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Singer, songwriter and guitarist Chris Rea has passed away, aged 74
(December 22, 2025)
R.I.P. This really is a sad loss. 💜 Anarko
His social media accounts broke the news hours ago:
“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Chris, who died peacefully earlier today following a short illness.
Chris’s music has created the soundtrack to many lives, and his legacy will live on through the songs he leaves behind.”
Chris Rea’s distinctive, warm voice and slide guitar work was a breath of fresh air, as the boy from Middlesbrough went on to release recorded 25 studio albums, two of which topped the UK Albums Chart, “The Road to Hell” in 1989 and its successor, “Auberge”, in 1991.
His songs, like “On the Beach” and “Let’s Dance” were a joy.
At this time of year though, he’s remembered for his 1986 hit “Driving Home for Christmas”, which is one of the songs that’s become synonymous with the festive season in the UK, often reappearing in the singles chart in December.
The song had it’s genesis almost a decade earlier in 1978, when his record company wouldn't pay for a train ticket for him to get from London to his home to Middlesbrough so his wife drove down to pick him up in her old Austin Mini.
On the way back up, it started snowing and they kept getting stuck in traffic and Rea said: "I'd look across at the other drivers, who all looked so miserable.
"Jokingly, I started singing - We're driving home for Christmas... then, whenever the street lights shone inside the car, I started writing down the lyrics."
"It's one of those moments that songwriters get - sometimes you can spend years and years writing. That one was five to 10 minutes. When you have a successful song, you don't remember thinking about it - it just comes out."
In the US, Chris Rea was best known for the 1978 single "Fool (If You Think It's Over)", which reached #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent three weeks at #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart, earning him a Grammy nomination as Best New Artist in 1978.
A decade later, "Working On It" topped the US Billboard Mainstream Rock chart.
Fitting that his Xmas hit was written in a car, because Chris Rea loved cars, and he loved driving.
He owned and raced various vintage cars including a 1957 Morris Minor 1000 police car.
He was friends with Eddie Jordan, owner of the Jordan Formula 1 team, and once helped out in the pit lane.
He reflected once:
"You get ideas for songs and you're actually on a road - the road always becomes a metaphor for where we're going in life.”
Rea also revealed that he liked to "read a lot and even though I chose music, journalism was my first passion.
I wanted to be a journalist and write about car racing…..somewhere deep down I believe I could have been a decent journalist".
But music was his destiny.
As a young man 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."
And the joy came out in his music.
When he recorded his 1987 album “Dancing with Strangers”, Rea put a multi-track recording desk in his garage, and "made the whole album with three microphones.
Nobody heard it, nobody witnessed it", he said.
“It was just me having fun."
One of his childhood dreams had been to write and compose music for films.
He achieved both with his movie La Passione in 1996, also writing the score and title track for the Soft Top Hard Shoulder film and starring in the comedy Parting Shots in 1999.
Chris Rea confessed he "always had a difficult relationship with fame……None of my heroes were rock stars.
I arrived in Hollywood for the Grammy Awards once and thought I was going to bump into people who mattered, like Ry Cooder or Randy Newman.
But I was surrounded by pop stars".
Leo Sayer wrote this tribute on his Facebook page:
“Very sad to hear that Chris Rea has died. We became friends when I worked at his studio, sharing a mutual love of motor racing and blues.
He was such a fine guitarist, and a great songwriter too - .adios mate...”
R.I.P. This really is a sad loss. 💜 Anarko
Click on the link below to watch a wonderful live performance of “Driving Home for Christmas:
#letsdance, #chrisrea, #80smusic, #dancingwithstrangers, #guitarist, #dailyrockhistory, #onthebeach, #slideguitarist, #dailyrockhistory, #thisdayinmusic, #onthisday
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