The late, great Chris Cornell’s 58th birthday would have been today, July 20th, and his daughter Toni has paid tribute by posting an intimate home video on Instagram.
In the clip, the Soundgarden frontman offers vocal advice to Toni while strumming an acoustic guitar. “Singing high is not the same as singing loud,” Chris explains, as Toni learns Rihanna’s chorus from Eminem’s “Love the Way You Lie.” Watch it below.
Toni also wrote a lengthy message in the caption of the Instagram post while referring to one of her father’s favorite songs to cover. “‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ is not just a song,” she said. “It’s what I truly think when I look back at our life and memories together. You were always playing music for us, singing with us, dancing with us.”
She continued, “The world would not be the same without you in it, and will never be the same with you gone. You wrote the soundtrack to not just our lives, but for millions, and we will forever hear it. We feel you with us as your words, love and all of the memories shaped our world, made us who we are and are forever ingrained in the fabric of our souls. On your birthday and every other day, we celebrate you and remember how very lucky we were that you were ours.”
During a birthday tribute special that aired on SiriusXM’s Lithium channel, Cornell’s wife Vicky revealed Chris was a big fan of Eminem. “He thought he was an amazing artist and we would play ‘Not Afraid’ in the car,” she remembered. “And little Christopher suddenly started singing it. And it was his favorite song. And so daddy and him would get into the car and immediately Christopher would be like, ‘Put on “Not Afraid,”‘ and he would sing it and they’d sing it together.”
Hosted by Vicky and Toni, the SiriusXM special features 15 songs that were either meaningful to Chris or remind his family of him. After premiering this morning, it will air again at 3:00 p.m. ET and 11:00 p.m., with subsequent encore broadcasts slated through Sunday, July 24th.
Over the past several months, Toni has performed Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and The Late Late Show with James Corden. In 2018, Toni shared a recorded duet of her performing the song with her father.