Edwin Starr was born Charles Edwin Hatcher in Nashville in 1942 and raised in Cleveland, where his cousins Roger and Willie Hatcher also sang soul. In 1957 he formed the doo-wop group the Future Tones, which released a single before he was drafted and spent three years stationed in Europe. Back home he joined organist Bill Doggett’s touring band, and Doggett’s manager Don Briggs suggested the stage name. Signing with Detroit’s Ric-Tic Records in 1965, he cut Agent 00 Soul, riding the James Bond craze, with musicians who later formed Black Merda, and wrote Oh How Happy, a number 12 pop hit for the Shades of Blue in 1966.
Berry Gordy bought Ric-Tic, folding Starr into Motown, where 25 Miles made the top 10 in 1969. Norman Whitfield’s War had been a Temptations album track, but Motown gave Starr a new version in 1970 that spent three weeks at number one and sold over three million copies; Robert Christgau said his stridency stole the song. He followed with the album Involved, scored Hell Up in Harlem in 1974, and had disco hits Contact and H.A.P.P.Y. Radio in 1979. Northern soul DJs in England revered his Ric-Tic sides, and in 1983 he moved to the Midlands for good, dying in Nottinghamshire in 2003 at 61.
- Stop Her On Sight was reissued in Britain in 1968 and charted higher than the original U.S. release.
- Headline News and Backstreet also became northern soul classics.
- In 1987 he clashed with Stock Aitken Waterman, saying they treated him like a novice.
- He played soul singer Ozzy Sands in the 1995 British film Blue Juice.
- He was inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame in 2013 and Michigan Rock and Roll Legends in 2017.
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