Knock down the old gray wall

Badfinger was a big part of the soundtrack of my youth. Decades later, I worked with Joey Molland, who passed just last week. He was a really nice man.

Mar 10, 2025

Cover photo from Badfinger’s Straight Up, released in 1971.

When you are young, the world is like a sky filled with stars from horizon to horizon. Some are bold and bright, drawing you toward them like a beacon; others are dimmer and take longer to notice, but they all, one way or another, guide your journey. With the passing of time, their light begins to fade, slowly at first, then like a tsunami that you are powerless to stop but must watch, until, as the end approaches, you find yourself alone in gathering darkness. Which part of this continuum is the natural state of the human condition is an argument for philosophers. All I can tell you is this: the hard part of growing old is watching those lights inexorably fade and disappear, one by one, until the world feels distant and strange. More than anything else in my life these days, I wish that this was wisdom that I did not have.

A few days ago, Joey Molland, the last surviving member of the 1970s Welsh power-pop band Badfinger, passed away from complications of diabetes and pneumonia at the age of 77. Badfinger delivered an impressive string of radio hits during my high school years in the early ‘70s: Come and Get It (written and produced by Paul McCartney), No Matter What, Day After Day (produced by George Harrison), and Baby Blue (produced by Todd Rundgren).

Badfinger, as the first non-Beatle recording artists signed with Apple Records, began their journey to pop stardom backed by an impressive pedigree. With Apple A&R and production behind them, Badfinger sold millions of records worldwide from 1969 to 1972 on the strength of a string of top-of-the-charts hits from several albums.

Badfinger was supposed to be the next Beatles (the name Badfinger comes from Beatles lore), but tragedies, the collapse of a record label, mismanagement, and fraud (if you look up douche canoe in the dictionary, it’s Badfinger manager Stan Polley waving at you) brought about a swift end to their career despite auspicious beginnings. By 1975, Badfinger had disbanded, and two of its members were dead of broken dreams.

Fast forward to the late 1990s. For about a decade, I owned a recording studio along with a sound, stage, lighting, and event production company. It was incredibly hard work, and the money made absolutely no sense, but I had a great time all the same. During this period I acquired around a hundred production credits and got to work with well-known, award-winning artists spanning genres from rock to jazz to classical to dance. One of the things that always struck me was the degree to which success was correlated to collegiality in show business. The big acts were almost always gracious, appreciative, and in every way easy to work with (except for rap, punk, and reggae—those are the shows you pass in the hopes that your competition picks them up instead). Huey Lewis and the News was a much better time than the Dropkick Murphys.

During the late 1990s, many acts from the ‘60s and ‘70s experienced a revival of interest due to the preponderance of oldies channels on terrestrial FM and newfangled satellite radio. Many of these acts began to tour again decades after their hits, but not all of them were what they were cracked up to be. If these bands had any of their original members, it was, more often than not, far from the lineup associated with their best work. In many cases there were no original members, just a group of musicians in what was essentially a touring tribute band.

So when I got a call one day for a monitor engineer for an upcoming Fourth of July Badfinger show a few hundred miles away, I didn’t have any great expectations despite the fact that they had been one of my favorite bands back in the day. I assumed, knowing that at least 50% of Badfinger had gone on to the great wheel in the sky decades ago, that I would be working with a tribute band touring as Badfinger.

I wasn’t providing anything for this show in terms of equipment besides a set of headphones; I was just an engineer. So everything was already set up and in place when I arrived early in the afternoon. It was a big fairground-style outdoor venue with a large, covered stage, the last part being important because it was as hot as a firecracker.

As I wandered around the stage checking connections from the monitor console to the stage monitors, the backline and touring equipment began to arrive. A guy that I assumed was the tour manager was sorting out the stage plot with the backline folks and roadies. He spoke with no discernible accent and was very polite. After a bit, he wandered over and asked if I was Martin. He introduced himself as “Joe,” and after the usual discussion of monitors, he told me that he’d heard that I was a guitar player and wanted to know if I’d be willing to double as a guitar tech. He even offered a generous tip, which I actually declined because I was taken aback by how polite he was.

A while later, a guitar trunk showed up beside my desk on stage right. If these guys were posers, they were well-appointed posers because this trunk contained, among other things, a ‘59 Les Paul and some vintage ‘60s SGs. After I went through each guitar, doing strings, tuning, and intonation, I’d plug them into a small practice amp that came with the trunk and play part of a song to check them out. “Joe” was wandering around the whole time and would occasionally offer a tip on how a particular instrument was to be setup. At the time, I was in a cover band that played a couple of Badfinger songs as part of our regular set list. So I played No Matter What on each instrument as Joe and I sat around and shot the breeze with a couple of beers.

The show started at 7 p.m. with an opening act, a local Beatles cover band, who put on a fantastic performance in front of approximately 50 people (including the entire crew, both bands, and myself) in a venue with a capacity of several thousand. But like all professionals, they played like the place was full. If you’d closed your eyes, most of the time you could have imagined that it really was the Fab Four kicking out the jams.

After an hour, it was time for the headliner. I looked up from the monitor desk to watch Badfinger enter from the opposite side of the stage. I was interested to see what a rock star entrance looked like in front of an audience of around 40 in a otherwise empty venue, but the thing that caught my attention was the first guy on the stage. It turns out that “Joe” wasn’t a tour manager, stage manager, or roadie; he was Joey Molland, the guitar player in Badfinger responsible for all of those hits that were a big part of the soundtrack of my youth. It was either he or George Harrison playing all of those great guitar licks on those songs. Those guitars that I’d handled might have been used at Abbey Road. I think that my jaw almost literally hit the ground.

Again, like consummate pros, the size of the audience didn’t matter. Badfinger played a raucous, rollicking set featuring all of their well-known songs, note for note. If it is possible for a crowd of 40 in an otherwise empty venue to go wild, that’s what happened after each song. I’ve seen a lot of concerts from both sides of the stage, the production riser, and as a fan in the audience. This was one of the best.

Joey, now in quite a discernible British accent, talked between songs about the history and production of each. After a bit, he announced that they were about to play one of his favorites and laid into the A to A sus 4 chords that open No Matter What. They performed an extended version of the song that was joyful and awesome. Then, as the last note of the song was fading in his Marshall amp, Joey threw a look over to me in monitor world and asked, over a live microphone, “Martin, did we play that to your satisfaction?”

Ouch.

I had, unknowingly, violated the prime directive of rock and roll showbiz: never do anything to usurp the headliner. Ignorance is no excuse. Rick Derringer once got kicked off of a Van Halen tour when he copped some EVH’s licks as part of his opening act.

But the look on Joey’s face carried not even a bit of rebuke. It was a smile of the type I recognized from the friends of my youth in the foothills of Appalachia, one that beamed good humor when someone had gotten a good one over on you.

Back in the hills of Eastern Kentucky, there exists a tradition of verbal one-upmanship and practical jokes. The better you are at both, the higher your social standing. You know the degree to which people are friends by the amount of good-natured verbal abuse exchanged between them. I managed a retail store back there for a few years. If you walked into our shop and were greeted with, “Good day, how may we help you?” it meant that we didn’t know you from Adam. If you were greeted with some variation of, “What the hell smells like horse manure in here all of a sudden?” it meant that you were getting a pro deal and a complimentary beverage with your purchase.

Wales and Eastern KY share an ancient history connected to the Appalachian orogeny, and perhaps that heritage extends into the modern era, connecting cultures. I think that in this moment, a cultural history was shared across a vast ocean of time, distance, and experience, in a moment of good humor that I appreciated in the moment and will never forget.

RIP Joey Molland.

Martin Hackworth - Howlin' at the Moon in ii-V-I

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