Sad and heartbreaking news. The music industry lost another music legend but this music legend was an important one. He was important to all of us.

Chris Cornell was mostly known for being the lead singer and guitarist for the Seattle metal band, Soundgarden. Everybody liked to call them a grunge band but I always looked at their music as “metal”. Soundgarden has been a huge part of all of our lives whether you were into their music or not. They were definitely a huge part of mine.

I was a young teenager during the 90’s when all this so-called “grunge” music was going on: Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, etc. All of their videos were being played all over MTV back in those days and all of their songs were being played on the radio. Soundgarden pretty much started the whole 90’s hard rock movement.

If you’re a long time Soundgarden fan then chances are, you may have seen them in concert before. Maybe you saw them once, maybe you saw them many times. I never saw them before wishing I did, though. When I was a kid during junior high back in those days, I would listen to Soundgarden albums on CD: “Badmotorfinger” and “The Superunknown” were two albums that I listened to a lot during my high school years. I was also a big fan of the Temple of the Dog album too.

I was always fascinated with Chris’s voice. He was undeniable the greatest singing voice in rock n’ roll. The man had it all vocally. He could sing really low to high pitch screams.

I followed Soundgarden’s career over the years and even followed Chris Cornell’s solo career after Soundgarden’s breakup. Then Soundgarden reunited to release the latest album, “King Animal”.

Chris Cornell was one of the biggest inspirations to me of wanting to become a musician. He was the one who helped me want to become a singer myself.

Then we have Audioslave which is another Cornell band that I followed, I have all three of their albums. For Chris Cornell solo albums, I only have three of them “Carry On”, “Euphoria Morning” and “Higher Truth”. I tried to follow all of his projects as much as I could.

I just loved listening to him sing like everyone else. He’s just one of those singers you would never get tired of hearing. Each time you hear him sing, he gives you goosebumps.

One overlooked thing about Chris Cornell is that while he’s a great singer and guitarist, he was also one of the best lyricists too. He would write unique lyrics. He had a different style of lyric writing and his lyrics was always so deep and inspiring. A lot of people don’t recognize him for his amazing style of lyric writing. When I listen to his music, I’ve always read along to his lyrics as he sings ’cause his lyrics were so amazing.

Chris Cornell was a hero of mine and an inspiration to my own music as well. Thanks Chris, you are now up there with Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone doing a duet together.

Kev