Gross is considered a one-hit wonder artist; none of his other songs reached the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.

At age 13 he performed at the New Jersey Pavilion at the World's Fair in Flushing, New York with his first band, The Auroras.

At age 18, while a student at Brooklyn College, Gross became a founding member of 1950s Rock & Roll revival group, Sha Na Na, playing guitar and wearing the greaser clothes he wore while a student at Midwood High School.

With Gross’s second A&M album, Plug Me into Something, he began to achieve national recognition in Rolling Stone and The New York Times.

[6] On his next album, Show Me to the Stage, Gross mixed rock and roll songs with Phil Spector and Brian Wilson influences.

His songs have been recorded by a variety of artists including Judy Collins, Mary Travers, Cyndi Lauper, Jonathan Edwards, Henry Paul, Blackhawk, Southside Johnny, Garry Tallent and Rob Stoner.

In the 1980s Gross performed in the road company production of Pump Boys and Dinettes with a cast featuring Jonathan Edwards (Sunshine) and Nicolette Larson (Lotta Love).

Gross moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 1986 and signed a publishing deal with Pic-A-Lic Music, a company owned by songwriters Roger Cook and Ralph Murphy.

In 1993, he released the album Nothing But Dreams on his own Zelda Records label, named after his mother.

The tour ran through October and November 2017 before breaking for Christmas and continuing in January through March 2018.

In 2019, while doing many shows celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock Festival, Gross continued recording with multi-instrumentalist and engineer John McLane, completing and releasing the new 17 song CD, Too Clever (For My Own Good) in February 2020 on Zelda Records.