Charles R. Cross, Seattle music journalist and author of acclaimed Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix biographies, dies at 67

Charles R. Cross, a Seattle-based music journalist who edited the city's preeminent alt-weekly, The Rocket, and penned bestselling biographies of Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and other major rock figures, died Friday at age 67.

“We are sorry to share that Charles Cross has passed,” the writer’s family said 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.”

Cross was perhaps best known for Heavier Than Heaven, his deeply reported 2001 account of the life and career of Kurt Cobain, who shaped rock history as the frontman of Nirvana and who became one of the genre’s tragic figures when he died by suicide — just months after the release of Nirvana’s third studio album, In Utero — in April 1994.

The book, for which Cross conducted more than 400 interviews, won an ASCAP award, the performing rights organization, and was described by former Los Angeles Times music critic Robert Hilburn as “one of the most moving and revealing books ever written about a rock star” that was "high on my short-list of best music biographies ever."

Among Cross' other books were 2005's Room Full of Mirrors, about Jimi Hendrix, and 2012's Kicking & Dreaming, which he penned alongside Ann and Nancy Wilson of the rock band Heart.

In addition to his work as an author, Cross wrote about music for a number of publications, among themRolling Stone, Spin, Esquire, Entertainment Weekly, Playboy, Q, Mojo, Guitar World, the Seattle Times and the Los Angeles Times. Cross began his extensive career in music journalism in the late 1970s while working on the student newspaper at the University of Washington where he became editor of the Daily UW campus daily. After he graduated, Cross founded Backstreets, a well-received Bruce Springsteen fanzine that continued to publish until 2023.

In 1986, Cross became editor of the Rocket, a weekly newspaper in Seattle, just as the city's bustling rock scene was beginning to gain traction; he went on to edit the paper through the grunge explosion of the late '80s and early '90s - during which Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Alice in Chains became staples of the rock subgenre - until 2000.

Figures across the music industry have shared tributes in Cross’ honor after learning of his death, including Heart’s Nancy Wilson, who said about her friend: "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."

 

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Cross' longtime agent, Sarah Lazin, said he was working on a memoir when he died.

“I’m stunned and devastated," Lazin remarked. "We worked together — and were friends — for 30 years, starting with ‘Heavier Than Heaven,’ which is still in print all over the world 20-plus years later.

"We did many books together, and most recently sold, with Laura Nolan, a co-agent at Aevitas Creative Management, his next project, a memoir featuring his beloved Seattle. I’d just spoken to him on Thursday and he seemed happy, vibrant, and excited about all that was happening. A brilliant and passionate author and loving dad. My heart goes out to his son Ashland and to us all. What a loss.”