Marin musician John Cross suspected that something was seriously wrong when a disturbing weakness in his hands began affecting his ability to play the guitar. What’s more, the 72-year-old singer-songwriter was slurring his words and having trouble with his balance.

A visit to a neurologist led to a battery of tests and, on June 15, 2023, a dire diagnosis: He was suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a motor neuron disease that causes degeneration of the nerve cells in the spinal cord and brain. Commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease after the Hall of Fame baseball player who died from it, ALS is always fatal.

Part of a large, close family, Cross had his brother and two of his sisters by his side when his doctor gave him the worst news he would ever hear.

“We all hugged,” he recalls. “I told the doctor I felt sorry for her for having to give me the bad news. It hadn’t even hit me yet really, but when I walked out of the office, the first thing I said was, ‘I have to do one more album.’”

Comfortably dressed in jeans and sneakers, Cross told me this while we sat in the control room of Laughing Tiger Recording Studios in San Rafael listening to a playback of that last album, his fifth. Although it’s hard for him to speak clearly, I was able to understand most of what he was saying. He also wrote some of his thoughts down for me to use in telling his story.

Growing up in Tiburon, he graduated from Redwood High School, toured with a jazz band at Cabrillo College, worked as a bartender at the Cantina restaurant in Mill Valley and played in many local rock bands over the decades. He’d also wrote songs and recorded four excellent albums before he became ill. Now there are five, adding to what will be his musical legacy. In 2012, I made his album “Time Flies” one of my top 10 of that year, praising his “gift for melodies and harmonies that recall Steely Dan, the Beatles and the Beach Boys.” One of his songs from an earlier record, “John Cross & the Feral Cats,” was licensed for a Levi’s 501 commercial.

The mean survival time for people with ALS is two to five years, but the progression of the disease varies from person to person. So when he started what would be his final album last fall, Cross didn’t know how much time he had left to work on it. All he knew was that he was determined to finish it before, as he put it, “I go to that stage in the sky.”

“It became a race against time,” he says. “My hands against ALS.”

The initial tracks were recorded at Skywalker Sound in Nicasio with longtime friend Stephen Hart engineering and producing. When Hart developed health issues of his own, the project shifted to Laughing Tiger Recording Studios. Owner Ari Rios, another old friend, took over engineering and co-producing.

“It’s been inspirational for me to do this record with John,” Rios says. “This guy’s got more heart and more class than most people will ever have. This record means more to me than any I’ve done in my career. Working on it has been deeply moving.”

For Cross, making this bluesy, jazzy album has been better medicine than anything his doctor could have prescribed for him.“If I didn’t have this project, I would have gone nuts,” he says. “The album has kept me busy. You don’t want to not do anything when you’re going through something like this. It’s kept me focused as much as I can be.”

He was focused enough to write five new songs for the album, which he rounded out by re-recording two tunes from previous records and adding a couple of short instrumentals. Unable to sing anymore, he enlisted several Bay Area singers to handle vocal duties.

ALS may have damaged his motor skills, but it hasn’t dulled his sense of humor. Bringing in longtime musician friends to play on the record, he named his studio band the Bones of Contention.

And he titled one of his new blues songs “I’ll Respect You in the Morning (If You Love Me Tonight).”

Before being diagnosed with ALS, Cross had undergone nine surgeries on his fingers, so his guitar playing was already limited.

With that in mind, it’s nothing short of miraculous that he overcame the ravages of the disease to play guitar on all the tracks, an incredible feat under the circumstances. On the aptly titled jazz instrumental “Fast Eddie,” he scorches the fretboard, playing with breathtaking speed and concision, as if by divine intervention. It’s all the more amazing when you consider that the day before he recorded the track, his hands were so weak he couldn’t play at all.

The album was finished none too soon. The day before our listening session, Cross’ doctor came to his house and, sadly, gave him six months.

“When he said that, it really hit me,” Cross says.

But he clearly did not intend to elicit sympathy with this last album, giving it the playful title “Cucamonga” after the rhythmic jazz instrumental that opens the record.

His only acknowledgment of his plight is in the final song, the moving, mostly acoustic ballad “It’s Okay,” his musical farewell.

“The last song is for my family,” he says. “It’s my message to them.”

He called on his friend Tim Cain, an original member of the legacy Marin band the Sons of Champlin, to sing it on the record.

“Knowing John’s circumstances, it’s a really heroic last song,” Cain says. “I believe it was the last song he wrote.”

Here are the lyrics, they speak for themselves:

“A song inside my head tells me I’m all right /Though it’s not in my plans/And it’s out of my hands/I’ll keep smiling while I can/It’s OK.

A look inside my soul shows me I’ve been good/I only know that I’ve tried/I have nothing to hide/There are angels on my side/It’s OK.

In my history, there’s no mystery at all/There’s no reason to cry/When I say my goodbye/I’m leaving on a high/It’s OK.”

Cross’s last album, “Cucamonga,” will be available on all streaming platforms on Thursday, including Apple Music and Spotify.

Contact Paul Liberatore at p.liberatore@comcast.net