll and lyrical pop numbers, harmonizing Hollies style or rocking out '50s style, and the members were writing an ever-growing body of originals. This was the group that auditioned for the newly formed Apple Records label in 1968. First Mal Evans, the Beatles' longtime roadie — and a friend of the Iveys' manager — took up their cause, followed by Peter Asher, the head of A&R for the label. Finally, they attracted the attention of Paul McCartney.

The group's history at Apple was seldom a smooth one, despite their talent and the very favorable contract that they were offered. Somehow, between the disorganization that seemed to characterize the company's operations from day one and the sheer breadth of the group's talents, a suitable debut single proved very difficult to arrive at. They were too good at too many different sounds, and almost too flexible in their musical attitudes for their own good.

A debut single was selected in late 1968 in the guise of a Tom Evans original, "Maybe Tomorrow." The record never became a hit in England or America (though it charted very high in Holland and Germany), but the label did follow it up with an LP. Unfortunately, the Maybe Tomorrow album was something of a blown opportunity. Once one got past the title-track and a couple of other decent rock songs, it was top heavy with novelty tunes that sounded like resurrected '30s pop numbers. This error was a result of many problems: Neophyte producer Mal Evans, who lacked the confidence to assert any judgment, a manager who liked those old-style numbers, and the group's inexperience. The album passed with barely a ripple, never getting out in America and scarcely making it out the door in England, though it did get released in Germany, Italy, and Japan. The record's near-suppression had nothing to do with artistic objections, but rather, with the internal turmoil that Apple was going through at the time.

The group's fortunes were rescued by Paul McCartney, who brought them a song he'd written called "Come and Get It," all as part of the proposed soundtrack for a movie called The Magic Christian. They ended up with a number four British hit single and a number seven hit in America, with comparable sales throughout most of Europe; they were now the most successful group ever signed by the Beatles, the problem being that they weren't an intact group at the time of the release. Ron Griffiths, whose girlfriend had given birth to their child in early 1969, quit the group midway through the recording of the music for The Magic Christian.

More than a lineup shift was in the offing. The band used the opportunity to change their name, which had proved to be source of confusion thanks to the presence of an older and better established group called the Ivy League. The new name, Badfinger, came from the working title of the Beatles song "With a Little Help From My Friends," "Bad Finger Boogie." It beat out such suggestions as the Glass Onion and the Prix (which came from John Lennon, who surely hoped it would be mispronounced frequently).

Tom Evans switched to bass in the course of recruiting a replacement member. After trying (and failing) to recruit Hamish Stuart out of the Marmalade, the group found Joey Molland (born June 21, 1947), a Liverpool guitarist who had been associated with a group called the Masterminds, the Fruit Eating Bears (the backing group for the Merseys), and had been playing with Gary Walker. He joined the newly christened Badfinger just in time to play gigs in support of the release of Magic Christian Music, an LP assembled from the songs from the movie, augmented by remixed versions of the best songs from the Iveys' Maybe Tomorrow album.

The new lineup was the strongest yet, after some sorting out and Evans getting accustomed to working with the bass. Ham and Evans were already seasoned songwriters who proved themselves able to write songs to order when they worked on The Magic Christian. That score gave a good look at what this band could do and, apart from McCartney's "Come and Get It," what they could compose. "Carry on to Tomorrow" was a Crosby, Stills & Nash-style harmony number with a high haunt count, while "Rock of All Ages" was greeted by some listeners as one of the best original British rock & roll numbers since the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There."

Gibbons had begun composing as well, and then along came Molland, who was a formidable songwriter in his own right. They developed a much harder rocking, more solid sound, and suddenly Apple Records found itself with more than just a hot rock act in their midst. During 1970-1971, Badfinger, on top of their own commitments, played on many Apple-associated sessions. Ham, Evans, and Molland had key roles in projects associated with George Harrison, including singles such as "It Don't Come Easy" and the album All Things Must Pass, and at the Concert for Bangladesh. They also worked on John Lennon's Imagine album. Amid all of this activity, the group also recorded what the group believed to be their best album, No Dice, which yielded one classic recording, "No Matter What," as well as an original song, "Without You," by Ham and Evans, that was turned into a monster worldwide hit by Harry Nilsson.