John Starling & Carolina Star
Go! FEATURE
What goes around keeps going around.
Back in a previous life, John Starling was a bluegrass musician. Then he was a doctor. Now he’s a musician again.
In the 1970s, Starling was a founding member of the Seldom Scene, an influential bluegrass band that helped launch the career of Ricky Skaggs and included among its collaborators Emmylou Harris.
In 1977, Starling left the band to pursue his medical career as a head and neck surgeon — or as his musician friend liked to tease him, an “ear, nose and wallet man.”
“All this time, I was practicing medicine and did very little playing or road work,” he said, “but I would fill in from time to time when I could.”
But when he announced his retirement from medicine two years ago, music quickly rushed in to fill the void.
He re-connected with former Seldom Sceners Mike Auldridge and Tom Gray to form Carolina Star.
The debut set from that band, “Slidin’ Home,” just released this week, also includes a contribution by old friend Harris on “In My Hour of Darkness,” a song that he thought was written by the legendary Gram Parsons.
“Emmylou and I went to New England seven or eight years ago to do a college benefit,” he said. “The dean of that college had been Gram Parson’s dorm counselor when Gram went to Harvard.”
It was a song about losing good friends, and Starling had just lost one, so at the request of the dean, he and Emmylou worked up the Parson’s tune.
“When I decided to work it up again for the record, I called Emmylou and found out that she had a co-writing credit on that song,” Starling said. “She said she only contributed a couple of phrases or something, but it’s turned out to be one of my favorite tunes on the album.”
Starling said that playing music is like riding a bicycle, that it didn’t take long for him to get his chops back.
“You never really retire from music, I guess,” he said. “But when you retire from medicine, you really retire. I’ve only been gone for less than two years, and it’s already moved right past me.”
how to go
WHO: John Starling and Carolina Star.
WHERE: Parrish Auditorium, Miami University Hamilton Campus.
WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday.
COST: $20 adults; $18 seniors; $12 students and children.
MORE INFO: (513) 529-3200; tickets.muohio.edu.
