Friday was the one year anniversary of Chris Cornell’s death, a very tough day for Chris’ parents and siblings, but SeattlePI posted an article with a touching story about his sisters hearing him sing for the first time. The article focused on Cornell’s time working in a kitchen at a Seattle restaurant.
Like Tissot, dishwasher Duane Ochs connected with Cornell through music. A few months before Cornell started at Ray’s, Peter noticed Ochs, who was about Cornell’s age, showing up for his shifts with a guitar slung over his shoulder. Soon Ochs, 14 or 15 at the time, was coming over to their house near Golden Gardens to jam with Cornell, who played drums. Apparently teenage Cornell wasn’t much of an interior decorator and, as Ochs recalls, his bedroom in the family’s converted garage had a bed, stereo, a dresser, his drum kit and little else. It was there that Cornell first started singing.
“His sisters were out in the driveway and they’re like, ‘Who was singing? Who was that?’” Ochs says. “I’m like, ‘It was Chris.’ … He was a very adequate drummer, but when he got behind the mic, you could tell, like his sisters, he had a very unique, powerful voice.”
It wasn’t long before the rest of their co-workers caught on to Cornell’s talent. The crew often had KISW blasting in the kitchen and occasionally Cornell would pick up a tune in the dish pit. “He’d sing very softly,” says Ernie Davis, another Ray’s alum. “We’d all be listening — ‘Oh, Chris is gonna sing. Let me turn this down.’”
