![]() He had a well-rehearsed 12-piece band and he did some energetic versions of Motown classics such as "Reach Out, I'll Be There" and "Get Ready". In 2003 he toured with Geno Washington and I was very impressed by his performance at the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool. Starr often toured the UK in Motown revival packages, most recently in Dancing in the Streets with Martha Reeves and Mary Wilson in 2000. Starr recut "War" in a rap version for Peter Stringfellow's Hippodrome label in 1993, and the song is now a standard with cover versions from Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Weller and, in 2002, Joan Osborne. They wanted to guide me through the vocals, so they were treating me like a novice. They were never serious about what they were doing with me. In 1987 he anticipated further success by recording with the production team of Stock, Aitken and Waterman, but, he concluded, He settled in the Midlands and, when his Motown contract expired in 1975, he began recording in Britain, scoring Top Ten hits with the disco songs "Contact" and "H.A.P.P.Y. "I never received my royalties from Motown," he claimed, "and that is why my live performances had to be so powerful as that is all I had to rely on for a living."Įdwin Starr enjoyed working in the UK and found a large following on the Northern soul circuit. ![]() "Take Me Clear from Here" (1972) "Love (The Lonely People's Prayer)" (1973) were excellent tracks and potential hit singles if Motown had got behind them. His best work with Motown included some duets with Blinky ("Oh How Happy", "Ooo Baby Baby") and the soundtrack for the blaxploitation film Hell up in Harlem (1973). Motown could have done more with Starr, but he was a difficult artist and they did have another stentorian vocalist with Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops. ![]() Starr criticised Wilson Pickett, whom he felt had stolen his arrangement of "Hey Jude" for a hit single. One of his best performances was an insidious rendering of George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord". Starr made two fine albums, War and Peace (1970) and Involved (1971), but, besides social protests, he sang "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" and "Funky Music Sho Nuff Turns Me On". "War", with its combination of soul music and psychedelic fuzz guitars, topped the US charts and reached No 3 in the UK, but the follow-up, "Stop the War Now", was simply more of the same and in Starr's words, "totally redundant". It can be about the war you have in your job or the problems you have because of your colour. It can be the war you have in your neighbourhood trying to survive. ![]()
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