{"id":2181749,"date":"2025-11-30T13:52:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T13:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2181749"},"modified":"2025-11-30T13:52:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T13:52:09","slug":"rock-world-mourns-as-legendary-musician-dies-at-73-after-year-long-cancer-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/rock-world-mourns-as-legendary-musician-dies-at-73-after-year-long-cancer-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock world mourns as legendary musician dies at 73 after year-long cancer battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Bob \u201cBongo\u201d Starkie was a beloved musician who lived one heck of a life. <\/p>\n

Sadly though, that life that has come to an end at 73, after a year-long battle with leukemia. <\/p>\n

His band, the Skyhooks, shared the news of his death on Facebook.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s with sadness in our hearts that we have to send out this news that early this morning Bob \u2018Bongo\u2019 Starkie has passed away,\u201d the statement read. \u201cFor the past year he has fought the brave fight against Leukemia hoping to get back on the road to perform more shows. Music was in his blood till the very end. <\/p>\n

\u201cBob 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,\u201d the statement continued. \u201cThe music always came fist and touring and playing onstage was his absolute joy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement added that the band is \u201cexceptionally saddened\u201d by Starkie\u2019s loss and then included a statement from Peter Green of Skyhooks archives.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Dearest Grand-Daddy-Bop has peacefully departed listening to Chuck Berry,\u201d that read. \u201cSnuggling with his fur baby Bonnie, surrounded by his friends and family. Daughters Indiana and Arabella, grandchildren Phoenix and Lucia, Partner Chrissy, great mate Ian and son in laws Simon and Chris will miss him dearly. Thank you for all your support, he has felt the love till the very end.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Music praised <\/b><\/a>Starkie for being \u201cin the biggest band Australia has ever seen,\u201d and befriending the Great Train Robber Robbie Biggs, among other things. The site said that the Skyhooks \u201crevolutionized the local industry\u201d in Australia when they released, \u201cLiving in the 70\u2019s,\u201d their debut album in 1974. <\/p>\n

Starkie was remember by many on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cSad news,\u201d Rohan Connolly wrote on X. \u201c\u2019Living in the 70s\u2019 was a massive game changer for Aussie music and Bongo\u2019s guitar was integral to it. Hard for younger people to appreciate just how big the \u2018Hooks were. RIP.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cOur hearts (are) broken\u201d Gryphon Music wrote on X. \u201cOur gorgeous Skyhooks guitarist mate Bob \u2018Bongo\u2019 Starkie has lost his brave fight with leukemia, went quickly in his sleep with Chuck Berry playing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.pennlive.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bob \u201cBongo\u201d Starkie was a beloved musician who lived one heck of a life. Sadly though, that life that has come to an end at 73, after a year-long battle with leukemia. His band, the Skyhooks, shared the news of his death on Facebook. \u201cIt\u2019s with sadness in our hearts that we have to send […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[420053,420054,420055],"class_list":["post-2181749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-bob-starkie","tag-freddie-strauks","tag-graeme-strachan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2181749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2181749"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2181749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2181750,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2181749\/revisions\/2181750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2181749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2181749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2181749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}