Chris Rea Biography

Christopher Anton Rea (4 March 1951) is a successful British singer-songwriter, from Middlesbrough. He is best known for his 1989 album The Road to Hell. His father owned an ice-cream parlour just outside Middlesbrough, in Guisborough, but previously had parlours throughout the area. Locally, "going to Rea's" (pronounced "Ree-a's") meant going out for some ice-cream.
Rea won a national talent contest in 1975 but was unable to clinch a record contract. He left the band to pursue a solo career and achieved great success when he signed to the Magnet label and recorded the album Whatever Happened to Benny Santini? in 1978. ("Benny Santini" was rumoured to have been a stage name Rea considered). With the help of single Fool (If You Think It's Over) the album went gold in the U.S.
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Rea left the band and recorded the album Whatever Happened to Benny Santini?, which alluded to a discarded stage name, which went gold on the strength of the U.S. Top 20 hit "Fool (If You Think It's Over)." Rea was not heard from again in the U.S. for some time, concentrating his efforts on his main fan base of Europe. A compilation of tracks from Rea's '80s albums, New Light Through Old Windows, was released in 1988 and sold well in the U.K. and Europe and charted in the U.S. Rea followed it up with the critically acclaimed The Road to Hell, which many regarded as his best album. It and its follow-up, Auberge, went to the top of the U.K. album charts, but did not prove as successful in the U.S., where he has failed to chart with his subsequent releases. He released his most ambitious project in 2005, an eleven-album, 130-track box set of all new material inspired by the blues and his own paintings called Blue Guitars.

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CHRIS REA BIOGRAPHY