This Day in History: Welsh singer and songwriter Pete Ham from the group Badfinger was born on this day in 1947. Ham committed suicide in 1975 at the age of 27, and band-mate Tom Evans committed suicide in 1983. These two suicides were linked to their manager Stan Polley who defrauded Badfinger, and destroyed their finances. Pete wrote in his suicide note that he was taking Stan Polley's soul with him to hell.
Badfinger was the most successful band on the Beatles Apple record label and you may have heard their hits "Baby Blue", "No Matter What" and "Come and Get It."
Many bands at the time were getting screwed over by record companies and managers. Tommy James, David Bowie, The Who, the Stones, Queen, John Fogerty, Jimi Hendrix, and The Small Faces/Humble Pie all suffered through bad managers.
Les McKeown died recently. His band, the Bay City Rollers, sold 120 million records. Yet, the band members left the group penniless. They had to get regular, menial jobs afterwards.
Let's not forget Elvis Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker who took 50% of everything Elvis made, an outrageous amount.
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