Badfinger - Ungano's Club, New York City, 11-25-1970

When I first posted this album of a bootleg Badfinger concert, I called it "Somewhere in New York, 1971," because that was the best guess information I had on where and when it took place. However, a couple of commenters suggested that it's more likely to have taken place at the Ungano's Club in New York City in November 1970. It so happens I already had posted a Badfinger bootleg concert that took place at Ungano's on November 24, 1970. But my new best guess is that this one took place at Ungano's a day later, on November 25, 1970. I'll explain why shortly. But even though the two concerts have extremely similar set lists, both are worthy of hearing, in my opinion, due to the extreme rarity of live recordings from this band with this level of excellent sound quality. In fact, I'd say this one sounds slightly better than the November 24th one I've already posted.

This bootleg has been in the public domain for a while, but it was little noticed because the sound quality was poor. However, Lil Panda found a much better source. This has to be at least tied for the best sounding live Badfinger recording, in my opinion. In fact, it's such a clean soundboard that there's almost no audience noise to be heard, except after a couple of songs. In fact, with some of the songs ending with no applause whatsoever, I suspect that some of the recordings were stopped as soon as the song ended. However, a good amount of banter between songs is here. So the lack of any crowd reaction for many songs is kind of a mystery to me. Another possibility is that they played at a small venue with an indifferent crowd. But I find it hard to believe that there would be total silence after the last song they played. Anyway, weird though it is, it helps make the recording that much more pristine, almost like this was a practice concert done in a studio.

Now, let me get back to the mystery about when and where this was recorded. Apparently, the recording was poorly labeled, with the only info that it took place somewhere in the state of New York at some point in 1971. It turns out the band only played four concerts in New York in 1971, and all of them were in the month of May. So I originally went with that information. But after getting comments suggesting otherwise, I dug a little deeper. I couldn't find any definitive proof of anything. However, I took a close look at the band's set lists from 1970 and 1971. Set lists varied, but by 1971, the set lists included some new songs, so this is much more likely to be from late 1970.

Is it from the Ungano's Club, and if so, when, exactly? That's harder to say. What is known is that Badfinger played Ungano's three nights in a row, on November 24th, 25th, and 26th, and probably did two shows each night. This was a very pivotal series of shows for them, because it took place in New York City, and many members of the press sent reporters to review them. It was such a big deal that on one of the nights, even former Beatle George Harrison unexpectedly showed up. He introduced the band at the start of their set, then stayed for the whole concert. Afterwards, he met the band backstage and presented them with a bootleg recording of the concert that he'd just made with a tape player he'd brought with him.

Now, some commenters suggested that this in fact was the exact same concert recording at the November 24th one. That's not the case. While the set list was exactly the same until near the end of the set, I've compared the two, and the songs are different, and the banter is different. As an example, in the other recording, "Feelin' Alright" lasted eight minutes, and in this one, it lasted 12 minutes. I also don't think either of these recordings are the one made by Harrison. For one thing, both of them sound too good to be audience boots. For another, he only taped one show, and we have two probable soundboard recordings. My best guess is that because the Ungano shows were so important for the band, with media attending, someone had the good idea to make soundboard recordings of them.

But hey, it's quite possible I'm wrong. I hope time will tell. Also, some people have labeled this as being from November 25th, so I'm going with that. (Most likely, it was the late show.) But it's possible it's from the 24th or the 26th. It also would make sense if both were from the same night, since obviously the recording equipment was working for at least one set. But a further wrinkle is that my post of the November 24th concert includes one song, "Johnny B. Goode," that is said to be from November 25th, and is also a soundboard recording. So it's probable at least two nights were recorded with that level of quality, if that song is indeed from the 25th. (I considered moving that song here, but I ultimately decided not to change that other album, since all these dates are only best guesses anyway.)

On a different note, the last two songs are not from this concert. They come from an appearance on the German TV show "Beat Club" in February 1970. I've included these because I didn't have a better spot for the Beat Club songs (I didn't want to put them on my BBC albums because they're very similar versions to songs on those). Plus, these two songs were not played in the main New York concert here. It was especially glaring to me that they didn't play "Come and Get It" in the concert, since that was a Number One hit for them. But apparently they didn't play it in concert much during this time period because is was written by Paul McCartney and they didn't want to be known as a "one-hit wonder" of someone else's song.

This album is 42 minutes long. The New York concert without the last two songs is 37 minutes long. 

UPDATE: On November 12, 2023, I changed the title of this album, but not the music. As mentioned above, I realized this most likely took place at the Ungano's Club in 1970. So I had to change the title, the cover art, and all the mp3 tags to reflect that.

01 My Dark Hour (Badfinger)
02 Midnight Sun (Badfinger)
03 talk (Badfinger)
04 Better Days (Badfinger)
05 talk (Badfinger)
06 Blodwyn (Badfinger)
07 talk (Badfinger)
08 We're for the Dark (Badfinger)
09 talk (Badfinger)
10 Feelin' Alright (Badfinger)
11 I Can't Take It (Badfinger)
12 No Matter What (Badfinger)
13 Rock of All Ages (Badfinger)
14 Come and Get It (Badfinger)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15931648/Badfngr_1970_UngnosClubNewYorkCity__11-25-1970_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from a screenshot I took of an appearance on the British TV show "Top of the Pops" in 1971. (Unfortunately, it was a lip-synced performance or I would have wanted to do something with the audio.)

Badfinger - Performance Center, Cambridge, MA, 3-31-1974

This is fun. I've never been able to post both the opening and headlining act from the same concert, but that's what I'm doing here. I just posted the opening act, Big Star. And now here's the headliner, Badfinger. Kudos to the promoter who put the two most influential and even legendary power pop bands on the same bill.

The story behind this recording is almost exactly the same as that of the Big Star recording. They were both recorded by the same taper. But although he only recorded the Big Star early show, he recorded both the early and late shows for Badfinger. 

Both Badfinger sets have nearly the exact same songs in the same order, except for the encores. I took a close look at both and decided the late show was recorded slightly better. Perhaps the taper stood in a better spot near the stage or something like that. Whatever the case, I've only included the late show here. However, the last two songs, "No Matter What" and the song cover song "Only You Know and I Know" are from the early show, because they were only played then. Also, the talk in the first track is from the early show.

Just as the Big Star recording remastered by the person nicknamed Captain Acid, so did the Badfinger recording. But, also like the Big Star recording, the lead vocals were rather low, so I further edited all the songs using the audio editing program UVR5. I think it sounds significantly better. Also, I made additional changes to improve the clarity of the banter between songs.

Speaking of the banter, some of it is extremely strange. Early on, there are a couple of cases where whoever is speaking says a bunch of nonsense words. So it's not that you can't understand due to the recording; it's that there's nothing intelligible to understand. There was a comment made by the emcee during the early show, and not included here, about the band being drunk. So maybe that explains the strange banter. But if they were drunk, I didn't hear it negatively impacting the actual playing of the songs. 

This recording is very welcome due to a severe lack of live Badfinger recordings with worthy sound quality. There are some BBC recordings, which I've posted at this blog. And there's a 1970 concert at Ungano's Club in New York City, which I've also posted here. But that's about it, and they're all from 1970 to 1973. Whereas this is from 1974, with a different set list.

There is one official live album from 1974, but boy is it a mess. It's called "Day After Day - Live," and it comes from a concert given in Cleveland on March 4, 1974. But in the late 1980s, one of the surviving band members, Joey Molland, messed it up. He changed the song order to put his songs at the front. He rerecorded his vocals and guitar parts. He even inserted himself with some banter between songs that wasn't there before. But, worst of all, he replaced the drums with overly loud 1980s-styled drumming. He basically made that album unlistenable, in my opinion.

The good news is, because this concert is from the same month, the set list is nearly the same. Plus, this is twice as long, with more songs. The only song from that messed up live album not here is "The Name of the Game." And the sound quality is good enough so you can easily throw that album away and replace it with this.

Badfinger wasn't particularly known for rocking hard, but they rocked hard at this concert. Especially near the end, some of the songs are seven, eight, or nine minutes long, with lots of jamming. It's different from their carefully produced album versions, but I like it.

This concert is an hour and 21 minutes long. That makes this the only good sounding live recording from the band that I know of that's longer than an hour.

01 talk (Badfinger)
02 Day After Day (Badfinger)
03 talk (Badfinger)
04 Constitution (Badfinger)
05 talk (Badfinger)
06 Baby Blue (Badfinger)
07 talk (Badfinger)
08 I Don't Mind (Badfinger)
09 talk (Badfinger)
10 Perfection (Badfinger)
11 Timeless (Badfinger)
12 Love Is Easy (Badfinger)
13 talk (Badfinger)
14 Blind Owl (Badfinger)
15 Suitcase (Badfinger)
16 I Can't Take It (Badfinger)
17 Give It Up (Badfinger)
18 No Matter What (Badfinger)
19 Only You Know and I Know (Badfinger)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15215640/Badfngr_1974_PerformnceCentrCmbridgeMA__3-31-1974_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find any good photos of Badfinger in concert in 1974. But I found a nice one from 1973. This photo comes from a performance on "The Midnight Special" TV show in February 1973. In the original, there were a bunch of mirrors behind the band. I thought that made the picture look overly crowded and confusing. So I used Photoshop to replace the mirrors with the same dark background elsewhere in the picture.

Badfinger - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Golders Green Hippodrome, London, Britain, 8-10-1973

This is essentially a continuation of my last post (Badfinger's "In Concert at the Paris Theatre"). As I said in that, there's only one good official live Badfinger album, called "BBC In Concert." But it's taken from two concerts, and I think it works better as two albums. So here's the second part, taken from a concert professionally recorded by the BBC at the Hippodrome in London in 1973.

But it's not that simple. The actual Hippodrome part is only 29 minutes long, which is rather short for an album. I wanted to use this (and the other live Badfinger album I just posted) to gather all the remaining live Badfinger in excellent sound quality that I didn't post already or are repeats of songs. So I've fleshed this out with four songs recorded for a short-lived British TV show called "Set of Six," plus another song played on the TV show "The Midnight Special" in 1973.

I haven't changed the songs at all, but I've edited the crowd noise after the extra songs to make it sound like they all came from the same concert. Some of those extra songs had no audience noise at all, or only a few seconds before the recording came to a sudden halt. So I reused crowd noise from other songs, but edited them to remove specific noises making it obvious that it was a repeat.

The end result is an album that's 46 minutes long. One benefit of splitting the BBC album in two is that it's okay to have some repeats between this album and the Paris Theatre one I just posted.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any good live Badfinger recordings after 1973, until the band fell apart in 1975.  There is a popular bootleg recorded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1974. But the audio quality was too poor to interest me, even as bonus tracks.

By the way, the recording of "Day After Day" was missing about the first 30 seconds. So I found a different version of that song and patched that in. You can probably hear the transition if you listen for it, but I figured it was better to do it that way than just having the start of the song missing.

01 Day After Day (Badfinger)
02 Sweet Tuesday Morning (Badfinger)
03 Take It All (Badfinger)
04 Better Days (Badfinger)
05 No Matter What (Badfinger)
06 Love Is Easy (Badfinger)
07 Blind Owl (Badfinger)
08 Constitution (Badfinger)
09 Icicles (Badfinger)
10 Matted Spam (Badfinger)
11 Suitcase (Badfinger)
12 I Can't Take It (Badfinger)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15124388/Badfngr_1973_BBSessionsVolume3InConcrtGoldersGreenHippodrome__8-10-1973_atse.zip.html

I made the cover art using a photo of the band playing on the British TV show "Top of the Pops" in 1973. (I assume the recording of that performance is either lost or was a lip-sync to a record.)

Badfinger - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 6-8-1972

I'm trying to improve the problem of Badfinger live recordings. There are only two official live albums of the band in their early 1970s prime, and one ("Day After Day") is best forgotten. (It was a bad recording to begin with, and horrible 1980s drums were added to it, among other problems.) The one good live album, "BBC In Concert," has its own issues, but I'm going to try to fix them with this post and the next one.

"BBC In Concert" is largely based on two concerts recorded in front of audiences for the BBC, one at the Paris Theatre (which is located in London, not Paris, by the way) in 1972, and the other at the Hippodrome (also in London) in 1973. The songs all sound great, since these two shows were professionally recorded and played on the radio by the BBC. The only real problem is that it should be two albums, not one. So I've split them up. Here's the first one.

The vast majority of live Badfinger bootleg material sounds poor to awful. I've already posted two albums here, one of a soundboard quality concert in 1970, and the other of actual performances in the BBC studios with no audiences.

Aside from those, and the live BBC album, it's pretty slim pickings in terms of sound quality. But by splitting the BBC album in two, I ended up with two rather short live albums that had room for some bonus tracks. So Ive added the few unreleased live songs recorded in high quality that aren't repeats. I've added two songs to the start of this album, from another 1972 concert.

The result is an album that's 44 minutes long. The album I've made of the rest of "BBC In Concert" ends up being about the same length.

01 No Matter What (Badfinger)
02 Sometimes (Badfinger)
03 Better Days (Badfinger)
04 Only You Know and I Know (Badfinger)
05 We're for the Dark (Badfinger)
06 Sweet Tuesday Morning (Badfinger)
07 Feelin' Alright (Badfinger)
08 Take It All (Badfinger)
09 Suitcase (Badfinger)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15124311/Badfngr_1972_BBSessionsVolume2InConcert_ParisTheatre__6-8-1972_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I found some photos of Badfinger playing at the BBC in early 1972. I think it was one of the times they lip-synced to their songs, not this show. The photos happened to include four good close-ups of each band member, so I've put four photos together for the cover.

Badfinger (The Iveys) - Out of the Cold - Non-Album Tracks (1967)

I'm psyched to be able to share this. As I said in another post, I only recently discovered just how good Badfinger is by looking beyond their officially released albums, and this is an Exhibit A example.

From their start around 1964 until the end of 1969, and right before they made it big, Badfinger was known as the Iveys. They released one album in 1969, called "Maybe Tomorrow," but then put the best songs from it on the first Badfinger album in 1970, called "Magic Christian Music." But did you know there's a second officially released Iveys album from 1967? And that it's even better than their 1969 one?

If you don't know that, it's because it's only partially true. An album's worth of Ivey's song from 1967 has been officially released, but those songs have been spread over four albums, released decades later. All I've done here is put the songs from them all together. Three of the albums are various artists collections of previously unreleased songs related to Apple Records, with the Iveys being the best known artist on any of them. The fourth is an album that comes with a book about the band, called "Without You - The Tragic Story of Badfinger." So these are about as obscure as official releases can get while still technically being released.

And that's a shame, because the songs here are really good! I'm surprised, if not shocked. I had assumed based on how the Iveys/Badfinger didn't release anything until one single in late 1968, followed by a mediocre album in 1969, that the group didn't really hit their stride until they began putting out music under the Badfinger name in 1970. But, in my opinion, this album shows them with a lot of very good songs in 1967, that are well produced, played, and sung. (All the songs here are originals.) In hindsight, I don't see why the band wasn't able to release an album in 1967 when so many lesser bands managed to do so.

At the time, and well into 1969, the Iveys/Badfinger played virtually all covers of hits in their concerts, probably because that's what pleased the crowds. But we now know that behind the scenes, the band was working on their songwriting at a furious pace. The band had multiple talented songwriters, and their chief songwriter Pete Ham has over 50 demos of original songs from 1966 and 1967 alone that have been officially released by now, and only a couple of those are the same songs (but different performances) as the songs on this album. So the band could have released a couple of albums a year in the late 1960s, with ease. I had no idea!

These songs are technically considered "demos," but they sound like fully developed band performances to me. One song here, "Taxi," was even produced by none other than Ray Davies, leader of the Kinks, way back at the start of 1967, when the Iveys were total nobodies. The sound quality is pretty good, although a few songs are slightly muffled. "Taxi" probably is the most noticeable case of that, no doubt due to the original recording being lost rather than bad production from Davies.

I've looked at Internet comments about the 1969 Iveys album, and one common criticism (that I agree with) is that it sounds "twee" or even "wimpy." Many of the songs are ballads, heavy with strings, and have a kind of dated "toytown" sound to them. These 1967 songs are surprising also because they're different. They're generally all upbeat and poppy, and sometimes slightly psychedelic.

Only one song here would be saved for later records: the last one, "Knocking Down Our Home." Different versions of it would appear on the 1969 Iveys record "Maybe Tomorrow" and the 1970 Badfinger album "Magic Christian Music." But this version is produced very differently, much more simply, and I far prefer this version. There are no strings on this album as a whole, maybe for budget reasons, but I think it's a big plus. In retrospect, that 1969 Iveys record probably was overproduced, especially with lots of strings.

I'm still trying to sort through the oodles of Badfinger-related demos and other stray tracks, which number well over 100 songs. But in the meantime I figured I'd post this, since the songs are all of a piece, and together they make up an album that's 42 minutes long. That would have been an ideal album length for the era.

01 I'm Too Shy (Badfinger)
02 Tube Train (Badfinger)
03 She Came Out of the Cold (Badfinger)
04 I've Been There Once Before (Badfinger)
05 Black and White Rainbows (Badfinger)
06 Girl Next-Door in the Miniskirt (Badfinger)
07 Tomorrow Today (Badfinger)
08 Mr. Strangeways (Badfinger)
09 Bittersweet Adieu (Badfinger)
10 How Does It Feel (Badfinger)
11 Taxi (Badfinger)
12 Take Good Care of My Baby (Badfinger)
13 Clown of the Party (Badfinger)
14 Knocking Down Our Home (Badfinger)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15124666/Badfngr_1967_OtoftheCold_atse.zip.html

I had trouble coming up with a cover for this album. I wanted to use the name "Badfinger," but that name didn't even exist in 1967, so I reluctantly went with "The Iveys" instead. I also wanted a psychedelic cover, since it was 1967 after all, while also showing the band. But the only band photos I could find from the time were black and white ones of the band members just standing there. So I found some art nouveau styled framing and stuck a photo it that, since art nouveau was a big influence on psychedelic art, and it seemed more in keeping with the Iveys/Badfinger music.

Badfinger - Ungano's Club, New York City, 11-24-1970

I had long been under the impression that there is no good Badfinger live music to listen to other than the two short concerts documented on the official album "BBC In Concert 1972-3." There's another official live album called "Day After Day," but it's a sonic abomination. Starting with a poorly recorded concert from 1974, one of the surviving band members tinkered with it until it was basically unlistenable, especially by dubbing in thumping loud drums, 1980s style, that had no business being there. Avoid that album at all costs.

Unfortunately, there aren't many Badfinger concert bootlegs to begin with, and nearly all of them are audience recordings of middling to poor sound quality. However, I've found one startling exception, and that's this concert. It's a quality soundboard with very little audience noise.

There's an interesting story behind this particular show. In November 1970 when it took place, Badfinger had had a number one hit with "Come and Get It." But that had been written by Beatle Paul McCartney, and it wasn't yet clear if the band would be a one-hit wonder or if they had talent to be a significant band on just their own merits. Their great album "No Dice" had only been released earlier in the month, but it hadn't made much of an impact yet, as the first single from it, "No Matter What," was only starting to climb the charts. (It would reach the top ten in Britain and the US in January 1971.)

As a result, Beatle George Harrison decided to take it upon himself to help promote them a little bit. (Keep in mind they were signed to the Beatles' record label Apple Records.) He showed up at this concert (with his wife Patti Boyd) and sat at a table in the front of the small club. Then, to start the show, he got up on stage and introduced the band with a few kind words. After that, he returned to his prominently located seat. According to a reporter who was there, "For a while, most people watched George Harrison watch Badfinger, then everyone noticed how good Badfinger were, good enough to draw attention away from a former Beatle."

So that's a fun tidbit. Unfortunately, Harrison's introduction isn't recorded here. Badfinger played two sets that night, with nearly identical set lists, so it could have been from the other set. But also, the band played Ungano's the next two nights, two sets each night, so he could have done the introduction at one of those times.

The setlist mostly consists of originals. But there are some notable cover versions too: "My Dark Hour" (a Steve Miller Band song that Steve Miller co-wrote with Paul McCartney), "Feelin' Alright" (by Traffic), and a medley of "Love Me Do" (a Badfinger original, not the Beatles song) with three Little Richard songs - "Lucille," "Rip It Up," and "Long Tall Sally." There also was a version of Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven" to end the show, but I haven't included it since the recording of it abruptly got cut off after only one minute.

Additionally, I've added two bonus tracks of sorts, because they're songs from other concerts. "Johnny B. Goode" comes for a soundboard of a concert at the same club, but one night later. (As far as I know, that concert hasn't been made public other than this one song, but the set lists are otherwise identical anyway.)

"Walk That Road" is a more interesting case. That song also comes from a soundboard recording just four days later. This concert also hasn't been made public, even as a bootleg, aside from this one song. In 2016, it was announced that an official album of this show would be released soon. It was called "Raw and Unrestrained," and was going to be released that June. But time has passed and the album hasn't been released yet, so it probably isn't happening. As far as I can tell, "Walk That Road" is a Badfinger original that hasn't been officially released in any form. It might even have only been played in concert a few times, or just the one time. (Some of the lyrics to the Carl Perkins song "Matchbox" are included towards the end of the song.)

By the way, the set list of that show from four days later (at the Palladium in Birmingham, Michigan) is almost identical to this one. In addition to "Walk That Road," the band also did "Crimson Ship" and "Rock of All Ages" that night, but they didn't play "Johnny B. Goode" or "Roll Over Beethoven."

If you're wondering "Why should I listen to Badfinger live?" then "Walk That Road" is a good example of why. This is not the Badfinger you usually hear on their studio albums. What really strikes me is what a talented lead guitarist Pete Ham is. And that shows up on other songs too. For instance, "Feelin' Alright" is turned into a eight-minute long guitar solo showcase. The band is able to bring their excellent vocal harmonies to the concert, but they also play their instruments with talent and energy.

01 My Dark Hour (Badfinger)
02 Midnight Sun (Badfinger)
03 Better Days (Badfinger)
04 talk (Badfinger)
05 Blodwyn (Badfinger)
06 talk (Badfinger)
07 We're for the Dark (Badfinger)
08 Feelin' Alright (Badfinger)
09 I Can't Take It (Badfinger)
10 No Matter What (Badfinger)
11 Love Me Do - Lucille - Rip It Up - Long Tall Sally (Badfinger)
12 talk (Badfinger)
13 Suitcase (Badfinger)
14 Johnny B. Goode (Badfinger)
15 Walk That Road - Matchbox (Badfinger)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15931737/Badfngr_1970_UngnosClubNewYorkCity__11-24-1970_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I was able to find a couple of photos of the band playing at the actual concert. But they all are in black in white. I also was able to find the exact photo of the official album that was going to be released on a concert just four days later. I decided to use that instead. However, I made some changes to it. Obviously, I had to change the text, due to it being about a different concert. Also, I found the exact font text and color for the "Badfinger" name, and pasted in a much bigger version, since I thought it looks better that way.

Finally, in 2023, I updated the cover. I used the new program Palette to convert it into color.

Badfinger - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1969-1970

I've been a Badfinger fan for a long time, but I must admit that it's only recently since I got into them on a deeper level. I had assumed that their official studio albums contained all their best stuff. But that's not true: they have a wealth of interesting outtakes, demos, and live performances.

So once I realized this, one thing I wanted to investigate is what sort of BBC performances they'd done. There's an official album that's quite good called "BBC in Concert 1972-3," But it's Badfinger playing two concerts which got played over the BBC. That's not the same thing as a band like them playing songs in the BBC studios with no audience to muddy the sound. Only one song from the official album, "Come and Get It" was actually recorded at a BBC studio session. It's likely that was tacked onto the album for fear that it didn't have enough of their big hits on it otherwise.

I dug deeper and found out that Badfinger did play live at the BBC a bunch of times, starting in early 1969 when they were still known as the Iveys. (They changed the band name from "The Iveys" to "Badfinger" at the end of 1969, but to reduce confusion I'm just calling them "Badfinger" for everything they did.) Many of their BBC performances have been bootlegged, and they did a lot of really interesting cover versions. But unfortunately, the sound quality is really poor for most songs, too poor for me to want to have them in my collection.

I kept digging though, through lots of bootleg sources, and eventually I was able to find an album's worth of BBC performances that actually sound good. This album is the result. In 1969, Badfinger were a bunch of nobodies. They'd released a single that failed to make the charts, and then in 1969 they put out an album that also failed to make the charts and apparently was next to impossible to even find in the stores. So when they played concerts they had to rely heavily on covers to keep audiences happy, and that's reflected in the songs they played for the BBC that year.

The Badfinger of 1969 is probably not what you'd expect, based on their later records. They were rocking and even soulful at times. Here are some of the BBC performances I couldn't find in good quality that can give you an idea of the kind of music they were playing at the time: "River Deep, Mountain High," "Revolution," "Drive My Car," "Needle in a Haystack," "Summer in the City," and "Proud Mary." (You can find of all of those and more on bootlegs if you don't mind the muddy and distant sound quality. Beware though, they sound pretty bad!)

However, I was able to find some cover songs of that type: "Respect" (Aretha Franklin), "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" (The Animals), "Just One Look" (Doris Troy), "The Way You Do the Things You Do" (The Temptations), "You Can All Join In" (Traffic), "Up on Cripple Creek" (The Band), and "Birthday" (The Beatles). Furthermore, I found one obscure cover they did I really liked, "Surrender Your Love," originally done by the British girl group the Carrolls in 1966. But the sound quality is subpar, so I've only included it as a bonus track.

While doing all those covers, they also tried to include their own songs, playing more as they grew in popularity in 1970. There are eight of those (although one, "Come and Get It," was written for them by Paul McCartney). I'm pretty sure the song "Someday" is a Badfinger original that has never been officially released in any form. But if someone is a huge fan of the group and can confirm or deny that, please let me know.

In a couple of cases, I had to edit out the annoying BBC DJs talking over the beginnings or ends of songs. But I've used the X-Minus sound editing program to wipe out the talking while keeping the underlying music. Those four songs have "[Edit]" in their names.

I was pretty selective about the sound quality for these songs, so you don't need to be a Badfinger fanatic to want to listen to this. These don't all sound pristine, but they're of the same level as official BBC releases by other 1960s bands. 

This album is 40 minutes long.

UPDATE: On May 27, 2022, I updated the mp3 download file. I added the song "Birthday." I'd previously heard this only in terrible sound quality, but I stumbled across a version that sounds decent enough for inclusion (though still not great). I also found a better version of the bonus track "Surrender Your Love," but still not quite good enough for it to be more than a bonus track.

I also added "Volume 1" to the album name, in keeping with the other BBC sessions I've posted by other artists. (There are two later BBC albums here, live concerts from 1972 and 1973.)

01 Respect (Badfinger)
02 Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (Badfinger)
03 Just One Look (Badfinger)
04 Maybe Tomorrow (Badfinger)
05 The Way You Do the Things You Do (Badfinger)
06 Birthday (Badfinger)
07 You Can All Join In (Badfinger)
08 Rock of All Ages [Edit] (Badfinger)
09 Midnight Sun [Edit] (Badfinger)
10 Someday (Badfinger)
11 Up On Cripple Creek (Badfinger)
12 Come and Get It (Badfinger)
13 I Can't Take It [Edit] (Badfinger)
14 Believe Me [Edit] (Badfinger)

Surrender Your Love (Badfinger)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15124320/Badfngr_1969-1970_BBSessionsVolume1_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I was able to find a photo of Badfinger at the BBC studios (specifically their TV studio) in early 1972. That's not ideal, since it's later than any of the performances here, but they were the same four guys then as they were in all their 1970 performances on this album.