(((O))) Review: Badfinger – Head First: 50th Anniversary Special Edition

“Badfinger is basically the classic rags to riches story with a Shakespearean ending”. The late, great expert Dan Matovina details the history of Badfinger’s career from an episode of the band’s history on VH1’s Behind the Music, says it all 24 years ago. The music of Badfinger is beautiful, tragic, loss of innocence, drama, and the songs that they wrote during their golden years from 1969 to 1974, hits home.

Whether its ‘Come and Get It’, ‘No Matter What’, ‘Baby Blue’, ‘Day After Day’, or ‘Without You’ which would later be covered by a powerful performance by Harry Nilsson from his seventh studio release, Nilsson Schmilsson in 1971. The songs still hold up many years later from their previous releases Magic Christian Music, No Dice, and Straight Up from their Apple years.

Let’s set the scene. It is 1974, Badfinger were working on a follow-up to their sixth studio album Wish You Were Here which was originally released on the Warner Bros. label the same year. The album achieved fanfare during that time. But the clouds were beginning to turn dark, grey as they were heading into the Beatles’ Apple Recording studios at Savile Row studios in London.

By this point, Joey Molland had quit the band during that time frame whilst Keyboardist Bob Jackson replaced him. Before he joined up with Badfinger, Bob started out with his first progressive rock band called Indian Summer which they released their only sole self-titled debut album on RCA’s sublabel Neon Records on March 12th, 1971.

But then in 1972, he became the keyboardist with John Entwistle’s band Rigor Mortis, followed by a support for Eric Clapton’s comeback tour. And then, joining up with Badfinger. When you listen to Head First, you get a sense of what could’ve been the next big thing.

This isn’t the first time that Head First has been reissued before. The first time that the lost album was released, was back in 2000 on the Artisan Recordings label which was a part of the label group Snapper Music. The original release contained former Beatles engineer Phil McDonald’s rough mixes of the album on the first disc, followed by demos and bonus track the band were doing during those two weeks when they were in the recording studios on the second disc.

Now in 2024, which marks the 50th anniversary of the lost album, is getting the proper recognition it well deserves. With a re-discovery of the original multi-tracks, it gave both Andy Nixon and Bob Jackson a chance to go back and remix the album from the tapes to give Head First, a massive comet soaring through the skies with incredible sights and sounds.

From the moment ‘Lay Me Down’ starts the album off, it takes you back to a place where you can imagine this song being played on any top 40 radio stations in the States and seeing Pete Ham laying down those ascending vocal lines and chorus to Badfinger’s golden years. But its Tom Evans who lays down the gauntlet by putting on his platform boots for a foot-stompin’ detail of the music business with the Glam-Rock puncher with nods to the Raspberries on ‘Rock N Roll Contract’.

Ham’s heartfelt slide down into the unknown on ‘Keep Believing’, feels like a continuation where he had left off during the No Dice-era on ‘Day After Day.’ It has that McCartney-sque arrangements that keeps the essence of the Beatles flown through the arrangements. By this time, you could feel the pain and struggle Pete was going through during the time the album was in the works.

‘Moonshine’ resembles the band going into Jeff Lynne’s territory, paying homage to the Electric Light Orchestra with Jackson’s gentle keyboard work and Gibbins drum patterns flowing through the sky which speaks of an earlier beginning of ‘Telephone Line’ from A New World Record, followed by a good-old country orientation with the band singing ‘Rockin’ Machine’ outside of England around a campfire with their acoustic instruments before the future will hopefully have brighter days in the years to come in the ballad ‘Passed Fast’.

It is a dramatic and heartfelt work that Jackson and Evans had written together, followed by an incredible guitar work Ham puts his heart and soul into the composition. The band also tackles one of Jackson’s progressive orientations ‘Turn Around’ which goes back to his Indian Summer days in 1971. Badfinger going prog-rock? Well, why not? You can’t just be a power-pop band, 24/7. You want to try something different besides the classics that they’re known for.

Not only it has essence of Indian Summer, but the sounds of obscure bands such as Gravy Train, Raw Material, and a darker version of Leaf Hound’s ‘Freelance Fiend’ rolled into one. The reflection of time seers through the echoing vocals of both Ham and Evans, and the cymbals that Mike Gibbins does. It flows through Jackson’s keyboard on the 2024 version of ‘Savile Row’, reflecting the loss of innocence.

You can almost imagine Bob fighting back tears, going through the motions on his electric keyboards, knowing that their spirits are watching over him, letting him know “You got this, finish this album for us. This is exactly what we want. We’ve got your back”. It’s a sombering farewell and filled with atmospheric beauty to close out the album.