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Christopher Cross
Christopher Cross backstage after a tribute concert to Michael McDonald in Los Angeles (February 4, 2000).
Background information
Birth name	Christopher Charles Geppert
Also known as	Christopher Cross
Born	May 3, 1951 (1951-05-03) (age 58)
Origin	San Antonio, Texas
Genres	Pop Soft rock Yacht Rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, producer
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, piano
Years active	1979–present
Labels	Warner Bros., BMG, Reprise, Priority, CMC International
Associated acts	Michael McDonald, Burt Bacharach, Madison Cross, The Alan Parsons Project
Website	Christopher Cross official website

Christopher Cross (born Christopher Charles Geppert on May 3, 1951) is an American singer-songwriter from San Antonio, Texas. His debut album earned him five Grammy Awards in one year, a rare feat, and he also received an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award.

Career

He is best known for his Top Ten hit songs, "Sailing", "Ride Like the Wind", and "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)," the last of which he performed for the film Arthur starring Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli. "Sailing" earned three awards at the 1981 Grammy Awards Ceremony, while "Arthur's Theme" won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1981 (with co-composers Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager and Peter Allen.)

Cross first played with a San Antonio-based cover band named Flash before signing a solo contract with Warner Bros. Cross released his self-titled debut album, Christopher Cross, in 1979, which garnered him five Grammy Awards. He is one of two solo artists to win all of the "Big Four" Grammy Awards (Best Record, Song, Album, and New Artist) in the same year (The other is Norah Jones). Hits from this album included "Sailing", "Ride Like the Wind" (featuring backing vocals by Michael McDonald) and "Never Be the Same".

His second album, Another Page, which came out in 1983, included the hit songs "Think of Laura", "No Time For Talk", and "All Right." "All Right" was used by CBS Sports for its highlights montage following the 1983 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament, won in an upset by North Carolina State, which defeated the University of Houston (the Phi Slamma Jamma team with Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler) in the championship game, 54-52. Although Another Page sold respectably, it did not nearly live up to the high expectations set by his debut album.

Cross released his third album Every Turn of the World in 1985. However, the album failed to produce any top 40 hits, and did not sell well. He went on to make three more albums in the 90's and although some of his releases have gained critical response, he has failed to catch the mass audience he once enjoyed. After his decline in fame in the mid 1980s, Cross has toured and opened for various acts since the '90s and released his second Greatest Hits package in 2002.^[1]

Cross completed a new Christmas album, A Christopher Cross Christmas, released in 2007. Cross finished recording a new acoustic album of his hits titled The Cafe Carlyle Sessions.^[2] He is also working on a new studio album that is expected to be released in the spring of 2010.^[3] He does about 100 live performances a year.

Discography

Albums

• Christopher Cross (1979) (1980)
• Another Page (1983)
• Every Turn of the World (1985)
• Back of My Mind (1988)
• Rendezvous (1992)
• The Best of Christopher Cross (1993)
• Window (1995)
• Walking in Avalon (1998)
• Greatest Hits Live (1999)
• Red Room (2000)
• The Very Best of Christopher Cross (2002)
• A Christopher Cross Christmas (2007)
• The Café Carlyle Sessions (2008)
• Dr. Faith (2010)

Soundtracks

• Motion picture soundtrack "Arthur" ("Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)") (1981)
• TV series soundtrack "General Hospital" ("Think of Laura") (1983)
• Official Music of the XXIIIrd Olympiad (swimming theme "A Chance For Heaven") (1984)
• Motion picture soundtrack "Nothing In Common" ("Loving Strangers (David's Theme)") (1986)

Singles

Other appearances

• Electromagnets with Eric Johnson (1974) - vocal guest appearance on 'Motion'
• Christopher Cross: An Evening with Christopher Cross (1998)
• Michael McDonald - A Gathering of Friends (2001) - guest appearance on 'Ride Like The Wind'
• Soundstage: America Live In Chicago (2008) - guest appearance on 'Lonely People' and 'A Horse With No Name'

Awards

• Academy Award for Best Song, 1981, "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)"
• Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, 1981, "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)"
• Grammy, 1981 - Record of the Year - "Sailing"
• Grammy, 1981 - Song of the Year - "Sailing"
• Grammy, 1981 - Album of the Year - Christopher Cross
• Grammy, 1981 - Best New Artist - Christopher Cross
• Grammy, 1981 - Best Arrangement - "Sailing"

Madison Cross

Christopher Cross's daughter Madison is also interested in singing, beginning from when she sang a duet with her father at school as a little girl. From there, she began traveling with him, and sometimes performing at his shows. At the age of nine, Madison began an acting career in musical theater. In 2005, Cross recorded her first single, He Was Just Like Me, dedicated to Mattie Stepanek, a young poet who died in 2004 due to muscular dystrophy. The single was put into rotation on Radio Disney.

Performances

• Cross contributed backing vocals (along with The Beach Boys' Carl Wilson) to David Lee Roth's 1985 hit "California Girls."
• Cross performed the song "Sailing" alongside the pop band 'N Sync at the Fifth Annual Blockbuster Entertainment Awards in 1999.
• Cross also performed lead vocals on "So Far Away", a song from Alan Parsons' album On Air. When Parsons was touring in support of that album, Cross would sometimes join the band onstage to sing the song if he was available.
• Cross spent much of his youth living in a home on Newbury Terrace in Terrell Hills, just outside San Antonio, Texas. That home had earlier belonged to the Cummins family and another notable San Antonian, the historian and author Light Townsend Cummins, grew up in that same house a decade earlier. It has since been demolished.
• A small snippet of Cross's early hit "Sailing" was played in the DreamWorks film "Flushed Away".
• Cross performed his hit song "Ride Like the Wind" on the NBC show Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Monday, October 5th, 2009, in a "Yacht Rock" themed episode. He was joined by Michael McDonald, the "blue-eyed" soul singer with whom he has worked in the past. As the credits were rolling, Cross, McDonald and The Roots, the Fallon house band, broke into "Sailing", which he also performed in an online-only performance on NBC.com

References

External links

• The Official Website
• Music Guide entry
• Living Legends - Christopher Cross Interview Series
• Elixir Strings Interview