When their Apple Records contract elapsed, Badfinger took the opportunity to segué to Warner Bros., where they made two good if largely unheard albums before a series of tragedies would befall the band and its members.

On September 18, 2007, Collectors’ Choice Music will reissue the band’s two Warner Bros. albums, Badfinger and Wish You Were Here, both produced by Chris Thomas, whose credits included Roxy Music, The Sex Pistols, The Pretenders, Pink Floyd, Peter Townsend and Wings. The two albums were to launch a three-year, six-album deal with the Bunny. The year 1972 seemed to hold great promise for the second phase of the Badfinger story.

Unfortunately, the bright future was not to be. Problems started when the band’s final Apple album, Ass, failed to crack the upper reaches of the charts, only to be followed three months later by the eponymous Warner debut. With four songs by key member Pete Ham and others by Tom Evans and Joey Molland, Badfinger continued the band’s tradition of tuneful romantic pop songs. These included Ham’s “I Miss You,” “Song for a Lost Friend,” “Lonely You,” and the Ham/Evans collaboration “Shine On,” destined to become one of the most of their most popular W.B. tracks. Other tracks veered into new musical territory, such as “My Heart Goes Out,” which approximated a mandolin-like sound, and the electric piano-dominated “Where Do We Go From Here.” Sadly, lacking hit singles, the album peaked at #161 on the charts.

Badfinger’s subsequent LP, Wish You Were Here (the title preceding Pink Floyd’s album), followed months after the self-titled release — mandated by the two-album-a-year, three-year W.B. contract. Whereas previous albums had been cut in London, the new one was made at Caribou Ranch in Colorado — best known for Joe Walsh’s “Rocky Mountain Way” and countless Chicago albums. The band was upset over the fate of Badfinger and didn’t feel they’d had adequate time to write enough new great songs. But heeding their manager’s battle cry to “make a great album – the best you’ve ever done,” the band soldiered forth. In his Rolling Stone review of Wish You Were Here, venerated rock critic Bud Scoppa wrote: “At last they’ve made an album (their sixth in five years) that derives a general style from what the band constructed on their hit singles: the captivating melodies, melancholy vocals and big-bell-like rhythm guitars outlining a stirring, full-bodied sound. Wish You Were Here is loaded with songs that are both catchy and electric . . . They’re still one of the best singles bands in the business.”

Sounds promising, until one considers the tumultuous dealings that lurked beneath the surface. Warner Bros. issued no singles from the album in the U.S. and U.K. (although “Know One Knows” would have made a great one), and pulled the album from distribution in early 1975 after its publishing division initiated a lawsuit over questionable accounting. The record rose to #148 on the album charts without a single, tour or promotion. Soon after, Warners sued Badfinger and fundamentally killed the album’s chance of attaining hit status.

The bad business dealings wore on the band, which began its slow unraveling process. And a much worse fate befell them when Pete Ham, despondent over the band’s financial problems, hanged himself in his garage in April 1975. Wish You Were Here was the last album to feature the band’s most vital lineup.

Spottily available through the years, both Warner albums are ripe for (re)discovery. Collectors’ Choice Music notes in its catalog, “We’re kind of in shock that the label let them go out of print and then let us license them. Oh well, that’s what we’re here for!”

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