Chris Rea

Official Page: http://www.chrisrea.com/

This’ll be one of very few in my library but nonetheless the albums appear and I have to give credit to my father for introducing me to Chris Rea.

Only two of Rea’s albums appear in my library and as such I cannot comment on how good/how much of an impact the rest would have had on me. Though I can safely say my Dad pushed for the name Christopher when I was born because of Rea. As well as the classic ‘Driving Home For Christmas’ that everyone should know I intend on expanding your knowledge here a little.

A classic Blues-Rock guitarist and left hand to boot, Rea nevertheless learnt how to play right handed. His 8th and 10th studio albums are the ones in my library and are by two of my favourite out of all I am to write about. ‘On The Beach’ and ‘The Road To Hell’ also happen to be Rea’s most critically acclaimed with ‘The Road To Hell’ being his first number 1 album in the UK.

‘On The Beach’ is more of a romantic/reminiscent album, and as such has shaped how I reminisce – I got into the darkening habit and writing about past love to some avail and not such great acclaim in a similar lyric style to Rea (at least that’s how I look at – whether anyone agrees is another matter).

‘The Road To Hell’ on the other hand is much darker in tone, one (in my opinion) of the first albums to start to state what was wrong with the world in the first few tracks then it builds to more ‘love’ songs in the form of ‘Your Warm and Tender Love’ and ‘I just Wanna Be With You’ and in the middle is a metaphorical reference to the Ferrari 365 GTB/4 better known as the ‘Daytona’ (and one of my all time favourite cars).

Both have a reverberating emotional pull on your heart strings style though in different ways.

Rea’s music will ‘talk’ differently to different people and I leave you to make up your own minds.

From ‘On The Beach’ – ‘On The Beach’ and ‘Little Blonde Plaits’