Soundgarden's Chris Cornell 'Blown Away' by Response at Solo Shows

Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell ‘Blown Away’ by Response at Solo Shows

2011-11-18

Story by Anne Erickson

Soundgarden singer is out on the road promoting his Songbook set

Soundgarden crooner Chris Cornell is currently out on the road, promoting his solo Songbook album, out Nov. 21 in the U.S. While it seems obvious that these intimate, small-club shows would get packed with fans of Cornell from all of his projects — Soundgarden, Audioslave, Temple of the Dog — he’s surprised and touched by the warm response and audience turn out, thus far.

“It blows me away that there’s this willingness by an audience — continually, night after night, just all over the country and even in different parts of the world — to sit and listen to a guy singing a song and playing acoustic guitar quietly, and not making a sound,” Cornell told Billboard. “And then between songs they’re shouting out (requests) and actually having a conversation with the guy that’s on stage. It’s really something I didn’t expect, and it’s something that I really like. I didn’t realize it was going to be as special to me as it is.”

The Songbook album features 16 tracks, including a studio version of “The Keeper.” The song list includes a mix from Cornell’s popular tracks with Soundgarden (“Black Hole Sun”), Audioslave (“I Am the Highway,” “Doesn’t Remind Me”) and Temple of the Dog (“Call Me a Dog”). The set also packs plenty of Cornell’s solo songs that he plays at his solo shows, plus covers of John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Led Zeppelin’s “Thank You.”

Cornell says his goal with the release was to put out a killer set, as a way to thank fans for sticking by him during his solo era. “All I was concerned about was finding versions of the songs that sounded like it felt like they sounded when I was there,” he said. “It was something I wanted to give back, and I wanted to do it right away because I was just really knocked out by how it was received.” Want to take a listen to the songs? Stream his Songbook 1 EP via Billboard here, and stream more Cornells on this Billboard page. (Featured image: Chris Cornell via Facebook.)

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Anne Erickson

Meet the expert - Author, writer and editor Anne Erickson is a Detroit-based reporter and radio host. She has written for the USA Today Network, Consequence.net, Blabbermouth.net, and many more. Anne holds a master's degree from Michigan State University. Contact Anne at anne@audioinkradio.com.

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