Farewell Chris Cornell….

As one of the musicians credited for making the “angst-ridden” Seattle Grunge into the musical mainstream during the early 1990s, will the music world be poorer with the untimely passing of Chris Cornell?

By: Ringo Bones 

Besides Kurt Cobain and the rest of Nirvana, it seems that Chris Cornell and his fellow musicians of Soundgarden were absolutely pivotal in thrusting the so-called “Seattle Grunge” into the musical mainstream during the early 1990s. Even though no self-respecting music lover associates the great city of Seattle, Washington with Jazz clarinetist Kenny G, the so-called Seattle Grunge movement of the early 1990s will forever be associated with Nirvana and Soundgarden, in which Chris Cornell has since become an indispensable frontman since they gained fame during the late 1980s with their Loud Love album. 

It was reported that Chris Cornell died of an apparent suicide according to his representative, Brian Bumbery announced to the press on May 17, 2017. Cornell was said to have been found dead in the bathroom of his room at the MGM Grand Detroit hotel after Cornell’s wife asked a family friend to check up on him. Detroit police spokesman Michael Woody told Associated Press that the death was being treated as a possible suicide. 

Cornell’s biggest mainstream hit was probably the soundtrack to the 2006 James Bond movie Casino Royal titled You Know My Name which he wrote with Independence Day composer David Arnold. This was also the first Bond movie of actor Daniel Craig. Chris Cornell also earned kudos with the plane-watching community when in a Soundgarden video Burden in my Hand they used a Swedish Saab 35 Draken to flyby 4-minutes 4-seconds into the music video. Non-plane-watching enthusiasts often mistake the Swedish Saab 35 Draken flyby as a Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor. The music world could be a lot sadder without him and his still untapped potential.