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Former bandmates are among those paying tribute to Bob Starkie, long-time rhythm guitarist of one of Australia’s most culturally significant rock bands, Skyhooks, who died earlier today.
The band announced Starkie – known by the nickname “Bongo” – has died at the age of 73, after a battle with leukaemia.
Bob “Bongo” Starkie (right) at the height of the Skyhooks era.
“It’s with sadness in our hearts that we have to send out this news,” the band wrote on its Facebook page.
“For the past year, [Bob] has fought the brave fight against [leukaemia] hoping to get back on the road to perform more shows. Music was in his blood till the very end.
“Bob was the guitarist in the iconic Skyhooks, the youngest in the band and he embraced the theatrics from striking facial make-up to unique stage costumes.
“The music always came first and touring and playing onstage was his absolute joy.”
Starkie with vocalist Laura Davidson for the 40th anniversary of Living in the 70s. Credit: Jason South
While Skyhooks ceased touring as a group after the death of lead singer Shirley Strachan in 2001 on a solo helicopter flight in Queensland, Starkie continued to perform their catalogue live with hand-picked musicians in the years following.
As he did, he kept wearing his stage suit, complete with a recognisable frill-neck-lizard-style collar.
Starkie last month cancelled 50th anniversary shows for the band’s seminal debut album, Living in the 70’s, due to ill health.
Starkie’s daughter, Indiana, quoted in the same post, said he “peacefully departed listening to Chuck Berry. Snuggling with his fur baby Bonnie, surrounded by friends and family”.
“He has felt the love till the very end.”
Red Symons, the band’s lead guitarist more recently known for his media career, told this masthead he first met Starkie when the latter was just a teenager.
They met through his older brother, Peter, a founding member of Skyhooks who both Symons and Starkie learned guitar from.
Starkie joined the band in August 1973 as a replacement for Peter. Peter died in 2020, aged 72, after falling from a ladder.
The younger Starkie proved the perfect foil to Symons, with the duelling solos midway through You Just Like Me ’Cos I’m Good In Bed a particular highlight of their six-string partnership.
Symons said he last saw Starkie at his home a week before he died.
Symons (second from right) and Starkie (right) both learned guitar from Starkie’s brother Peter.Credit: The Age
“It was nice to see him and show affection towards him,” Symons said.
“By his description, he didn’t have a lot of energy. I saw him at the start of this year when he was first given a diagnosis. It seemed as though we were coming to the end of our relationship.”
“When you’re a bunch of blokes all hanging around together, you do very little of that. But what better time than to simply and positively say ‘I love you’?”
Symons also said he greatly respected Starkie’s decision to enlist a female singer to tour Skyhooks’ songs in later year, in that it honoured Shirley Strachan’s unique vocal range without trying to replace him.
Skyhooks were early favourites of the Melbourne-produced music TV series Countdown, pairing their quirky, place-based songs with glitzy stage attire.
Bob "Bongo" Starkie on guitar and backing vocals for the band The Skyhooks.
The quintet was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 1992, while Living in the 70’s, produced by Ross Wilson, was added to the National Film and Sound Archive in 2011.
That album sold more than 300,000 copies, despite six of its 10 tracks being banned from radio due to sex and drug references.
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