Chris Rea

Genres:	Music Videos & Concerts • Pop / Rock
Descriptive "tags":	rock • blues • classic rock • soft rock • singer-songwriter • blues rock
Decades Active:	1970s • 1980s • 1990s • 2000s
Links online:	BBC Music • Fan Page • IMDb • Official Homepage • Wikipedia

Biography

Christopher Anton Rea, 4 March 1951, Middlesbrough, North Riding of Yorkshire, England. Rea is a singer-songwriter and guitarist with a wide following throughout Europe. Of Irish/Italian parentage, he grew up in the north-east of England where his family owned an ice cream parlour. Rea’s first band was Magdalene, a local band in which he replaced David Coverdale, who had joined Deep Purple. As Beautiful Losers, the band won a national talent contest in 1975 but remained unsuccessful. Rea went solo, signing to Magnet Records where Gus Dudgeon produced his first album. With a title referring to a suggested stage-name for Rea, it included the impassioned ‘Fool (If You Think It’s Over)’, which reached the Top 20 in the US and was later covered successfully in the UK by Elkie Brooks.

With Britain in the grip of punk and new wave, Rea’s earliest supporters were in Germany, and throughout the first part of the 80s he...

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