Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Song of the Day-Suitcase

Badfinger was a classic Powerpop band, whose career was sadly truncated by the early deaths (suicide by hanging) of main songwriters Pete Ham and Tom Evans. Badfinger was left in the hands  of lead guitarist Joey Molland who leads some form of Badfinger today (remaining surviving member Mike Gibbins who I was personally acquainted with died early of a heart attack about 5 years ago). Like Bob Dylan, "Joey Molland's Badfinger" tours pretty constantly, usually the summer package oldie circuit being the place to find them. Badfinger's legacy has not been necessarily well served by Joey who has cluttered the CD bins with questionable re-recordings of classic Badfinger hits.

Badfinger had a truly star-crossed career full of missed opportunities and mismanagement (one former manager, Stan Polley, stole a million dollars from the band, causing Warner Bros records, who required the funds to be kept in escrow,  to pull all current Badfinger product from the shelves.) Their classic albums, "Magic Christian Music," "Straight Up" and "Ass" on the Apple label were unavailable in any format for years.

Yet the tunes still live on! And "Suitcase" from the "Straight Up" album was one of Joey's best, a standout track on there most popular and strongest release. A record that didn't have a bad cut.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the opportunity to hear this song again, Mark. Been a very long time.

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