Christopher Cross 40th Anniversary Tour.

Born Christopher Charles Geppert hails from San Antonio, Texas; right out of the gate Cross was a commercial success. In 1979 he won 5 Grammy Awards for his eponymous debut album. Starting off musically, Cross was in a San Antonio based cover band called Flash before signing with Warner Brothers. Although known for his vocals, Christopher Cross was asked to play guitar with Steely Dan. A fun fact is that he once filled in for lead guitarist, Richie Blackmore of Deep Purple when Blackmore was to ill to go on stage in 1970.

In one of my favorite venues, The MAYO Performing Arts Center, Christopher Cross brought both a very tight band and an eclectic foray of music. Cross mixed older commercial songs and some newer ones that span over 15 albums and 40 years of music. Humble and funny the audience felt more like they were spending an evening one on one with the singer at his home rather than a concert hall. Cross gave us insight into his songs and the people who helped make them as well as the musicians who influenced him personally.

In a variation of soulful bluesy songs like the evenings second song, "All Right", "Never Be the Same' (the third song), "Baby It's on You" and "say You Will be Mine". Jazz genre songs like: "Sailing", "The Best You Can Do(Arthur's Theme) and Roberta ( a song about Joannie Mitchell- her real name is Roberta Anderson) "Say you will be Mine" had a R&B swing to it, much better than originally recorded with Nicolette Larson. Here, Cross and the band let it cast out for a much more experimental affect.

It is the singer/ guitarists unique sound that made him an immediate success with the self titled: "Christopher Cross" in 1979. Songs like: "Ride Like the Wind", "Sailing", "Never Be the Same" and "Say You'll Be Mine". "Ride Like The Wind" hit #2 on the U.S. Hot 100, "Sailing" hit #1. "Never Be the Same" hit #1 on The Adult Contemporary chart. Cross was the first artist to win all four general field awards in a single ceremony, bringing home record of the year, album of the year, song of the year and beat new artist.

His second album, "Another Page" 1983 produced "All Right", "No Time To Talk" and "Think of Laura". Not only did this album sell well, it received Gold Certification. His career seemed to be on auto-pilot but in 1984, as music television grew and MTV was the basis for the eras sound, Cross's star quickly dimmed. The mainstream music scene was a bad fit for the singer/songwriter and as such his brand of Adult Contemporary music declined in popularity. His next two albums (1985 and 1988) did not produce any Top 40 hits. In the 1990's he had three more albums, some of the releases had critical response, however, he was not able to attract the mass audience he once enjoyed.

Christopher Cross likes to refer to himself as an "Army brat", he is the son of a U.S. Army Pediatrician stationed at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. in the mid 1950's, acting as physician to president Dwight Eisenhower's grandchildren. Christopher Cross's dad was a bass guitarist himself and Cross attributes that to his love of music.

In this somewhat intimate setting of Mayo Arts Center, Cross was very open about his life, music and the people he met along the way, Grateful and genuine his stories like the one he told about Dudley Moore and Liza Minelli before "Arthur's Theme" really brought to light how a musician from San Antonio, through his magnificent songwriting and superb vocals was able to rise to the level that not many people could even comprehend in life and yet in the duration of forty years, Christopher Cross still has gratitude towards all his accomplishments.