The powerful rock ballad Without You, which was covered nearly 200 times and was a massive hit for both Harry Nilsson and Mariah Carey, was orginally by the Swansea-Liverpool band Badfinger, an early signing for the Beatles’ Apple label. Playing guitar on that recording, from the band’s second album, No Dice (1970), was Joey Molland, who has died aged 77.
As well as their own recordings, Badfinger, including Molland, acted as session musicians for the individual Beatles, playing on John Lennon’s Imagine album, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, and Ringo Starr’s hit single, It Don’t Come Easy.
Of Harrison’s international bestseller My Sweet Lord (1970), from the aforementioned album, which was the subject of a plagiarism suit, Molland said: “Of course we knew it was based on He’s So Fine [by the Chiffons], but it wasn’t our place to tell George how to write his songs.”
Personable and affable, Molland could also be a little cocky, a trait that perhaps did not translate so well in the US. In May 1995 the American songwriting organisation ASCAP held a celebration of Without You, which had been a huge hit for Carey the year before.
Although the song was written by Pete Ham and Tommy Evans of Badfinger, who were no longer alive, the band had an agreement whereby royalties were shared with their manager at the time, Bill Collins (father of the actor Lewis Collins), and the rest of the band.
So, at the ASCAP awards, five people took to the stage to receive a songwriter’s plaque – Molland and Mike Gibbins from Badfinger, Collins, and family members to represent Ham and Evans, who had both taken their own lives, Ham in 1975, and Evans in 1983.
Molland triumphantly held his plaque aloft, which some felt to be an insensitive misjudgment, and did not help his standing in the music industry.
Maybe he thought that it would increase interest in his own songs. Although Badfinger had other hits, they were not with his compositions, and his solo albums were largely confined to gig sales. His tracks Vampire Wedding (1992) and Walk Out in the Rain (2013) had the makings of hits, but on the whole his songs lacked that spark of originality that would put them ahead of the pack. On the other hand, his career as a journeyman musician tells a compelling story of the 1960s and 70s music scene.
One of six boys, Joey was born and raised in the West Derby suburb of Liverpool. He attended Cardinal Allen grammar school but had little interest in education and was in a beat band, the Assassins, when only 12. “We assassinated music,” Molland told me. He took a job in the city centre as a messenger boy, which enabled him to attend lunchtime sessions at the Cavern.
He joined the Masterminds, who were playing late night at the Blue Angel in March 1965 when the Rolling Stones arrived. The Stones’ manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, had them record Bob Dylan’s She Belongs to Me: “A nice song with easy guitar parts,” Molland recalled. It made the Top 50 that year following an appearance on ITV’s Ready Steady Go!
When the Merseys had a hit with Sorrow in 1966, they needed a touring band and selected the Fruit Eating Bears with Molland. Molland then joined Gary Walker and the Rain, who had a minor hit with a version of the Classics IV track Spooky in 1968. The band was highly successful in Japan but disbanded in 1969.
The Iveys, a Swansea band that included Ham and Gibbins in its original lineup, then Evans from Liverpool, were on the Beatles’ new record label, Apple, in 1968. They changed their name the following year, to Badfinger.
Molland joined the band shortly after they recorded Paul McCartney’s Come and Get It for the film The Magic Christian, which explains why there are only three group members on the LP cover of the “pseudo-soundtrack” album Magic Christian Music (1970). Molland was featured, however, on Badfinger’s second album, No Dice, which, as well as Without You – an international bestseller for Nilsson in 1972 – featured another Top 10 single, No Matter What.
Harrison produced Badfinger’s 1972 hit single, Day After Day, from their Straight Up album (1971). Harrison also told Molland he would have to drop the phrase “Pusher, pusher” from his song Suitcase, as it would never get airplay (it was dropped from the recording, but Molland reinstated it when playing live).
After Apple, Badfinger signed a multimillion-dollar deal with Warner in 1973, but the label lost interest when hits were not forthcoming. When Badfinger broke up the following year, Molland formed Natural Gas with Jerry Shirley from Humble Pie and they supported Peter Frampton on his Frampton Comes Alive! tour.
Following Ham’s death, Badfinger reformed in 1979 for touring dates and a new album, Airwaves, with Molland, Evans and Gibbins. They then made Say No More (1981) without Gibbins. Both Evans and Molland toured with versions of Badfinger before Evans’s death.
Over the past 40 years, Molland formed several groups for tours of American casinos, usually working as Joey Molland’s Badfinger. He made the solo albums After the Pearl (1983), The Pilgrim (1999), This Way Up (2001), Return to Memphis (2013) and Be True to Yourself (2021).
He also played at Beatle festivals in the UK, where he had a good rapport with fans and could join in with Beatle tribute bands without any rehearsal.
In between playing and recording, Molland would work as a carpet layer. He told me: “Carpets have such great names. I must make an album around them in the future.”
He married Kathie Wiggins in 1972 and they had two sons, Joe and Shaun. She died in 2009, after which he had a longterm relationship with Mary Joyce.
Mary, his sons, and a brother, Douglas, survive him.
• Joseph Charles Molland, musician and songwriter, born 21 June 1947; died 1 March 2025
