true HD James Durbin "Without You" Top 5 American Idol 2011 (May 4)

Описание: James Durbin performance "Without You" (Harry Nilsson). Current + 60s/70s songs week (2 songs each contestant). James got very emotional thinking about his family (fiance Heidi & son Hunter), and teared up at the end. The quality of his vocals may have suffered, because of this. http://www.americanidol.com/

"Without You" is a song written by musicians Pete Ham and Tom Evans of British rock group Badfinger. According to ASCAP, the ballad has been recorded by more than 180 artists and has made many appearances on the Billboard Hot 100, including the number one position. Beatle Paul McCartney once described the ballad as "...the killer song of all time."

Harry Nilsson, at the time best known for his hit "Everybody's Talkin'" and for composing such hits as Three Dog Night's "One", heard Badfinger's recording of "Without You" at a party, and mistook it for a Beatles' song. After realizing it was not, he decided to cover the song for his album Nilsson Schmilsson in 1971; it stayed at number 1 on the U.S. pop chart for four weeks, from February 13 to March 11, 1972. The song also spent five weeks atop the U.S. adult contemporary chart. In the U.K., the song spent five weeks at number 1 on the British pop chart, beginning on March 11, and sold almost 800,000 copies. In 1973, Nilsson won the "Best Male Pop Vocal" Grammy award for the song. While Nilsson rarely gave live concerts, he did perform the song with Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas in September 1992.

Mariah Carey's version was released as the third single of Music Box in the first quarter of 1994, and in the United States it was released on 24 January 1994, just over a week after Nilsson had died following a heart attack on January 15, 1994.

First recorded by the rock group Badfinger, the song was composed by two of its members. "Two streams, referring to real events in the songwriters' lives flowed together to create the song. Pete Ham had written a song originally titled "If It's Love" but it had lacked a strong chorus. At the time of writing the band shared residence with the Mojos at 7 Park Avenue in Golders Green. One evening, in the midst of the parties, songwriting, touring, in Golders Green, Ham and his girlfriend Beverly Tucker were about to go out for the evening. But just as they were leaving Tom Evans said he had an idea for a song - Ham said, 'Not tonight, I've promised Bev.' But she thought he would be wondering if he had done the right thing later, if he went out, - she told him - 'Go into the studio, I'm fine about it..' He said, " Your mouth is smiling, but your eyes are sad." The song Ham wrote that night was called 'If its Love' and has the verse "Well I can't forget tomorrow, when I think of all my sorrow, I had you there but then I let you go, and now it's only fair that I should let you know..if it's love.." But Pete wasn't happy with the chorus."

Events in Evans' love life would lead to the completion of the track. While Evans was touring in Cologne he had met the woman who would become his future wife, Marianne. She moved to London. It was a sparky relationship. "One evening he went to her friend Karen and told Karen, 'She's left me. I need her back. I can't live without her.' He flew to Bonn to find her - he wrote a song called 'I Can't Live'. Its chorus; "I can't live, if living is without you, I can't live, I can't give any more." And so the merging of the two songs, Ham and Evans created the hit. Ham's verse, 'warm, sweet, sentimental' and Evans' chorus, - 'intense , dramatic, heartbreaking.' " Both Ham and Evans said they did not consider the song to have much potential at the time Badfinger recorded it, and the track was slotted to close Side A of their 1970 No Dice album. Badfinger's recording of the song, which is more brusque than its successors' versions, was not released as a single in Europe or North America. In parallel to the song lyrics, both Ham and Evans later committed suicide. "Without You" was released backed by "We're For The Dark" in The Philippines on Apple Records, Catalogue number APPLE-025, "Without You" was also finally released as a 3" CD single in Japan in March 1993 along with the track "No Matter What".

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