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.”
The Skyhooks were early favourites of the Melbourne-produced music TV series Countdown, pairing their quirky, place-based songs with glitzy stage attire.
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.
Bob “Bongo” Starkie on guitar and backing vocals for the band The Skyhooks.
Starkie joined the band in August 1973 as a replacement for his brother Peter, who helped found the band. Peter died in 2020, aged 72, after falling from a ladder.
The younger Starkie proved the perfect foil to the band’s lead guitarist, Red 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.
