Charles R. Cross, the Seattle music journalist and bestselling author behind and , has died. His family shared the news in a statement, writing, “We are sorry to share that Charles Cross has passed.
He died peacefully of natural causes in his sleep on August 9th, 2024. We are all grief-stricken and trying to get through this difficult process of dealing with the next steps.” He was 67.
Cross was an integral part of Seattle’s music scene due to his work as a writer, journalist, and fan. His career began at , Seattle’s free biweekly music magazine, back in 1982. He served as editor from 1986 on through to the publication’s end in 2000.
During his time there, Cross witnessed and helped propel the rise of grunge, watching as transformed from a musician seeking drummers in ’s ads section to the frontman gracing the cover of their publication. In 2001, Cross published , which became a bestseller and won the 2002 ASCAP Award for Outstanding Biography. Over the course of four years, Cross dug through more than 400 interviews and was given access to Cobain’s private journals, lyrics, and photos by Courtney Love.
He followed up his writing on Cobain with 2008’s , a collection of never-before-seen artifacts, journal entries, and pictures from Cobain’s archive that Cross gained access to while writing the initial biography. Years later, he also published 2014’s . Back before his Cobain biography, however, Cross set his heart on another musician: .
He founded the essen.