Christopher Cross

Sweep

Christopher Charles Geppert was born on May 3, 1951 in San Antonio, Texas, an Army brat whose father was an Army pediatrician, and graduated from Alamo Heights High School in 1969. He played drums in a band called the Psychos in seventh grade and switched to guitar in high school; his influences included Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Dave Brubeck and Frank Zappa. In 1970 he substituted for Ritchie Blackmore at a Deep Purple concert in San Antonio. He joined the local hard-rock group Flash in 1971, played the Texas club circuit in the 1970s, and formed an Austin band called Christopher Cross with Andy Salmon on bass, Rob Meurer on keyboards and Tommy Taylor on drums, making demos at Odyssey Sound, later Pecan Street Studio. Warner Bros. signed him as a solo artist in early 1979, after tapes mailed to the wrong address reached Michael Omartian, who persuaded Lenny Waronker.

The debut Christopher Cross was released on December 27, 1979, produced by Omartian, recorded in July 1979 at Warner Bros. Recording Studios in North Hollywood and Pecan Street Studios in Austin. Warner held it back about six months, its promotion head Russ Thyret saying radio would not want records like it, then "Ride Like the Wind" came out on January 30, 1980 and "Sailing", a number 1 on the Hot 100, on May 5, 1980. At the 23rd Grammys in February 1981 it won Record, Album and Song of the Year, Best New Artist and, for "Sailing", Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) with Omartian, making Cross the first to win the four general-field awards in one ceremony; the feat was not repeated until Billie Eilish in 2020, and the album beat Pink Floyd's The Wall. In 1981 "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" with Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager and Peter Allen reached number 1 for three weeks, and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and a Golden Globe.

Later albums include Another Page (1983, UK 4, Germany 2, Japan 1), Every Turn of the World (1985), Back of My Mind (1988), Rendezvous (1992), Window (1994), Walking in Avalon (1998), Doctor Faith (2011), A Night in Paris (live, recorded April 2012), Secret Ladder (2014) and Take Me As I Am (2017). He co-wrote and sang "A Chance for Heaven" for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. His chart run faded after 1984 as MTV rose, though Ultimate Classic Rock notes eight straight top-40 hits from 1979 to 1983. He is a core yacht rock figure alongside Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Steely Dan and Toto, and told the Irish Times in 2026 that he certainly did not have the money for a yacht. Freedonia, his Austin band formed in 2018, made Firefly (2019). He opened for Toto on the Dogz of Oz tour in 2025 and toured Ireland and North America in 2026.