David Soul will always be remembered as half of television's hip '70s cop duo Starsky & Hutch, but he actually started his professional career as a folksinger. Before the weekly series made him and co-star Paul Michael Glaser international stars, Soul opened shows for such notables as Frank Zappa, Jay & the Americans, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, the Byrds, and the Lovin' Spoonful. He picked up an interest in folk music about the same time that he played a guitar for the first time, while living in Mexico in 1962. Soul's father, a minister, moved his Midwestern family south of the border when he took a position as instructor to upcoming diplomats, and Soul opted to follow and attend the University of Mexico and the University of the Americas rather than accept an offer from the Chicago White Sox to play baseball. At school he studied political science. When he returned to the U.S., Minneapolis' Ten o'Clock Scholar gave him his first gig, where the blond singer belted out Mexican folk tunes.