Nearly 50 years after his untimely passing at the age of 27, Pete Ham is still giving the world beautiful music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The iconic singer and guitarist for the beloved Welsh\/English band Badfinger was a prolific songwriter. Released as a limited-edition CD from Y&T Music, \u201cGwent Gardens\u201d includes 18 newly discovered home demos, many of them songs that were never recorded or released by either Badfinger or the group\u2019s earlier incarnation, The Iveys. The album will also be available on all streaming services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recorded between 1966 and 1972 with guitar or piano accompaniment, the songs on \u201cGwent Gardens\u201d are remarkably tuneful blueprints for what might have been. Often double tracking his vocals, Pete also overdubbed additional instruments onto the tracks, fleshing out his vision for what the final Iveys or Badfinger tracks would sound like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first act signed to the Beatles\u2019 Apple Records label in 1968, Badfinger \u2013 through Pete Ham\u2019s songwriting brilliance \u2013 scored massive global hits with \u201cDay After Day,\u201d \u201cNo Matter What\u201d and \u201cBaby Blue.\u201d Co-written by Pete and his bandmate Tom Evans, \u201cWithout You\u201d became an enduring classic, topping the charts in versions by Nilsson, Mariah Carey and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among the many gems on \u201cGwent Gardens\u201d is Pete\u2019s soulful solo demo for \u201cTake it All,\u201d which would become the opening track on Badfinger\u2019s masterpiece, the 1971 \u201cStraight Up,\u201d produced by George Harrison and Todd Rundgren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Produced with the blessing of the Pete Ham Estate, the \u201cGwent Gardens\u201d project began with the late Dan Matovina, the musicologist and historian whose book \u201cWithout You\u201d is regarded as the definitive Badfinger biography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matovina produced several albums of Pete Ham demos. Before his death in 2023, Matovina marveled to a close friend about the treasure trove of material still unreleased. \u201cI can\u2019t believe,\u201d he said, \u201cthere are still so many great Pete Ham songs that no one has heard yet.\u201d With the release of \u201cGwent Gardens,\u201d those great songs referenced by Dan will now be a permanent part of Pete Ham’s legacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2023 also saw the release of a special Pete Ham tribute album, \u201cShine On \u2013 A Tribute to Pete Ham.\u201d The album featured 35 artists covering all of Pete\u2019s compositions recorded by Badfinger. Among the artists paying tribute to Pete are Shelby Lynne, Dan Baird, Melanie, Mary Lou Lord, Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby, Dennis Diken, Stan Lynch & The Speaker Wars, Amy Allison and many more. The album benefited the Southeast Florida branch of Mental Health America and is still available for a limited time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
THE SONGS<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nearly 50 years after his untimely passing at the age of 27, Pete Ham is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,2],"tags":[716,3569],"class_list":["post-22687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-news","category-news","tag-badfinger","tag-pete-ham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22689,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22687\/revisions\/22689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skylight.gr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}