Growing up in Aberdeen, Jeff Burlingame was briefly a teenage friend of Kurt Cobain.
While Cobain flashed across the grunge music sky with the band Nirvana and burned out in his 1994 suicide in Seattle, Burlingame went to college and became the arts and entertainment editor at The Daily World newspaper in Aberdeen.
Burlingame’s biography, “Kurt Cobain: Oh Well, Whatever, Nevermind,” offers insights about growing up in the timber town on the Washington coast and how Cobain became a musician and a celebrity.
Burlingame says he has some never-before-told stories, rare photos and two drawings made by Cobain when he was 12 or 13. The goal is to introduce Cobain to readers who weren’t even born when he was around, telling how passionate art was created by a “skinny, introverted kid from a small town in the middle of nowhere who went on to change the course of music history.”
“Kurt Cobain” also is a brief history of the grunge music scene in Seattle in the 1980s and early 1990s when Nirvana rose to fame along with Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and other bands.
The book is written for readers 12 and up, a benefit for anyone who appreciates a simple, straightforward style. With a glossary, index, end notes and suggestions for further reading, it would be ideal for middle and high school libraries.
But how do you tell kids about an artist who also was a heroin addict and suicide victim? Burlingame doesn’t ignore the negatives, but he is sensitive to his readers. A reference to marijuana is followed by a statement that it’s an illegal drug, and heroin is a drug that kills many of its users. Cobain is quoted saying he lied about his heroin use because he didn’t want his fans to follow his example.
Cobain’s death at 27, when his band was at the height of its popularity, drew more attention to his music. It remains popular and influential.
The album “Nevermind” sold more than 14 million copies.
“When a band writes a song with quiet verses followed by powerfully loud choruses, there is a good chance they have been influenced by Nirvana,” Burlingame writes.
Cobain was Rolling Stone magazine’s artist of the decade for the 1990s. Forbes.com listed Cobain as the top-earning dead celebrity for 2006 at an estimated $50 million after his widow, Courtney Love, sold 25 percent of Nirvana’s song catalog.
Cobain wanted young people to hear his music, but he couldn’t live with pressures that came with success. He may be an icon, but he was also a Generation X kid who drew cartoons for his grandparents, suffered through his parents’ divorce, was prescribed Ritalin, and worked briefly as a janitor at Aberdeen High School, where he had been a dropout.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
