Badfinger for the Singing Postman

November 19^th – They do say that no one is ever prepared for it; fame, that is. No matter how much the soon-to-be-famous prepare for it, no matter how many times the handling-of-adulation scenarios are played out in the head, in the vast majority of cases it always catches people off-guard with the fickle, rapid and brutal changes it makes to a person’s life. It would seem there’s no magic path to walk that will allow general survival either, certainly not in the first stages of fame and these are the risky times, the watch your step times, the times when its all too easy to miss one’s footing and come crashing down. And it isn’t made any the easier by the fact that, in the majority of cases the obstacle that causes the downfall has been laid by people inhabiting the shadowy periphery of fame; you really are swimming with sharks. The dealers who want to peddle; the girls/boys who just want your bodily fluids, the franchisers who just want your signature…you are just a commodity, an extension to their own agenda and they rely on fame’s bus principle; miss one and there’ll always be another one along in a few minutes. Let’s take two seemingly different ends of the fame spectrum, dissect them and find the similarities.

Alan Smethurst, born this day in 1927, was a painfully ordinary chap with no history and no pretensions of ever becoming anything even vaguely near becoming famous. Bullied at school and blessed with a questionable appearance, certainly if the beautiful people of pop mantra that’s constantly being chanted by the fashion and music industry is to be believed anyway; until he got picked up by the music industry giant, EMI that is. Billed as The Singing Postman Mr. Smethurst was thrust from the quiet backwater that was Norfolk (although he was a Lancashire lad) where he worked as…yup, you’ve guessed it, a postman! The music industry is nothing if not pragmatic, transparent and shallow. Have You Got A Light, Boy (pronounced and written up as, Hev Yew Gotta Loight, Boy) was a major hit for Mr. Smethurst and he was swiftly swallowed up by the machine as they churned out EP’s, LP’s and singles by him and marketed his country-credentials as part of his charm.

These country-credentials however made him a vulnerable and bemused star and his discomfort at coping with live performances and appearances was assuaged by booze; beer then later scotch being the preferred route to becoming comfortable numb. He did OK out of the record sales, certainly enough to keep the alcohol flowing…right up to the point where he checked into a Salvation Army hostel, broke but carrying a gift from the largesse of pop; an alcohol problem. He died aged 73 in this same hostel which was located in the glamour capitol of the UK, Grimsby. Cause of death was a heart attack and it’s certain sure that the booze accounted for some of that organ’s discrepancies in keeping on keeping on. Blimey, to travel all that distance along fame’s highway to the stars and wind up there… in a Sally Army Hostel; some journey, huh?

Be careful what you get into.

Badfinger had everything going for them and my guess is they knew they were going to make it. In the business since the very early 60’s they knew how to hustle and how to work the game, but my guess is nothing, nothing they could have imagined would have prepared them for the eventual outcome. Badfinger had been around the major acts of the time (Spencer Davis Group, The Who, Moody Blues) as a support act and when they were picked up and signed by Apple and endorsed by none other than The Beatles they felt ready to take on the world. Hit records followed (Come and Get It written by Paul McCartney, No Matter What and Baby Blue) and they prepared themselves for some of that largesse mentioned above that fame would bring…and they waited…and waited.

Legal wrangles, counter-claims and management fuck-ups all took their toll on the band’s health, wealth and temper, at one stage causing Badfinger guitarist, Joey Molland’s wife, Kathie to say at a band meeting;

What is it with this? The band’s got hit records and management deals and yet we still haven’t got a fridge and a TV?

(Gosh, I’ve heard that statement in different guises over and over again in this oftentimes shitty business).

Bad deals and questionable financial practices just compounded things and band tensions were inevitable, as was the eventual acrimonious breakup. On April 24^th 1975, Pete Ham, the band’s singer/songwriter hanged himself; his suicide note concluded with;

…PS. Stan Polley…

the band’s manager with a much admired professional reputation but possessing very questionable financial practices

…is a soulless bastard. I will take him with me.

Now the dream was well and truly over. Badfinger dissolved leaving all they had worked for and expected lying around them in tatters. After this further unpleasantness’s took place including continued legal wrangling all leading up to the oft quoted financial difficulties which caused the sales of much-loved guitars and various kit and memorabilia in order to stay afloat on a purely bread-and-milk basis. No amount of forward planning could have prepared them for this outcome and I can only imagine the acute bewilderment, anger and loss a sense of self they must have felt when they surveyed the charts rebounding with their hits as they pawned their treasured items.

On this day in 1983 just 8 years after the suicide of Mr. Ham, Tom Evans, the band’s guitarist/songwriter committed suicide by hanging. It would seem he never got over Mr. Ham’s death, and the continued arguing and bad blood both within and between the band and its various sessions of being fucked-over by business partners and managers took a deep and unrecoverable toll on Mr. Evans. His wife said of him;

He went to see Pete’s body and he said to me, ‘I want to be where Pete is. It’s a better place than down here’.

Them as deserve it never get it, so it seems. Be careful what you wish for.