Edwin Starr (January 21, 1942 - April 2, 2003) was a soul music singer. He was born with the name Charles Edwin Hatcher in Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1957 he formed the group The Future Tones .

He lived in Detroit, Michigan in the 1960s and recorded at first for the small label Ric-Tic, and later for the famed Motown after it absorbed Ric-Tic.

The song which began his career was "Agent Double'O'Soul" (1965), a take-off on the James Bond films which were popular at the time.

He recorded more soul music for the next three years before having an international chart-topper in "25 Miles" (1968), one of only two of his songs still heard today on oldies radio .

The biggest hit of his career, and the one which cemented his reputation as one of the great soul artists, was the anti-Vietnam War protest song "War (What Is It Good For)" (1970). The #1 hit became an anthem for the antiwar movement, and is now commonly found in such diverse places as movie soundtracks and samples in hip hop music. (Incidentally, that album - War and Peace - featured another song of very similar construction titled "Stop the War Now", which was a minor hit in its own right.)

He moved to England in 1973.

Starr continued to record music into the 1970s, most notably recording the song "Hell Up In Harlem" for the 1974 movie, Hell Up In Harlem, which was the sequel to Black Caesar, a earlier hit with a soundtrack by James Brown.

In 1979 Starr reappeared on the charts with a pair of disco hits, titled "(Eye-To-Eye) Contact" and "Happy Radio".

Starr resurfaced briefly in 2002 to record a song with the British musician Jools Holland, singing "Snowflake Boogie" on Holland's compact disc More Friends.

Starr died of a heart attack at the age of 61 in his home near Nottingham.

Song list

(incomplete)

• "Agent Double-O-Soul" (1965)
• "Back Street" (1966)
• "Headline News" (1966)
• "Oh How Happy" (1966)
• "I Want My Baby Back" (1967)
• "Grits Ain't Grocery" (1968)
• "25 Miles" (1968)
• "I'm Still a Struggling Man" (1969)
• "I Just Wanna Do My Thing" (1970)
• "Stop the War Now" (1970)
• "Time" (1970)
• "War" (1970)
• "Funky Music Sho Nuff Turns Me On" (1971)
• "My Sweet Lord" (1971)
• "There You Go" (1973)
• "Big Papa" (1974)
• "Easin' In (American Pimp Soundtrack) (1974)
• "Hell Up In Harlem" (1974)
• "Contact" (1979)
• "Happy Radio" (1979)
• "Get Up" (1980)
• "Snowflake Boogie" (w/Jules Holland) (2002)

External link

• [[1]]. Film: Edwin Starr, Polesworth UK / Xpress series II: dir: Pogus Caesar for Windrush Productions 1995