Charles Cross, acclaimed biographer of Hendrix, Cobain, dies at 67

At the back of the mind of many who write about history is a hope for some kind of immortality, a yearning that the words and sentences and, perhaps, entire works will still be read, re-read, digested and recommended long after the writer had breathed their last.

I didn’t know Charles R. Cross well enough to say whether or not he felt this way, but I do know that there’s no doubt his work will outlast all of us who mourn his unexpected and sudden passing late last week at age 67.

We traded messages a few weeks ago for a story Cross was working on for Crosscut about what he described as “Seattle outrage” as it related to public reactions to the community gradually losing pieces of its cultural soul. His questions to me were about the recent shuttering of the Wallingford Taco Time, and about which local landmark I’d step in front of a bulldozer in order to save. I was looking forward to the piece, but I don’t know if it has been published yet or if it ever will.

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Cross was known globally for definitive volumes about musical icons birthed in the Northwest: Jimi Hendrix, Heart and Nirvana. He also edited the Seattle-based music magazine “The Rocket,” an old printed paper that functioned in that pre-internet utopia like mortar between the bricks of the rapidly towering music scene in the boomtown glory years of the 1980s and 1990s. Before that – and the first place I ever read his name on a masthead – Cross created “Backstreets,” a so-called “fan-zine” devoted to Bruce Springsteen that soared above other publications in that category – many produced with copy machines and staplers – with its professional quality and stratospheric production values.

The fond memory I will treasure is of the last time I saw Charles Cross in person. It was November 2023 and he was so clearly in his element, expertly moderating a conversation at Easy Street Records in West Seattle on a blustery Friday night. The two-person panel consisted of Tommy Stinson, on-again, off-again bassist for the erratically genius and achingly self-defeating Minneapolis band The Replacements, and Peter Jesperson, the original manager of the still far too underappreciated quartet (who have always had a special connection to Seattle). The occasion was the publication of Jesperson’s memoir “Euphoric Recall.”

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The crowd was smaller than I’d anticipated – I’ll chalk that up to my own deep-seated Replacements’ bias – but the room was nearly filled with devotees, and Cross was, of course, the perfect moderator. Both Stinson and Jesperson clearly knew and trusted him, and Cross gently and skillfully demonstrated that he knew the two men and their life’s work, and that he loved them and their work as only someone who had been listening and paying attention for decades could.

It was a memorable night all about my favorite band in the heart of my favorite city.

One of the main reasons for the connection between The Replacements and the Pacific Northwest was the mutual affection between the Minneapolis band and Seattle’s Young Fresh Fellows.

Scott McCaughey is a co-founder of the Young Fresh Fellows and, not surprisingly, was good friends with Charles R. Cross and worked closely with him in multiple capacities decades ago. In an email Monday to KIRO Newsradio, McCaughey described their shared history and his sadness at Cross’ passing.

“Charley was one of the impressive and sharp guys we met when Chuck Carroll and I first moved to Seattle circa 1980,” McCaughey wrote (Carroll is co-founder of the Young Fresh Fellows). Cross “was at the UW Daily then but soon came over to join us at The Rocket, and eventually becoming editor. He championed the Young Fresh Fellows — in a transparent and non-fawning way — and even helped us with layout on our debut album cover.”

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“I was always happy to see him doing well with Backstreets and then as an acclaimed author,” McCaughey continued. “Seeing him over the years was always great – he mellowed a bit (as we do). I was obviously really looking forward to his book about our early Seattle days. He was never afraid to speak his mind and I’ll miss his honesty, intellect and spirit.”

We may never know exactly what Charles Cross was going to say about “Seattle outrage” – or in that book about his early Seattle days – but there’s no doubt that the city, the region and the world just lost a beloved piece of its cultural soul.

You can hear Feliks Banel every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien. Read more from Feliks here and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks. You can also follow Feliks on X.

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