17. Pete Ham (4/27/47-4/24/75) & Tom Evans ((6/5/47-11/19/83) "Without You" (Badfinger) for my
new gallery "Telling Stories from the Grave" and for the November Song Titles/One Artist Challenge.

"Well, I can't forget this evening
And your face when you were leaving
But I guess that's just the way the story goes
You always smile but in your eyes your sorrow shows
Yes, it shows

I can't live, if living is without you
I can't live, I can't give anymore"

Ham's greatest songwriting success came from "Without You" co-written by
Tom Evans - a worldwide number 1 when it was later covered by Harry Nilsson
and released in 1972. The song has since become a ballad standard and is
covered by hundreds of singers from many genres worldwide. Ham is often
credited as being one of the earliest purveyors of the power pop genre.

During the Warner Bros. Records era from 1973–75, Badfinger became embroiled
in many internal, financial, and managerial problems and their music was
stifled. By 1975, with no income and the band's business manager uncommunicative,
Ham received a phone call from the United States, telling him that all his money
had disappeared. Later that night he met Tom Evans and they went to a pub
together, where Ham drank ten whiskies. Evans drove him home at three o'clock
on the morning of 24 April 1975. Ham hanged himself in his garage studio in
Woking later that morning. His suicide note—addressed to his girlfriend, Anne
Herriot, and her son, Blair—blamed Polley for much of his despair and inability
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.

Tom Evans survived almost 8 more years. During the evening of November 18, 1983,
he argued with Joey Molland of Badfinger on the telephone, chiefly regarding
potential publishing/ASCAP divisions of the song "Without You" whose ASCAP
royalties accumulating for airplay had been funding Evans, with other potential
publishing funds being held by Apple Corps Ltd. pending resolution of debate
between the group members and manager Bill Collins. Early the following morning,
19 November, Evans was found dead by suicide; his body hanging in his back garden
from a willow tree. -(Story pieced together from three Wikipedia articles)