Andy Starr (October 21, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was a rockabilly musician once described by Billboard as "one of the more noteworthy Presley disciples."
Born Franklin Delano Gulledge near Combs, Arkansas, he grew up in dire poverty, and was never far from the edge of delinquency, going over the edge, according to scholar Wayne Russell, when in1947 , he had left school and was riding the rails and living life as a hobo. According to those who knew him, Starr had one talent in those days beyond a knack for survival, and that was playing guitar, something he'd picked up in his abbreviated time at home and never forgotten.
He was 17 when the Korean War exploded and he signed up; luckily for him, someone noticed his musical ability and he was assigned to special services rather than to a combat unit, where his fate might have been very different. He formed the Arkansas Plowboys from the ranks of fellow southerners and survived his two years in South Asia, coming out a little bit straighter in life than he'd gone in -- he still drank, sometimes to excess, but he tried regular work in a factory in Kansas before moving to California. There, he and his brothers Bob and Clark formed a new group, also christened the Arkansas Plowboys.
