Edwin Starr is best known for his massive 1970s hit “War,” which was actually not a song produced originally for the Tennessee-native singer. Starr began his career as a late 50s R&B singer with Ric Tic records, which was later purchased by Barry Gordie’s Motown records in Detroit. Motown of course was heralded as the smash-record producing house that brought fame for many African American artists, but at the time, Starr was only a B level artist.
War became the song that Motown songwriter Norman Whitfield would be better suited to have an anthem-style production with James Brown overtones that could help steer scrutiny away from the Temptations’ already phenomenal career, and put the risky counter-culture anti-Vietnam song in the hands of a relatively unknown artist.
Starr’s version of “War” was a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1970, and is not only the most successful and well-known record of his career, but it is also one of the most popular protest songs ever recorded.
If you can believe it, Edwin’s interjections in War of “good God ya’ll” and “absolutely nothing” were actually not part of the original songwriting. They were simply ad-libs on-the-spot that naturally came to him during the recording process.
Even Bruce Springsteen has taken a crack at singing and releasing War as a single, having first shown up as a live performance on the Boss’ Born in the USA tour, and then appearing as a single on his Live box set. Since the theme of the song complimented his own Born in the USA hit single, it was a natural fit for his shows. Though the song was powerful to his live shows, he still couldn’t quite remember the lyrics. He apparently used to tape them to his arm so he wouldn’t screw them up.
Portions of this profile were attributed to Wikipedia.org’s Edwin Starr entry.
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