Seattle music journalist and famed rock biographer Charles R. Cross has died at age 67. “He died peacefully of natural causes in his sleep on August 9, 2024,” his family said in a statement to Variety. “We are all grief-stricken and trying to get through this difficult process of dealing with the next steps.”
Cross founded the Bruce Springsteen fanzine Backstreets Magazine in 1980, edited Seattle alt-weekly The Rocket from 1986 through 2000, and he authored nine books, including three on Kurt Cobain: 2001’s Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain, 2008’s Cobain Unseen, and 2014’s Here We Are Now: The Lasting Impact of Kurt Cobain. He also co-authored Classic Rock Albums: Nevermind: Nirvana with Jim Berkenstadt, and his other books included the 2005 Jimi Hendrix biography Room Full of Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix, two Led Zeppelin books, the 2012 Heart book Kicking & Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul, and Rock & Roll (co-authored with Heart’s Ann and Nancy Wilson), and Backstreets: Springsteen, the Man and His Music. Heavier Than Heaven won the 2002 ASCAP Award for Outstanding Musical Biography.
Per Variety, Cross said, “We [at the Rocket] were the first magazine to ever review Nirvana, the first magazine to ever put them on the cover, and Kurt even was our customer — he advertised in our paper looking for drummers. So I chronicled the scene and knew everybody and ultimately felt that some of the stories about Kurt were just not right.”
Karl Braun, who knew Cross, told Seattle Times, “His legacy will be cemented in granite. Without The Rocket, I would say the prime era of ‘89 to ‘94 would not have happened because it had been built up. Nirvana’s goal was to get the cover of The Rocket. [Charles] was a big champion of Soundgarden and Nirvana.“
Seattle-area musician/producer and former Death Cab For Cutie Chris Walla said, “it’s impossible to imagine the music or community of seattle in the 80s and 90s without charles r. cross. he influenced or enabled practically every story, relationship, and musicians wanted ad in the city for decades. i’m eternally grateful. may his name be a blessing.”
Fellow Seattle music journalist (and Chris Cornell biographer) Corbin Reiff said, “Charles R. Cross was the greatest music journalist Seattle ever had. He was a tremendous influence on me as a writer, and was always quick to offer helpful advice. […] RIP Charles. A devastating loss.”
Music writer Ann Powers, who grew up in Seattle and got her start writing for The Rocket while in high school, wrote “Charley was responsible for so much in the Seattle scene as editor of the Rocket and his books on Cobain and Hendrix are among the best music bios ever penned. My hometown is in deep mourning. Please play ‘Little Wing’ and light a candle for him.
Heart’s Nancy Wilson wrote:
Charley Cross.. Charles Cross.
Whadda one of a kind guy.
His passion and purpose was to make it his life’s work to celebrate and chronicle the beautiful global renaissance that started with our local Seattle music scene.Charley was the coolest rock litterati bookworm to ever be lucky enough to know.
And all us cool rock people got to feel even cooler to know him and call him a friend.Always the cutest bespeckled nerd at the dance, we would talk for hours and hours about Heart for the book but we couldn’t stop talking about the impact of the eruptive explosion of rock that wrastled its way out into the culture like a prize fighter with guitars blazing and the searing war cries of singers like Kurt Eddie Chris and Ann.
We had the fuel that rescued the soul of rock after the corporate 80s and the Seattle music family was the command post.
Charley was our trusty biographer
and implicitly trusted friend.
Never selatious never invasive always impeccably
appropriate and always brought that sharp worldly humor with him.I truly loved Charley Cross.
One of a kind class act.
Rest in wit and wisdom dear fine feathered friend.
