Christopher Cross

Christopher Cross emerged as the dominant new talent of 1980, shaping the sound of adult contemporary radio through a string of polished, elegant ballads capped by the number-one single “Sailing.” Although his peak visibility proved fleeting, he maintained an active recording and touring schedule in the decades that followed. Born Christopher Geppert on May 3, 1951, in San Antonio, Texas, he first gained experience as a member of the Austin cover band Flash before securing a solo deal with Warner Bros. in the fall of 1978. His self-titled debut album reached stores two years later; the opening single “Ride Like the Wind” climbed to the number-two position, and the subsequent release of “Sailing” elevated him to superstar status. Two additional Top 20 singles, “Never Be the Same” and “Say You’ll Be Mine,” preceded his unprecedented haul of five Grammys in 1981, among them Best New Artist and Song of the Year for “Sailing.”

He soon added a second chart-topper and an Academy Award with “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do),” a song he co-wrote with Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager, and Peter Allen for the hit Dudley Moore comedy Arthur. The eagerly awaited follow-up, Another Page, arrived in 1983, yet only the Top Ten single “Think of Laura”—boosted by repeated airplay on the daytime drama General Hospital—found significant traction; the remainder of the album could not match the commercial performance of its predecessor, and Cross never again entered the Top 40. Every Turn of the World surfaced in 1985 with minimal attention, while Back of My Mind failed to register on the charts in 1988, prompting his release from Warner Bros. Five years later he issued Rendezvous on BMG. Window appeared in 1995, and in 1998 he joined CMC International for the double-disc Walking in Avalon, which combined fresh studio tracks with live renditions of earlier material. He returned in spring 2000 with The Red Room. Two years afterward, Rhino compiled the career-spanning collection The Very Best of Christopher Cross. Cross concluded the decade with a Christmas album in 2007 and the acoustic set The Cafe Carlyle Sessions in 2008. Dr. Faith, his first group of original songs in ten years, reached stores in fall 2010.