Rock legend Chris Cornell lived on contrasts. He was a genre-defying inventor who was a key figure in the development of the grunge movement in the 1990s. He was consistently rated as having one of the greatest voices in music history and over the course of decades, he was able to effectively preserve his own distinctive personality as a multi-Grammy award-winning musician and widely recognized singer, songwriter, and lyricist.
Christopher John Boyle became Chris Cornell on July 20, 1964 in Seattle, Washington.
When Chris was in his early teens, his parents got divorced, and he and his siblings changed their last names from Boyle to his mother’s maiden name.
When his mother intervened, Chris had already begun to defy his Catholic upbringing and was on the point of being expelled from the religious school he attended. He experimented with drugs and theft as a teenager.
One among the items he stole from his neighbor’s cellar was a collection of Beatles LPs, which started an interest in songwriting. Chris claimed that even though his parents had started him off with piano lessons from a young age, his mother’s purchase of a snare drum ultimately saved his life.
After a week, he got himself a full drum set and started his exploration of rock and roll.
After appearing with Soundgarden at a performance at the Fox Theatre on May 17, Cornell’s bodyguard discovered him unresponsive in the bathroom of his hotel room, 1136, at the MGM Grand in Detroit, Michigan, around 12:15 a.m. on May 18.
He had blood in his mouth and was sprawled out on the ground with an exercise band around his neck. Both an MGM doctor and EMS workers failed to revive Cornell.
At 1:30 a.m., a doctor declared 52-year-old Cornell dead. Officially, a suicide by hanging was determined to be the cause of death.
Who are Chris Cornell’s parents?
His parents are Karen Boyle (née Cornell), an accountant with a Jewish background and a self-described clairvoyant, and Edward F. Boyle, a pharmacist of Irish Catholic ancestry.
