The Iveys

Essentially the forerunners to Badfinger, the Iveys landed on the Beatles' Apple label in mid-1968 after the latter group's personal assistant, Mal Evans, encouraged them to submit tapes to Paul McCartney. Their bright, melodic, and harmony-filled pop/rock sound immediately drew comparisons to the Beatles and to the work of McCartney in particular. The group's roots go back to Swansea, Wales, where they'd first gotten together in 1963 under the name the Wild Ones, with Pete Ham on vocals and lead guitar, David "Dai" Jenkins on rhythm guitar and vocals, Ron Griffiths on bass and vocals, and Terry Gleeson on drums. They became the Iveys -- picked for a street in Swansea, as well as an expression of admiration for the Hollies -- at the end of 1964, and the following year Mike Gibbins replaced Gleeson as their drummer. Their sound was solid mid-'60s British rock & roll -- all of them sang and their playing was superb, but their songwriting skills were nonexistent, and without access to either a publisher or management capable of throwing good songs their way, their prospects as a recording act seemed doubtful; they seemed destined to rise no higher than an opening band for top recording acts such as the Yardbirds, the Moody Blues, and the Spencer Davis Group. In 1966, they signed with Bill Collins (father of Mojos bassist and future actor Lewis Collins) as manager, who moved the group to London and got them seen in clubs and other venues around the city, which helped to bring them to the attention of Ray Davies of the Kinks -- he expressed an interest in producing them, and got them signed to the same booking office, the Harold Davidson Agency, that handled the Kinks and the Small Faces. They auditioned successfully as the backing band for a singer named David Garrick, who...