Chris Rea, the British singer-songwriter who wrote the hit Driving Home For Christmas, among others, has died at the age of 74.
A statement says he died “peacefully in hospital … after a short illness.”
Over his career, Rea released 25 studio albums. He blended blues, pop, soul and soft rock, and his hits include The Road to Hell, which came out on the album of the same name (it hit number one on the UK chart), as well as Driving Home for Christmas and two more evergreens, On the Beach and Josephine. His albums sold more than 30 million copies.
He was born in 1951 in Middlesbrough to an Italian father and an Irish mother. He had six brothers and sisters.
As a young guy he was into music while working manual jobs, including at his dad’s ice cream business. He also thought about becoming a journalist. At 22 he joined Magdalene, the band David Coverdale (later of Deep Purple) had played in before. Then he joined Beautiful Losers, but he ended up going solo after being offered a record deal. In 1974 he put out his first single, So Much Love.
His first success came in the US, where his 1978 song Fool (If You Think It’s Over) reached number 12 and earned him a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. Then came the lean years, as Rea just couldn’t repeat that success. The album “Water Sign”, released in 1983, got him more attention in Europe, where Chris slowly started winning people over.
The late 80s were his most successful stretch! That’s when he broke through in the UK too, even though he often went against the dominant trends of the pop scene at the time. His first real breakthrough in the UK came in 1986 with the album “On The Beach”, and the following year he cemented his status with “Dancing With Strangers”. The 1987 album “Dancing With Strangers” kicked off a run of six albums that all landed in the UK top ten. Two of them hit number one. In 1989 came the multi-platinum album “The Road to Hell”, which made Rea a superstar.
The 1988 compilation “New Light Through Old Windows” included Rea’s biggest hit, Driving Home for Christmas. It was originally recorded and released in 1986 as the B-side of the less successful single Hello Friend. If the song didn’t leave much of an impression back then, its tenderness, warmth and sensuality slowly won people over over time, especially after that compilation came out, and in 2022 it reached number 10 on the UK chart.
Rea wrote the song during a rough patch, when he had no management and no record deal. He even had a driving ban at the time. His wife had to drive him from London to Middlesbrough because he didn’t have the money for a train ticket. He wrote the lyrics right during that ride, with his wife driving him home, and finished the song a few years later.
In the new millennium Rea lost touch with the charts, as in 2002, with the album “Dancing Down the Stony Road”, he broke away from flirting with pop and went back to the Delta blues that had always inspired him.
Rea loved writing lyrics about cars, driving and roads. No surprise there. He was a huge motor racing fan. He raced Ferrari and Lotus models, and in 1993 even took part in the British championship. In the 1995 Formula 1 season he joined the Jordan team as a pit mechanic. He was responsible for Eddie Irvine’s right rear tire.
He supported the Labour Party and in 2017 wrote an unreleased song in honor of Jeremy Corbyn titled What’s So Wrong With a Man Who Tells the Truth?
Rea was dogged by serious health problems throughout his life. After being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer back in 1984 (Chris was only 33 then), surgery finally followed 17 years later, in 2001, and it saved his life: they removed his pancreas, part of his stomach and part of his small intestine. The operation later left him with diabetes.
In 2016 he suffered a stroke. Once Rea pulled himself together, he was convinced the stroke had cost him his sense of pitch. It took a long time for people to convince him that there was still nothing wrong with his playing. In 2017 he collapsed on stage during a concert in Oxford and was rushed to hospital to recover.
Rea was married to his wife Joan, whom he started dating at the tender age of 17. They had two daughters, Josephine and Julia. He named his two hits after them.
