Charles Cross, the late editor and owner of The Rocket, honored at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony
Charles R. Cross wrote his first story for The Rocket while still a student at the UW. At The Daily, he met future Pulitzer Prize winning authors like Suki Dardarian and Tim Egan. “There was this real sense that the journalism we were doing was going to change the world,” he said earlier this year.
The late Charles R. Cross, ’81, created such a legacy as a revered music writer that he was honored during the Oct. 19 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Cleveland. Along with such music industry heavyweights as Kris Kristofferson, and members of The Spinners and MC5, Cross, was recognized during the nationally televised ceremony’s In Memorial segment.
Cross, who died suddenly of natural causes at the age of 67 in August, was one of the country’s most respected music writers and editors. During his 40-year career, he was perhaps best known for being the editor and owner of The Rocket, a Seattle music newspaper, from 1986 to 2000. In that role, he played an outsized role in recognizing and promoting such Seattle music acts as Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Nirvana. They were bands he covered long before they earned national acclaim, due in part to his stories.
Bruce Springsteen also paid tribute in August to Cross, who created a so-called “fanzine” called “Backstreets,” which covered Springsteen in detail.
Cross–who wrote a cover story for the December 1996 Columns magazine on the impact of UW students and alumni on the grunge music scene–was also known as a premier biographer of such local music stars as Kurt Cobain, Ann and Nancy Wilson and Jimi Hendrix.
Not long before his untimely death, he was able to work with UW Libraries to have the entire library of The Rocket digitized and made available to the public.
See also: December 1996 Columns magazine cover story by Charles R. Cross
A self portrait of a young Cross, shared on his Facebook page.