Peter Ham

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Peter Ham

Name: Peter Ham Age: 27 Location of Death: Surrey, England Date of Death: 24 April 1975 Cause of Death: Suicide (Hanging) Occupation: vocals, guitar, keyboards Band: Badfinger

Death

On 24 April 1975, Ham hanged himself in his garage studio in Surrey. His suicide note, addressed to his girlfriend and her son, seemed to blame Stan Polley (band manager) for much of his internal despair and he cited his lost ability to cope with his disappointments in life. The note read: "Anne, I love you. Blair, I love you. I will not be allowed to love and trust everybody. This is better. Pete. P.S. Stan Polley is a soulless bastard. I will take him with me." Ham had shown a growing mental illness over the past months as he burned cigarettes out on his hands and arms. Badfinger guitarist Joey Molland said, "I think what brought him down was that he found he didn't have any money left. His girlfriend's havin' a baby inside a month. He'd had a bank account for ten years and for the first time he was overdrawn. Polley, Badfinger's manager since 1970, had been involved in a longstanding feud with the group and in litigation with Warner Bros., the group's label. Polley was repeatedly unavailable for comment. Pete was survived by his girlfriend Anne and daughter Petera, who was born shortly after his death.
Trivia: In October 1969, while the release of "Come and Get It" was pending, the band and Apple Records agreed that a name change was now critical. "The Iveys" were still sometimes confused with "The Ivy League", and the name was considered too trite for the current music scene. After much debate, the group changed their name to Badfinger. Other suggestions had included: "The Glass Onion," "The Prix", and "The Cagneys" from John Lennon, and "Home" by Paul McCartney.[1] The name Badfinger had been suggested by Apple's Neil Aspinall as a reference to "Bad Finger Boogie", an early working title of Lennon/McCartney's "With a Little Help from My Friends", the idea alleged by Neil Aspinall that Lennon had composed the melody on a piano using only one finger, after having hurt his forefinger. Later quotes from Paul McCartney suggest it was he who composed the song's chords and melody.

Death Location

Surrey England

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Comments

0 #1 2011-06-09 06:40

This is for Guitarist creator leavening, man who was one of the Bad finger brothers.(Peter Ham)
He sang about lies,giving up,devotion to girlfriends..dysfunctional dark relationships,h angovers,tongue in cheek losing,money,pe ace and love and how pontificating it could be,suicide,he rebelled,offere d pop songs that sometimes could rock so hard,a spiritual narrator,his discomfort with his band,the sadness of having the one huge huge hit,apathy and fight,underplay ed poseur,hinted at personal problems he wouldn't reveal till he hung himself over loss of money@

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