Chris Rea

Christopher Anton Rea (/ˈriːə/ REE-ə; 4 March 1951 – 22 December 2025) was an English rock and blues singer-songwriter, guitarist and record producer. He was known for his distinctive gravelly voice, slide guitar playing and music style blending soft rock with blues.

Rea recorded twenty-five studio albums beginning in the late 1970s. Although he had modest success with Water Sign (1983) and Wired to the Moon (1984), his commercial breakthrough came with Shamrock Diaries (1985), followed by platinum-sellers On the Beach (1986) and Dancing with Strangers (1987). Two of his million-selling albums topped the UK Albums Chart: The Road to Hell in 1989 and its successor, Auberge, in 1991. He had already become "a major European star by the time he finally cracked the UK Top 10" with the single "The Road to Hell (Part 2)". His commercial peak continued with God's Great Banana Skin (1992) and Espresso Logic (1993), and was marked by million-selling compilations New Light Through Old Windows (1988) and The Best of Chris Rea (1994), later also The Very Best of Chris Rea (2001, with three million copies sold by 2014).