After hearing Edwin’s voice, Briggs told him that he would be a star some day and said that he should use the name ‘Starr’ with the extra ‘r’. It was Doggett’s manager, Don Briggs, who invited him to join the combo and also suggested Starr’s stage name. Doggett was a pianist/organist who had charted nine R&B instrumental singles in the 1950’s, including his biggest hit, “Honky Tonk (Pts. Billie Holiday was starring, and I was completely in awe of her because I was meeting the greatest singer ever."įollowing a two-year hitch in the army, which included being stationed in Germany, Starr joined Bill Doggett’s combo as a singer. The real prize was an appearance for the group at a nightclub. “So he bought it off us and we split the money. “Luckily, the father of one of the guys had a bad back”, Starr told him. The group lasted from 1955 to 1960, and they performed mostly at school dances and other social functions.Įdwin StarrStarr told interviewer Spencer Leigh that the Futuretones won an orthopedic mattress on a local television talent show. Inspired by his musical hero Jackie Wilson, Starr began singing in a teenaged doo wop group called the Futuretones. His father was a serviceman, so the family moved around quite a bit before finally settling in Cleveland, Ohio. Starr was born Charles Edwin Hatcher on January 21, 1942, in Nashville. Although the song did not specifically refer to Vietnam, it became an anthem of the anti-war movement, and it has been used for comment on conflicts around the world ever since. At Hitsville U.S.A., his extraordinary recording of “War” touched a generation. Starr also sang lead for the Holidays, who recorded for Golden World, Ric Tic’s sister label.Īfter Motown purchased Ric-Tic/Golden World, Starr would eventually join the stable of great artists who were producing ‘ the sound of young America’. His rough, powerful voice was first heard on the James Bond-inspired “Agent Double-O-Soul”, released on Detroit’s Ric-Tic label in 1965. It's respectable, but not something you'll put on nearly as often as his best vintage discs.Great as the talent was at Motown, nobody could out-sing Edwin Starr. He gets the big hits - "25 Miles," "S.O.S.," and "War" - out of the way right away, throws in covers of "My Girl" and "Let's Stay Together," and makes occasional outings into disco arrangements that the soul fans who comprise the majority of his constituency might not dig. Starr is in good voice and high energy and the band is punchy and competent, though not up to Booker T. But really, who can speculate on an exact date for sure, leaving hapless reviewers no option but to look a bit like buffoons? Anyway, even working on the near-certain assumption that this is from the 1990s or early 2000s, it's better than you might expect, though not a necessary addition to your Starr library. An educated guess would place it as having been recorded shortly before the CD's 2002 release date, and certainly it postdates his 1960s-1970s salad days. That's not the greatest of signs if it was a relic from Starr's commercial prime, they'd be sure to plaster that date very prominently in the package. At no point in the track listing or liner notes is the important information as to what date or dates this live material was recorded divulged.
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