Tributes to paid to famed music writer and Kurt Cobain biographer Charles R. Cross

13 August, 2024

Author, journalist, biographer Charles R. Cross

Tributes have been paid following the death of famed music writer and Kurt Cobain biographer Charles R. Cross.

Cross was a Seattle-based music journalist who was one of the most visible and influential figures over the scene for decades – particularly between 1986 and 2000 when he served as the editor for weekly newspaper The Rocket.

As well as penning a number of music-related bigoraphies, including the Kurt Cobain-centred Heavier Than Heaven, he also founded the Bruce Springsteen magazine Backstreets, and had his writing featured in some of the most famous publications.

“We are sorry to share that Charles Cross has passed,” the writer’s family shared in a statement. “He died peacefully of natural causes in his sleep on August 9, 2024.  We are all grief-stricken and trying to get through this difficult process of dealing with the next steps.” He was aged 67.

Among those mourning Cross are producer and former Death Cab for Cutie member Chris Walla, who wrote on X: “It’s impossible to imagine the music or community of Seattle in the ’80s and ’90s without Charles. He influenced or enabled practically every story, relationship, and musicians wanted ad in the city for decades. I’m eternally grateful.”

Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson posted on Instagram, describing him as a “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,” she added. “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.

Elsewhere, Los Angeles Times rock critic and biographer Robert Hilburn hailed the journalist as being “as warm and gracious as he was a passionate and compelling writer”, while NPR critic Ann Powers wrote: “I’m shocked and very sad. 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.”

Find more tributes for Cross below.

During his time on the scene, Cross published nine books including Room Full of Mirrors: The Biography of Jimi Hendrix and Kicking & Dreaming: A Story of Heart, Soul, and Rock & Roll, both of which became New York Times bestsellers.

His most famous work to date remains Heavier Than Heaven, which was called “one of the most moving and revealing books ever written about a rock star” by the Los Angeles Times and won the 2002 ASCAP Award for Outstanding Musical Biography.

For the book, which centred on Nirvana frontman and grunge music icon Kurt Cobain, Cross conducted more than 400 interviews and worked closely with Courtney Love.

Other books published about Cobain were Cobain Unseen and Here We Are Now: The Lasting Impact of Kurt Cobain. He also shared two books about Led Zeppelin, titled Led Zeppelin: Heaven and Hell and Led Zeppelin: Shadows Taller Than Our Souls.

Variety highlights that in recent years he had been working on a memoir which also encapsulated Seattle’s music history, and he also planned to publish a compendium of material from The Rocket.

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