Edwin Starr Artistfacts

January 21, 1942 - April 2, 2003
Edwin Starr was known for his gravelly, powerful voice and his song "War," which was a #1 hit in 1970. He also had a big hit with "Twenty-Five Miles" in 1969.
He was born in Nashville but moved with his family to Cleveland when he was young. He launched his career in Detroit, which had a music scene that was pulsing with life. Starr signed with the small label Ric-Tic Records, which released his first single, "Agent Double-O-Soul," in 1965 (it went to #21). In 1967 he joined Motown when they purchased Ric-Tic. This put him in the building with Motown's incredible songwriters and musicians, but it also paired him against the other Motown artists who were competing for songs. In 1968 he recorded a song called "Way Over There" written by Smokey Robinson, but it flopped. "Twenty-Five Miles" he co-wrote and became his first hit with the label. He got to record "War" after The Temptations released the original version. Motown didn't want The Tempts associated with the protest movement so they didn't put their version out as a single, but they had no problem pushing Starr's version.
His birth name was Charles Edwin Hatcher. He started using the name Edwin Starr around 1963 before he launched his solo career after the manager of the band he was in suggested he was bound for stardom. Ringo Starr (born Richard Starkey) had been using that name since 1959 but Edwin hadn't heard of him - Ringo is from England and his group The Beatles didn't break through in America until 1964.
Starr was in the US Army from 1960-1962, stationed in Europe. America wasn't heavily involved in the Vietnam War at that time but by 1969 there were about 543,000 Americans serving and the war was becoming increasingly unpopular. Starr lent his booming voice to the protest movement with "War" in 1970, which he followed up later that year with the equally declarative "Stop The War Now," which charted at #26.
Like many American soul singers, Starr fell out of favor in the late '70 but had a lot of cachet in the UK, where he was very popular. He moved to England in 1983 and became a big draw on the Northern Soul circuit. He lived near Nottingham, England until his death in 2003.
His 1974 song "Easin' In" has a very loopable groove that has been sampled at least 100 times, notably by DMX on "Crime Story" and Prodigy on "Mac 10 Handle."
Edwin Starr died from a heart attack on April 2, 2003, at 61 while taking a bath at his home. in Bramcote, near Nottingham, England. His headstone in Nottingham has the inscription "Our Agent 00 Soul."
Starr felt he was underutilized at Motown and didn't have the freedom to really shine. "I was never happy from the day I joined the company," he told Blues & Soul magazine. "It was always to me like coming into a room backwards. You know, you never know where you're going because you can only really see where you've just been."

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