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Pete Ham's Spooky Guitar Pick

June 15, 2019

This is a solid silver guitar pick, designed in 1971 by May Pang, for Pete Ham the lead singer of the forever-troubled Welsh band Badfinger.

After The Beatles broke up, the hippie underground swirled with rumors that Badfinger were the Beatles in disguise. They were a dead ringer for what the Fab Four might have sounded like at the time:"No Matter What," The George Harrison-produced “Day After Day,” "Baby Blue." Though definitely not the Beatles, they nonetheless bridged the Beatles and the emergence of power pop in the next decade.

Pang, an employee of Apple Music, would later become John Lennon’s girlfriend during his non-Yoko Ono “lost years.”

Funny how she oriented Ham's name on this pick, like a gravestone. Maybe she saw into his troubled future? Four years after Pang forged this pick, Ham hung himself days after learning his manager swindled everything and leaving Ham with a litigious record company to boot.

Pang would go on to marry Tony Visconti, producer of many a fine David Bowie album, as well as Badfinger's first album.

Hard Rock Hotel Casino, Atlantic City

Pete Ham's guitar pick



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