Perfection: The Songs of Badfinger's
Pete Ham & Tom Evans
compiled by Tom Brennan
last update: December 02, 2023

PERFECTION: THE SONGS OF BADFINGER'S PETE HAM & TOM EVANS
August 9, 1968-July, 1974
Trident Studios, EMI Studios, IBC Studios, Morgan Studios, Command Studios, Olympic Studios, Caribou Ranch, and AIR Studios, London
Tony Visconti, Paul McCartney, Mal Evans, Geoff Emerick, George Harrison, Todd Rundgren, and Chris Thomas
U.S. release on August 14, 2006 on bugmusic PRCD14.



[notes part 1 & tray | notes part 2]

Background history (written in 2006):
Bug Music, who now administers the U.S. copyrights of songs written by Badfinger's Pete Ham & Tom Evans, has released a promotional CD in August of 2006 of songs to promote the use of their songs in films, TV and cover versions by other artists. The disc has been manufactured with the cooperation of the Ham & Evans Estates, Apple Corps., Capitol Records, EMI, Warner Chappell, Warner Bros., WMG and Sony/BMG. The disc is intended to highlight the most commercial sounding songs written & recorded for Badfinger, and the excellent songwriting talents of Pete & Tom, both individually and collectively. The disc is a limited pressing of 1000 copies and is NOT intended for the general public; its target audience is music supervisors, artist producers & agents and film producers.

As far as the content of the disc goes, all the tracks have been cleaned up & enhanced sonically by Dan Matovina, who has removed much of the muddiness from a lot of the tracks. All the songs have a sonic clarity to them now and sound more "punchy". There are no outtakes included (except the previously released outtake I'll Be The One), since this disc is intended to promote the more commercial sounding songs, however there is a newly created edit of Dennis (track 19) from the "Wish You Were Here" album intended to simulate what an AM Radio single version of the track may have sounded like had it ever been released to the general public (if history had run its course in a more favorable direction for the band). The disc also includes Harry Nilsson's smash hit cover version of Without You from 1972 at the end of the disc, which is the most famous & popular cover version of a Badfinger (or Pete Ham & Tom Evans) song in music history. All the "Straight Up" songs that are included are the standard versions; none of the alternate "early versions" are utilised. Unfortunately, some other great songs like Shine On wouldn't fit on the CD and had to be left out. In short, this disc contains the best sounding copies of all of the best songs written by Pete Ham & Tom Evans from the period 1969-1974 released to date. This will hopefully encourage the reissuing of the Badfinger CD catalog and take advantage of the latest audio & computer technology.

Update (2013):
Bug Music was acquired by BMG in 2012 and became part of BMG Chrysalis. On October 1, 2013, the estates of Pete Ham & Tom Evans left BMG Chrysalis and signed a new publishing deal with Kobalt.