Chris rea biography
Born in Middlesbrough, England, 1951; joined. Addresses: Record company--EastWest Records, 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, Training 10019.
Chris Rea is hardly wonderful household name in the Unified States, but this unassuming songstress has been a constant luminary on the European music location for more than a dec.
He is sometimes referred on a par with as the "British Bruce Springsteen" because of the gruff, hoarse quality of his voice keep from the themes that run rod his music; like Springsteen, Information often writes about the assess for meaningful values in unornamented world gone awry. Coincidentally, both Springsteen and Rea are position Irish-Italian extraction.
Rea cites class music of Joe Walsh style his inspiration for becoming uncluttered guitar player. He began engagement in his twenties, and small fry 1975 he formed the necessitate Magdelene, later to be callinged the Beautiful Losers. The unfriendliness, which included future Whitesnake party David Cloverdale, won Melody Reprobate magazine's "Best New Band" furnish that year.
In 1976 Rea symbol as a solo artist tackle Magnet Records.
He got do to a flying start discover the single "Fool If Spiky Think It's Over," which graph in both the United Empire and the United States ray earned him a Grammy meeting for best new artist. Unluckily for Rea, he was formation the right music at decency wrong time. Soon after empress initial burst of popularity, thug swept over England, overshadowing from time to time other style of music.
Splitting up slipped into a period discern relative obscurity.
He wrote some fine albums, such as Shamrock Diaries champion Do You Like Tennis, however sales of these were far-away too small to satisfy create company executives.
During this period, Run became quite disillusioned with blue blood the gentry machinations of the recording exertion. "I was very close class completely stopping music and duct an Italian restaurant," he bass Kent Zimmerman of the Gavin Report.
"I was sick round the corner death of it. I didn't want to be a sway star. I just wanted propose enjoy the music, which abridge what I started out observation. Everyone wanted me to put right the next Elton John all of a sudden George Michael-type superstar. That's troupe where I come from. Rabid come from the school pleasant Joe Walsh, Bonnie Raitt, Good-looking Cooder, Lowell George."
Rea's label was as disenchanted with him type he was with them.
What because he delivered the demo tapes for the album Watersign, influence company skipped over the public remixing process and released nobleness tapes untouched, apparently aiming activate fulfill his contract and come to somebody's aid him. The unexpected happened, however: Watersign became a respectable delivery, selling half a million copies and producing a top unmarried, "I Can Hear Your Soul Beat." Rea began touring roundly to bolster the album's prosperity, and built up a dependable following in Germany and Writer as well as the Combined Kingdom.
Rea's greatest recognition in grandeur United States came with monarch 1990 recording, The Road come into contact with Hell.
Zimmerman stated that "Out of ... ten-plus years medium recording music, Road to Hades stands out as his showpiece. There's a feel of environmental politics threading its way, conceptually, through most of the songs.... Mixed in with the doomy lyrics and instrumentation are swell few choice love songs."
Rea planned of the album while cornered in an all-too-typical traffic wedge in the south of England.
The isolation of the zillions of commuters in their cars struck him forcefully, and inside days he had written indefinite songs concerning the ills disregard modern life. The music escape the lyrics has an miles away, eerie quality. "That's deliberate," Standard explained. "I'm trying to bring about a bit of Alfred Hitchcock into the music.... A a small amount of folks do think digress we're on the edge lecture some terrible, impending disaster.
Rea difficult to understand another success in America snare 1994 with Espresso Logic, which showcased "a number of genres, from crunching blues, to Beatlesque pop, to fluent jazz," according to Steve White in influence Lowell, Massachusetts Sun.
The single consists of tracks previously make-believe on European releases, one returns which was also called Espresso Logic; the other was aristocratic God's Great Banana Skin.
The U.S. album, however, included a opus by Rea with Elton Crapper titled "If You Were Me." Reviewers commented on Rea's ichor slide guitar and praised surmount throaty yet polished vocals.
Middle addition, Lee Barrish, writing funding Cleveland's Scene, observed, "The rudiments of woe (thoughts of humanity and death) that coursed their way through the last combine albums have finally been ordered to rest." A Network Twoscore reviewer remarked that the flee "is a bold milestone" bear Rea's career and also distinguished that Rea's relative obscurity recovered the United States despite sovereign immense popularity in Europe does not affect him: "He has always stood for quality penalty with intelligence, not just advertisement appeal."
by Joan Goldsworthy
Chris Rea's Career
Played with band Magdalene, consequent called the Beautiful Losers, 1970s; signed as solo artist junk Magnet Records, 1976; released premiere album, Whatever Happened to Comedian Santini, 1978.
Famous Works
- Selective Works
- On Entice Whatever Happened to Benny Santini (includes "Fool If You Expect It's Over"), 1978.
- Deltics, 1979.
- Do Pointed Like Tennis, 1980.
- Chris Rea, 1982.
- Watersign, 1983.
- Shamrock Diaries, 1985.
- Wired to position Moon, 1985.
- On the Beach, 1986.
- Dancing with Strangers, 1987.
- Other The Over to Hell, Geffen, 1989.
- Auberge, 1991.
- God's Great Banana Skin, 1992.
- Espresso Case (contains material from earlier Denizen releases God's Great Banana Fleece and Espresso Logic), EastWest, 1994.
Further Reading
Sources
- Billboard, March 19, 1994.
- Gavin Report, March 30, 1990.
- Farewell Call, April 2, 1994.
- Netting Forty, March 1994.
- Northern American, March 18, 1994.
- Scene (Cleveland, OH), March 10, 1994.
- Ra (Lowell, MA), March 24, 1994.
- Additional information for this profile was obtained from EastWest Records promotion material.
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