Soundgarden will not perform at Columbus’ Rock on the Range festival, but the spirit of Chris Cornell will be alive and well inside MAPFRE Stadium on Friday.
Thursday night, one day after the frontman was found dead in a Detroit hotel room, Rock on the Range organizers said they’ll honor Cornell with a special tribute at the time Soundgarden was scheduled to take the stage on Friday.
Cornell and bandmates Kim Thayil, Ben Shepherd, and Matt Cameron were the headline act for the first of three nights of shows at Rock on the Range in MAPFRE Stadium.
NPR reports Cornell’s death has been ruled a suicide by the Wanye County Coroner’s Office.
Cornell , 52, was considered one of the founding fathers of modern rock music. With his powerful, nearly four-octave vocal range, Cornell was one of the leading voices of the 1990s grunge movement with Soundgarden, which emerged as one of the biggest bands out of Seattle’s emerging music scene, joining the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains.
Cornell also collaborated with members of what would become Pearl Jam to form Temple of the Dog, which produced a self-titled album in 1991 in tribute to friend Andrew Wood, former frontman of Mother Love Bone.
Three years later, Soundgarden broke through on mainstream radio with the album “Superunknown,” which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Record in 1995. It included hit singles “Spoonman,” ″Fell on Black Days,” ″Black Hole Sun,” ″My Wave” and “The Day I Tried to Live.”
Soundgarden disbanded in 1997 due to tensions in the band, and Cornell pursued a solo career. In 2001, he joined Audioslave, a supergroup that included former Rage Against the Machine members Tom Morello, Brad Wilk and Tim Commerford. The band released three albums in six years and also performed at a concert billed as Cuba’s first outdoor rock concert by an American band, though some Cuban artists have disputed that claim.
Audioslave disbanded in 2007, but Cornell and Soundgarden reunited in 2010 and released the band’s sixth studio album, “King Animal” in 2012.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this story
