Chris Rea (1951-2025)of “Driving Home for Christmas” no more
British singer, songwriter and guitarist Chris Rea, famous in India and in many parts of the world for his 1989 The Road to Hell album, is on the road to heaven. Safe journey, Chris!
Rea, who mesmerised the world with his mastery of guitar, his deep voice and intense lyrics in the age of tape recorders in the late 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, reached an iconic status despite not being ambitious enough, not touring enough, not playing to the gallery and being somewhat politically aligned to the Left. To the generation that grew up with “My Hometown” (Bruce Springsteen), “Billie Jean” (Michael Jackson), “Purple Rain” (Prince), “Every Breath You Take” (The Police), and, yes, of course, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” (Whitney Houston), “Driving Home for Christmas” by Rea (from the album New Light Through Old Windows) was an exceptional treat, an experience worth taking to the grave.
A colleague of mine says his favourite is “The Blue Café” from the late 1990s. Mine is “Josephine” from the mid-1980s (from the album Shamrock Diaries). The lines “Josephine/I’ll send you all my love/And every single step I take/I’ll take for you/My Josephine” when sung in Rea’s voice still seem to come from a world afar, a universe where music is far more soulful. Equally touching is “Fool (If You Think It's Over)” from Rea’s debut album in the late 1970s titled Whatever Happened to Benny Santini? It is said that he wrote it for his sister Paula after she lost her boyfriend. For that song, he was nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy in 1979. Another favourite of mine is his not-so-famous “Raincoat and a Rose” from his second album Deltics where you can find these relatively self-deprecating lines: Love is for fools and fools have no grace/Damn them while you can.
Rea, who was inspired early in his youth by the Delta blues musicians of the US and made a late entry into the world of music, went on to make a big name for himself in the UK as well as in the US (besides Asia) thanks to other superhits such as “On the Beach”, “I Can Hear Your Heartbeat”, “Auberge”, “Looking for the Summer”, and “Julia”, among others. Interestingly, his songs “Julia” and “Josephine” were named after his daughters.
The singer, whose voice was described by many writers as “gravelly”, had health issues for more than three decades. According to reports, Rea, who was born 1951 in Middlesbrough in the UK, where he won critical acclaim and commercial success for his several songs especially in the late 1980s, was a motor-racing enthusiast and had worked as a pit mechanic. The son of an Italian father and Irish mother, Rea was out and out pro-Labour and is said to have written a song praising former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn named “What’s so wrong with a man who tells the truth?”. It was however never released. A fun fact about Rea is that, though he was left-handed, he played the guitar with his right hand.
According to The Guardian, Rea was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2001, suffered a stroke in 2016 and collapsed on stage a year later. He is survived by his wife Joan and their daughters Josephine and Julia.
He was a singer with working-class roots who wanted to become a journalist but was destined to make it to the top of the charts in the UK. Even in midlife, he enthralled audiences worldwide with his slide guitar technique and a voice to die for. Is it an irony or was it befitting that he left the world as people drove home for Christmas? “Oh, I got red lights all around/But soon there’ll be a freeway,” he sang, taking it on the chin, the working-class way. Sadly for his fans, he hit his final red light before this year’s Christmas.