October 4, 2005 – Mike Gibbins (Badfinger) was born on March 12th 1949. He was the left-handed Welsh drummer who became a member of the Iveys, later renamed Badfinger, after “Badfinger Boogie”, an unused title for a Lennon-McCartney composition.
He helped form The Iveys in 1965 and his powerful playing helped push the Iveys to a new level of proficiency and by the end of the year the group was being booked as an opening act for local appearances by the likes of the Who, the Yardbirds, the Moody Blues, and the Spencer Davis Group and was a popular attraction on the London club scene.
They signed with Apple and changed their name to Badfinger, and broke through to the British and American Top Ten with the Paul McCartney-composed “Come and Get It.” The group followed this up in 1970 with their LP masterpiece No Dice, scoring a hit with the now pop classic “No Matter What” which featured the evergreen ballad “Without You“.
Mike and the band backed George Harrison’s solo masterpiece “All Things Must Pass”, and also serving as the backing unit at George’s Concert for Bangladesh. He was one of two members of the group left behind following the tragic suicides of Pete Ham and Tom Evans, and he led reorganized versions of “Badfinger” into the 1980s and beyond.
He died from a brain aneurysm in his sleep at home in Florida on October 4, 2005 at age 56.
