Charles R. Cross, the Seattle music journalist who edited the town’s famed different weekly Rocket and wrote about Kurt Cobain, died Friday at age 67 Finest-selling biographies of Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, and different main rock figures.
“We’re unhappy to report that Charles Cross has handed away,” the author’s household stated in an announcement. “He handed away peacefully and naturally in his sleep on August 9, 2024. We’re all grieving and attempting to work by way of this tough strategy of coping with the following steps.”
Amongst these mourning Cross was veteran Los Angeles Occasions rock critic and biographer Robert Hilburn, who wrote on Platform Cobain “is on the high of my shortlist for the most effective music biographies.” “He was heat, gracious and a passionate, compelling author,” Hilburn stated.
His longtime agent, Sarah Lazin, stated: “I am shocked and devastated. We have labored collectively and been associates for 30 years, beginning with “Heavy Than Heaven,” and the e-book stays related greater than 20 years later. Printed around the globe. We’ve got written many books collectively and lately offered his subsequent venture with co-agent Laura Nolan of Aevitas Inventive Administration, a e-book based mostly on his beloved Seattle A superb, passionate author and loving father. Shilan’s ideas are with all of us. What a loss.
Cross has revealed 9 books, together with the New York Occasions bestseller A Room Stuffed with Mirrors: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix and Kicks and Goals: A Biography of Jimi Hendrix, a collaboration with Coronary heart frontmen Ann and Nancy Wilson. A narrative in regards to the coronary heart and soul” and rock music.
For many years, Cross was the Seattle music scene’s most seen and influential rock journalist, notably through the almost fifteen years (1986-2000) when he served as editor of the weekly Rocket, the place He carried out brilliantly.
Cross additionally based and edited the Bruce Springsteen journal Backstreet for a few years, maybe probably the most acclaimed of all fanzines centered on a single artist.
As Cobain’s chronicler, Cross stated: “We [at the Rocket] was the primary journal to assessment Nirvana, the primary journal to place them on the quilt, Kurt was even a shopper of ours – he put an advert in our paper on the lookout for a drummer. So I documented the scene, bought to know everybody, and in the end felt like a number of the tales about Kurt weren’t proper.
“Heavy Than Heaven” was known as “some of the shifting and revealing books ever written about rock stars” by the Los Angeles Occasions. It received the 2002 ASCAP Award for Excellent Music Biography. Cross performed greater than 400 interviews for the e-book, together with a key interview with Courtney Love. Cross as soon as stated that Love “felt that to be able to perceive him, I wanted to learn his thoughts,” he stated. “The diaries actually modified the e-book rather a lot as a result of they gave me a spot to specific Kurt’s voice.” He additional defined, “A part of my motivation was that I actually felt just like the story wasn’t being informed appropriately.” , noting that he wished to delve into areas he felt different writers had prevented, from the historical past of the rock icon’s suicidal impulses to his conflicting impulses about industrial intercourse.
Common Photos optioned Cobain’s biography, sparking widespread hypothesis about which younger actor may play the title position, nevertheless it by no means left improvement.
Earlier, Cross wrote “It is Okay: A Basic Album.” He adopted up the bestseller “Heavier Than Heaven” with two extra books in regards to the late rock star: “Cobain Unseen” and “We Are Right here Now: The Lasting Influence of Kurt Cobain.”
Cross first got here to the eye of nationwide readers when he launched Backstreet Journal in 1980, printing 10,000 copies of a four-page tabloid dedicated to Springsteen and delivering it without cost throughout a present on the Seattle Coliseum. In 1989, the Backstreet anthology he co-edited was revealed in e-book type, titled Springsteen: The Man and His Music , and within the foreword to the primary challenge, Cross wrote: “I’m Not a lot is thought in regards to the first challenge.
Initially, Cross handwritten Backstreet’s subscription labels. By the publication’s tenth challenge, it had upgraded from newsprint to a full-color, shiny paper format. With Cross finally shifting on to different journalism ventures, Backstreet continued to function {a magazine} or web site and Springsteen’s main supply till early 2023.
Earlier than founding Backstreet, Cross served as editor of the College of Washington Day by day Information in 1979.
Different books embrace “Led Zeppelin: Heaven and Hell” and “Led Zeppelin: Shadows Greater Than Our Souls.”
Cross was proficient as a critic, however in the end felt that his best present was crafting narrative. “As a rock critic, you have a tendency to make use of the identical phrases in each assessment. Ultimately, you begin this and saying ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve used every of those adjectives 15 occasions earlier than in numerous combos. “So I believe one of many issues I attempt to concentrate on is letting the storytelling carry it moderately than approaching it like a critic.
Lately, Cross has been writing a e-book, which he described to an interviewer as “a memoir about my life and the historical past of Seattle music.”
He additionally plans to publish a compendium of fabric from the rocket. Cross had beforehand lamented the lack of the choice weekly’s archives to be preserved on-line, however was delighted when the publication was lastly totally digitized, a venture introduced in December 2023.
Cross additionally writes for The Seattle Occasions. In his latest article for Metropolis Journal, he profiles different writers, together with Anupreeta Das on her Invoice Gates biography, and Ann Powers Powers introduces her new e-book in regards to the profession of Joni Mitchell.
Cross’ work has additionally appeared in Rolling Stone, Spin, Esquire, Playboy, Guitar World, Q, Uncut, Creem, London Occasions, Los Angeles Occasions ” and the Seattle Submit-Clever.
