Early life Christopher Anton Rea was born on 4 March 1951 in
Middlesbrough in the
North Riding of Yorkshire to an Italian father, Camillo Rea, born in January 1922 in
Guisborough, England (whose father, also called Camillo, was born in
Arpino,
Lazio, Italy) and an Irish mother, Winifred K. Slee. He was one of seven children. His family were of the Roman Catholic faith. The name Rea was well known locally due to his family's ice cream factory and café chain. When he was twelve, Rea worked clearing tables in the coffee bar and making ice cream in the factory. He wanted to improve the business, but his ideas got no support from his father. After leaving, he was replaced by one of his brothers. At that time he wanted to be a journalist and attended
St Mary's College, Middlesbrough. Rea bought his first guitar in his early twenties, a 1961
Höfner V3 and 25-watt
Laney amplifier. He played primarily bottleneck guitar, also known as
slide guitar. Even though he was left-handed, he played guitar right-handed. Rea's playing style was inspired by
Charlie Patton, whom he had heard on the radio. He had initially thought Patton's playing sounded like a violin. as well as by the playing of
Ry Cooder and
Joe Walsh. He also listened to
Delta blues musicians such as
Sonny Boy Williamson II and
Muddy Waters,
gospel blues, Rea commented that, at that time, he was "meant to be developing my father's ice-cream cafe into a global concern, but I spent all my time in the stockroom playing slide guitar." He began writing songs for the band and took up singing only because the singer in the band failed to show up for a playing engagement. The band itself split up in 1977. He guested on
Catherine Howe's
EP The Truth of the Matter.
Debut album Rea's debut studio album,
Whatever Happened to Benny Santini?, was produced by
Gus Dudgeon and released in June 1978. The title referred to a stage name that Rea had suggested when the record label insisted that his given name did not sound "croony" enough. The lead single, "
Fool (If You Think It's Over)", was Rea's biggest hit in the US, reaching No. 1 on the
Adult Contemporary Singles chart and No. 12 on the
Billboard Hot 100. As Rea gave
Magnet Records its first major breakthrough and its first US Top 10, he was their biggest artist, the more so when he was nominated at the
21st Annual Grammy Awards as
Best New Artist. Michael Levy remembered Rea as "more of a thoughtful, introspective poet than a natural pop performer" which in Levy's opinion prevented Rea from becoming a bigger star. Throughout his career Rea emphatically rejected the label of "rock star".
Subsequent early albums Dudgeon also produced Rea's second album
Deltics (1979). Rea recorded his self-produced third album,
Tennis (1980), with musicians from Middlesbrough, and it received positive reviews. Rea had a difficult working relationship with Dudgeon and the other "men in suits" who he felt "smoothed out" the blues-influenced elements of his music.
1983–1988: European breakthrough Water Sign and Shamrock Diaries From 1983, Rea's music began to better reflect his wishes and capabilities, despite pressure from his record company due to the accumulated costs of the production for his first four albums. To keep costs low, the label decided to release the demo tapes of his fifth studio album
Water Sign. It was the first of several successful albums on which Rea collaborated with producer
David Richards. He also changed managers and went on a UK club tour, followed by a 60-date tour as a support act for Canadian band
Saga. He established a loyal following in West Germany, and believes this audience saved his career as there was no "image-led market", allowing him to succeed "by music and by word of mouth". He also performed at Milano Suono festival at stadium
San Siro, Italy. By 1987, Rea was finally in a position to pay off the £320,000 debt he owed to the record company, and started to make significant earnings. He signed with Warners, who also bought Magnet Recordings. That year, the
Dancing with Strangers world tour sold out stadium-sized venues, including two shows at
Wembley Arena, and included Rea's first concerts in Australia and Japan. The re-recorded version of
On the Beach reached the Top 10 on the US Adult Contemporary chart, and No. 12 in the UK.
1989–1994: Chart dominance, The Road to Hell and Auberge Rea's tenth studio album was his major breakthrough. While the album peaked at No. 107 in the US, the single
The Road to Hell (Part 2) climbed to No. 11 on the US Mainstream Rock chart, and was Rea's first and only UK Top 10 single, until perennial favourite
Driving Home For Christmas also reached the top 10 in 2021 and again, shortly after his death in 2025. Rea said his neglect of the US market was one of his biggest mistakes because "every time I see a car that's too much money, I definitely regret it, just for five minutes".
1995–2005: Recovery from illness, return to blues roots and Blue Guitars In 1996 released a soundtrack album for
La Passione, which Rea also wrote and produced. Two years later in 1998
The Blue Cafe, his fourteenth studio album, followed. It reached the UK Top Ten and received extremely positive reviews and a tour named The Blue Cafe Tour followed to promote the album. In 1999, ten years after
The Road to Hell, the dance and electronic infused
The Road to Hell: Part 2 failed to reach the UK Top 40. Rea rebounded in 2000, when
King of the Beach made it to the UK Top 30. He was disappointed with the music business when Michael Parkinson, who supported him to do
Dancing Down the Stony Road, told him songs longer than three minutes were not played as often on radio anymore. Rea said, "I was never a rock star or pop star and all the illness has been my chance to do what I'd always wanted to do with music [...] the best change for my music has been concentrating on stuff which really interests me". visiting various venues across the UK, including the
Royal Albert Hall in London. Part of the tour was recorded and released as a live DVD and his first live album,
The Road to Hell & Back, to positive reviews. Rea released the compilation
Still So Far to Go in October 2009 which contained some of his best known (and lesser known) hits over the last thirty years as well as songs from his "blues" period. Shortly after this release, in October and November, Rea underwent two surgical procedures. On 3 February 2012 the Santo Spirito Tour started at
Congress Center Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany, with additional visits to Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium and France. The United Kingdom part of the tour commenced in the middle of March and finished on 5 April at
Hammersmith Apollo in London. He also performed for the
fifth time in his career at the
Montreux Jazz Festival.
2016–2025: Further illness, recovery, and retrospectives In September 2017, he released his twenty-fourth album,
Road Songs for Lovers, and embarked on a European tour starting in October until December. On 9 December, Rea collapsed during a performance at the
New Theatre Oxford, the 35th concert of the tour. He was taken to hospital where his condition was stabilized. This health issue caused the last two concerts of the tour to be cancelled. In December 2020, Rea guest starred on the Christmas edition of
Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, where he discussed his health issues over the years. On 18 October 2019, Rhino released 2CD deluxe editions of five of Chris Rea's most commercially successful studio albums,
Shamrock Diaries,
On The Beach,
Dancing With Strangers,
The Road To Hell, and
Auberge. Each contains a remastered version of the original album on the first disc, and remixes, rare and previously unreleased live tracks, single edits, and extended versions on the bonus disc. On 4 October,
One Fine Day had been released, limited to 1000 numbered copies. The album contains tracks recorded in 1980 at
Chipping Norton Recording Studios, most of which had never been released. On 20 November 2020, the triple CD compilation
Era 1: 1978 – 1984 was released. It contains a mix of A-sides, B-sides, foreign language versions and different mixes, as well as all of
One Fine Day on disc 2. ==Musicianship==