Who was the first artist signed to Apple Records?
During the recording of the Magical Mystery Tour EP, and following the death of their manager Brian Epstein, The Beatles conceived of a new business venture encompassing retail, publishing, film, and even electronics. Launched in 1967, Apple Corps made its most memorable splash with the ill-fated boutique store on London’s Baker Street.
Opening that December with its exterior extravagantly designed by the psychedelic art collective The Fool, the shop’s laid-back, “groovy” management style and reluctance to confront shoplifters led to financial ruin. Just a few months later, it closed down, with all its stock practically given away to clear out inventory.
After their spiritual sojourn in Rishikesh, The Beatles returned to England in 1968 and founded the new limited company’s most enduring division, Apple Records. Following a new distribution deal with EMI, agreeing to distribute under the new moniker while retaining rights to their recordings, Apple Records sought to offer an artist-centred environment willing to take creative risks, at odds with the traditional label practices that still dominated the music industry despite the countercultural seachanges around them.
First dropping ‘Hey Jude’ and their eponymous double LP with the famous Granny Smith logo, from then on, the label’s initial output was successful, releasing albums from James Taylor, Billy Preston, Jackie Lomax, and Ravi Shankar. There was even a brief Zapple sub-label dedicated to the avant-garde, folding after only issuing John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s musique concrète collage Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions and George Harrison’s second stab at Moog synthesizer noodling on 1969’s Electronic Sound after his Wonderwall Music, Apple Records’ first LP.
Apple’s naive optimism was famously encapsulated by its promotional half-page advertisement plastered across NME and Melody Maker depicting a one-man band busking with a giant drum on his back, nobly stating, “This man has talent”. After recounting the budding musician’s submission of his tape to the Apple team, it brazenly concludes, “He now owns a Bentley!”
As the label’s viability began petering out in the early 1970s, Apple became a Fab Four-focused project, issuing all of The Beatles’ respective solo efforts, including Imagine and Band on the Run. One band, however, stuck to the label’s roster long after others had departed, having been the first Apple artist to sign up.
So, who was the first artist signed to Apple?
Proving one of Apple’s most successful artists, the Welsh powerpop band Badfinger had long been associated with The Beatles.
Naming themselves after ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’ original title ‘Bad Finger Boogie’, ‘Come and Get It’ was written by Paul McCartney and ‘Day After Day’ produced by Harrison. Being Apple’s last non-Beatles release, 1974’s Ass was dropped by the label, followed by a smattering of best-of into the 1990s.
Unfortunately, the Badfinger story ended in tragedy. Plagued with financial hardship and shoddy management, lead singer Pete Ham killed himself in 1975, and following a draining legal dispute around songwriting royalties, bassist Tom Evans too took his own life. Despite such calamity, the Badfinger legacy boasts forming an essential and most lucrative piece of the Apple story, and thus an interesting footnote in Beatles lore.
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