On This Day In 1991

“On this day in 1991, Temple Of The Dog’s first album was released, a timeless masterpiece that continues to inspire and move us.”

That official statement, made by Temple Of The Dog, included an historic television clip from that year. Frontman Chris Cornell explained to MTV that, “seeing this band might help somebody feel differently about it—or, maybe, more uplifted about it—if they were upset about how Mother Love Bone ended.”

Temple Of The Dog was a Seattle-based unicorn band in 1991. Attending Chris Cornell’s powerfully inspirational vocals were Stone Gossard on rhythm guitar, Jeff Ament on bass guitar, Mike McCready on lead guitar, and Matt Cameron on drums. Per songfacts.com, Eddie Vedder joined in as a guest to Temple Of The Dog, to provide some lead and backing vocals, on the 8th of October, 1990—the same day he arrived to Seattle to meet with bandmates of Pearl Jam for the first time.

Temple Of The Dog’s Track Number Three is “Hunger Strike,” sung by Cornell and Vedder together. It’s actually like an anthem that champions the necessity of humanity above wealth. It became a message received globally after Pearl Jam’s bolt to superstardom with the 27th of August, 1991, release of Ten. Despite relatively small promotionals run throughout the country, back then, for Temple Of The Dog, today there are about 125 million YouTube views of “Hunger Strike”. Thirty years later, it continues to get regular radio airplay on major stations, and shall most likely always stay a fan-favorite.

A disappointing number of grunge-era fellas and gals trudging through their forty- or sixty-somethings have not experienced the real power of Mother Love Bone. Point in fact, this afternoon, in Portland, two friendly people walking the hallways of Powell’s City of Books didn’t know about the band at all, even though they had already jumped into a well-versed convo about 90’s rock era greats.

Mother Love Bone’s debut released in 1992 as a 2-disc bundle. It delivered seventeen historic tracks on the first disc, plus two unique bonus tracks on a separate disc. It should have been a contender (possibly even a sure thing) for Album of the Year. It wasn’t. In fact, it was grossly mismanaged and underpromoted. However, we still believe in miracles, right? Mother Love Bone might deviously sneak in, some year, as a hidden comeback Grammy-winner, or a multi-platinum record. Yes, this album is truthfully that deserving of new ears and exposure.  

Back in 1990, Mother Love Bone consisted of Andrew Wood (vocals), Greg Gilmore (drums), Bruce Fairweather (guitar), Stone Gossard (guitar) and Jeff Ament (bass guitar). They put down some of the best operatic rock, though its never been billed as such. Gossard’s name appears as songwriter on eight of the seventeen tracks, including Track One,“This Is Shangri-La,” an upbeat song which should be included in the top 500 compositions of all time. Other personal favorites are composed by Wood and are slower and moodier: Man of Golden Words, Gentle Groove, Crown of Thorns and Chloe Dancer.

All lyrics in the album are attributed to Andrew Wood. Sadly, Wood succumbed in 1990 to a climatic drug accident before their first album Apple was scheduled to be released.

The tragedy of Wood’s death was unbelievable considering the magnitude of work the band had created together. Chris Cornell was room-mates with masterpiece-maker Andrew Wood, and thus it flowed into Cornell’s creativity, bringing Temple Of The Dog into existence.

Like Taylor Swift’s early beginning, pounds and pounds of co-relations exist in comparing the lyrics and the music of Temple of The Dog with Seattle’s smashingly beloved Mother Love Bone. All of this goes to say that you ought to take time to listen to Mother Love Bone’s 2-disc album, followed then by the ten-track Temple Of The Dog. I did that today, and it is a treat, playing both albums start to finish, in one session.

And, maybe everyone can take a minute to wish Temple Of The Dog “Happy Birthday,” upon Chris Cornell’s social media pages.

Much, much love and respect from this Seattle native,

Corinne D. Sullivan.