Chris Rea

Chris Rea in the 1980s

Christopher Anton "Chris" Rea (born March 4, 1951 in Middlesbrough , England ) is a British singer , musician , composer and guitarist of Italian - Irish descent.

Career

The early years

In the 1970s, Rea, who has two brothers (Nick and Mike) and four sisters (Catherine, Geraldine, Paula and Camille), played guitar and singer in the band "Magdalene". In 1975 the group won a talent competition under the name "The Beautiful Losers" , but did not get a record deal . Rea recorded a solo album in 1978 called Whatever Happened to Benny Santini? came up with the release Fool (If You Think It's Over) immediately in the US top 20 and was also nominated for a Grammy . However, Rea was unable to build on this initial success with the follow-up albums.

1983 to 1992

With titles from his album Water Sign , Rea had hit hits again since 1978, which continued in 1984 and 1985 with Wired to the Moon and Shamrock Diaries . Some of his big hits, including Josephine , I Can Hear Your Heartbeat and Ace of Hearts , fell during this period. With the albums On the Beach (1986) (the music video for the song of the same name was shot in Formentera ), Dancing with Strangers (1987) and The Road to Hell (1989) (the title track was his most successful single release), Rea became a million-seller. With Auberge (1991) and God's Great Banana Skin (1992) he again attracted attention in the USA.

1993 to 2000

More albums followed and Rea became one of the most successful British musicians. Above all in Great Britain and Germany, Rea was also known as a cinema and television film composer (including Basic Instinct , Soft Top, Hard Shoulder , Schimanski: Blood Brothers , Madhouse , Alles Paletti , Der Schattenmann ). The year 1994 started for Rea with health problems, he had stomach ulcers. In 1995 he was attacked by another disease, peritonitis; so he had to undergo five operations. After recovering, Rea made his own film in 1996, La passione (which remotely reproduces his own family history), a documentary about the German racing driver Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips , who died in an accident in 1961 , and also published the music for it . Several times, e.g. B. 1999, Rea tried to follow up on his previous successes, but with waning success.

2001 to 2006

Shortly after he made a notable comeback with the album King of the Beach in 2000, Chris Rea was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer . As a result, major parts of his stomach had to be removed in a risky operation. Rea had the operations carried out in Germany. During his hospital stay he was particularly impressed by the story and courage of a young cancer patient. She also said to him the words: “We are both dancing on a rocky road now”, which led him straight to his next project “Stony Road”. The confrontation with his possibly imminent death brought Rea the realization that in his entire career he had never put the music on record that he really loved, namely pure blues . While he was slowly getting back to health at home, he expressed himself by painting pictures. After his recovery, he worked through his illness musically. The resulting songs have little in common with his old titles.

Since his previous label insisted on Rea's old style, he founded his own label Jazzee Blue in 2002 in order to realize his ideas. There he published four CDs by 2004: Stony Road , The Blue Jukebox , Blue Street and Hofner Blue Notes . Then he devoted himself to the big project Blue Guitars . In October 2005 he released his (for the time being) last records as a solo artist with Blue Guitars : a work with eleven albums (a so-called earbook sound carrier) with the different genres of blues music, together with an illustrated book containing his works from his convalescence, and a DVD . In just 18 months Rea had composed and recorded over 130 new songs and painted over 50 pictures.

In 2006, Rea completed his farewell tour and has lived with his wife and two daughters in Cookham / Buckinghamshire ever since .

"Farewell Tour 2006"

With his European tour in 2006, Rea wanted to say goodbye to almost 30 successful years that had brought him record sales of almost 30 million albums and singles worldwide. “Going on tour is still the best job in the world [...] if I had a different body for it. How my health will go is difficult to predict. Things can get worse there too. So this is my last tour now. I have to and will find a different way of working for myself […] ”, says Rea on his website.

After the last curtain of the farewell tour had fallen on April 28, 2006 at the Olympic Theater in Dublin , Rea declared that he would no longer publish any music under his name and would only be part of the trio "The Fire Flies". To present a live recording of the farewell tour, which was released on DVD, he played a concert in London in autumn 2006 that was announced as the “very last live concert”.

However, the desire to be on stage and play live brought Chris Rea back on a tour in 2010 (see below).

"The Delmonts" and "The Hofner Bluenotes" and autobiography

Almost two years after his stage farewell, Rea surprisingly returned in the winter of 2007. The reason was a more stable state of health and the unexpectedly great commercial success of Blue Guitars . With more than 150,000 EarBooks sold (eleven CDs and one DVD each, more than 1.8 million records), the project brought him a financial plus of several million euros. Rea had already discarded the idea of ​​“The Fire Flies” in the summer of 2007, developed a new concept for it and came up with the following legend: In the 1960s (according to Rea) there would have been a quintet called “The Delmonts” in Great Britain that was similar how the legendary Spotnicks were successful with guitar instrumentals. This quintet would later have been renamed “The Hofner Bluenotes” and then played vocal titles. But one thing remained: both bands carried the sound of the Hofner / Höfner guitars into the world. In spring 2008 (so Rea continues in his fictional story) the now aged musicians of the “Hofner Bluenotes” will return to perform together on the European stages.

As proof, so to speak, Rea presents his newly formed live band "The Hofner Bluenotes" with long-time companions Robert Ahwai on guitar and Martin Ditcham on drums and the new musicians Neil Drinkwater (formerly with Van Morrison and Phil Collins ) on keyboard and ex- Whitesnake bassist Colin Hodgkinson on bass. As a support act in their own concert, so to speak, the five perform as “The Delmonts” for 30 minutes, with Ahwai playing almost all of the solo guitar parts and Rea being only the rhythm guitarist.

For the tour, Chris Rea also presented another lavish earbook under the title The Return of the Fabulous Hofner Bluenotes , consisting of two vinyl LPs and a CD from the "Delmonts" as well as two further CDs from the "Hofner Bluenotes". When introducing the recordings, Rea pointed out that he wanted to make songs with a bluesy touch of the sixties, which also paid homage to his idol BB King . “It's the music I've always wanted to play, real guitar music,” explains Rea. While the Delmonts play “their” music in the concerts, the Hofner Bluenotes present songs from the Blue Guitar album as well as many Chris Rea classics in new versions live. Rea announced in the tour booklet that if the performance of the opening act “The Delmonts” was too short, they could perhaps expect a longer tour later.

Rea during the Santo Spirito Tour (2012)

On October 5, 2009, Rea's best-of album Still so Far to Go: The Best of Chris Rea was released . In January 2010 he went on tour again after his farewell tour in 2006 and began his European tour in Germany. In 2012 he went on another tour from the beginning of February to the beginning of March through 14 German cities (Santo Spirito Tour) .

In 2016 he suffered a stroke. In autumn 2017 he went on a tour for the album "Road Songs for Lovers". In December 2017 he suffered a breakdown while performing in Oxford and his tour of Great Britain had to be canceled.

Musical peculiarities

Rea's trademark is the slide style on his Fender Stratocaster (nickname Pinky), but also on other guitars. The introduction to Chris Rea's title Nothing to Fear is considered a milestone in modern slide guitar technology .

Private life

He is married and has two daughters with his wife Joan (Josephine, * 1983 and Julia Christina, * 1989). He wrote his own music tracks for his wife and two daughters, all of which became hits ( Stainsby Girls , Josephine and Julia ).

Discography

→ Main article : Chris Rea / Discography

Studio albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1978	Whatever Happened to Benny Santini?	-	-	-	-	US49 gold (12 weeks)US	First published: July 1978 Producer: Gus Dudgeon
1979	Deltics	-	-	-	UK54 (3 weeks) UK	-	First published: April 1979 Producer: Gus Dudgeon
1980	tennis	-	-	-	UK60 (1 week) UK	-	First published: March 1980 Producer: Chris Rea
1982	Chris Rea	-	-	-	UK52 (4 weeks) UK	-	First published: March 1982 Producers: Chris Rea, Jon Kelly
1983	Water sign	DE30 (13 weeks) DE	-	-	UK64 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: June 1983 Producers: Chris Rea, Dave Richards
1984	Wired to the moon	DE17 (25 weeks) DE	-	-	UK35 (7 weeks) UK	-	First published: April 1984 Producers: Chris Rea, Dave Richards
1985	Shamrock Diaries	DE12 gold (46 weeks)DE	-	CH18 (5 weeks) CH	UK15th silver (14 weeks)UK	-	First published: March 1985 Producers: Chris Rea, Dave Richards
1986	On the beach	DE2 gold (37 weeks)DE	AT20 (2 weeks) AT	CH10 (15 weeks) CH	UK11 platinum (48 weeks)UK	-	First published: April 1986 Producers: Chris Rea, Dave Richards
1987	Dancing with Strangers	DE5 gold (29 weeks)DE	AT13 (10 weeks) AT	CH7 (9 weeks) CH	UK2 platinum (46 weeks)UK	-	First published: September 1987 Producer: Chris Rea
1989	The Road to Hell	DE3 × 3 Triple gold (38 weeks)DE	AT2 platinum (26 weeks)AT	CH6th platinum (27 weeks)CH	UK1 × 6 Six-fold platinum (79 weeks)UK	US107 (19 weeks) US	First published: October 1989 Producers: Chris Rea, Jon Kelly
1991	Auberge	DE1 platinum (48 weeks)DE	AT5 gold (13 weeks)AT	CH2 platinum (22 weeks)CH	UK1 × 2 Double platinum (37 weeks)UK	US176 (1 week) US	First published: February 1991 Producer: Jon Kelly
1992	God's Great Banana Skin	DE16 gold (17 weeks)DE	AT26th gold (2 weeks)AT	CH16 (12 weeks) CH	UK4th platinum (15 weeks)UK	-	First published: October 1992 Producer: Chris Rea
1993	Espresso Logic	DE14th gold (20 weeks)DE	AT16 (10 weeks) AT	CH24 (11 weeks) CH	UK8th gold (10 weeks)UK	-	First published: November 1993 Producer: Chris Rea
1996	La passione	DE60 (7 weeks) DE	AT44 (1 week) AT	-	UK43 silver (6 weeks)UK	-	First release: November 1996 Soundtrack to Chris Rea's film of the same name. Producer: Chris Rea
1998	The Blue Cafe	DE7 (23 weeks) DE	AT20 (9 weeks) AT	CH28 (9 weeks) CH	UK10 silver (8 weeks)UK	-	First published: January 1998 Producer: Chris Rea
1999	The Road to Hell Part 2	DE16 (4 weeks) DE	-	CH96 (1 week) CH	UK54 silver (2 weeks)UK	-	First published: November 1999 Producer: Kiadan KQ Quinn
2000	King of the Beach	DE11 (8 weeks) DE	AT13 (12 weeks) AT	CH29 (6 weeks) CH	UK26 (4 weeks) UK	-	First published: October 2000 Producer: Chris Rea
2002	Stony Road (DE, AT, CH) Dancing Down the Stoney Road (UK)	DE11 (13 weeks) DE	AT18 (5 weeks) AT	CH28 (6 weeks) CH	UK14th gold (9 weeks)UK	-	First published: September 2002 Producer: Chris Rea
2004	The Blue Jukebox	DE30 (5 weeks) DE	AT41 (4 weeks) AT	CH49 (5 weeks) CH	UK27 (5 weeks) UK	-	First published: March 2004 Producer: Kiadan KQ Quinn
2005	Blue Guitars 11 CDs + DVD	-	-	-	UK85 (1 week) UK	-	First published: October 14, 2005 including Earbook picture book with paintings by Chris Rea Producers: Chris Rea, Andy Wilman
2011	Santo Spirito Blues	DE10 (4 weeks) DE	AT30 (1 week) AT	CH31 (3 weeks) CH	UK13 (5 weeks) UK	-	First published: September 5th, 2011 Producer: Chris Rea
2017	Road Songs for Lovers	DE19 (5 weeks) DE	AT22 (2 weeks) AT	CH18 (5 weeks) CH	UK11 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: September 29, 2017 Producer: Chris Rea

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

Awards

RSH gold

• 1994: in the category "Power Groove of the Year"

Web links

• Official website
• Chris Rea at Discogs (English)
• Nothing to fear , sound sample on YouTube

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Garth Pearce: If cancer hadn't nearly killed me, I'd be just another selfish celebrity egomaniac, says Chris Rea. Retrieved December 5, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Chris Rea in Imdb
3. ↑ Chris Rea glides over strings again , welt.de, October 14, 2017
4. ↑ Chris Rea cancels tour finale following on stage collapse , completemusicuptdate, December 12, 2017
5. ↑ Chart sources: DE AT CH DE UK1 UK2 US
6. ↑ RSH Gold Award 1994