A Tribute Album to Badfinger’s Pete Ham Unearths Obscure Gems: Review

Pete Ham, who died by suicide in 1975 at age 27, achieved considerable success during his lifetime as the lead singer and a principal composer for England’s Badfinger. The extent of the Welsh power pop musician’s talent has become even more evident in recent years, however, thanks largely to a series of albums from Miami’s Y&T label.

In 2023, for example, the company issued Shine On—A Tribute to Pete Ham, a multi-artist two-disc set that features 35 of his tunes, including several of Badfinger’s biggest hits. The following year witnessed the release of Gwent Gardens, which offers Ham’s own demos of 18 of his songs for Badfinger and its predecessor group, the Iveys.

Like Shine On, 2026’s Just Look Inside the Cover—The Songs of Pete Ham is a multi-artist tribute, but unlike that album, it focuses on little-known numbers that previously existed only in Ham’s home demo versions. Their excellence underscores how much untapped potential he possessed.

The artists featured in this 22-track package aren’t household names, but they all evidence an affection for Ham’s material, and several have personal connections to him or his bands. The catchy title cut, for example, is by Bob Jackson, a founding member of the Iveys who later joined Badfinger, and a bluesy song called “Take Good Care of My Baby” is delivered by Ron Griffiths, who played with Badfinger from 1961 to 1969 and sounds a bit like Ringo.

A gentle ballad called “It Doesn’t Really Matter” and the upbeat “The Day Begins,” meanwhile, are performed, respectively, by Mark Healey and Jeff Alan Ross, both of whom played in Joey Molland’s version of Badfinger. Other contributors include Arlan Feiles (“You’re Such a Good Woman”), Guided by Voices’ Tobin Sprout (“Keep Your Country Tidy”) and Richard Barone with the Midnight Callers (“I’m Only Human”).

Like Badfinger’s work, many of the songs and performances on this anthology will remind you of mid-period Beatles and, especially, Paul McCartney. There are a few relatively weak spots—which is rather inevitable in an anthology that features nearly two dozen artists—but the quality of most of the material and performances here ranges only from very good to excellent.

The June 19, 2026, release is available in the U.S. here, in Canada here and in the U.K. here.

Related: Badfinger’s “lost” LP, Head First