Chris Rea, British Blues Rocker Known For ‘Driving Home For Christmas,’ Dies at 74

Trending on Billboard Chris Rea , the British blues rocker best known for his 1978 soft rock hit “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)” and the wistful, jazzy holiday hit “Driving Home for Christmas,” has died at 74. The news was announced by the singer/guitarist’s family on his official Instagram page on Monday morning (Dec. 22), where they wrote , “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.” At press time no additional information was available about when Rea died or the manner of death. Rea released two dozen albums over his 50-year career, including two that reached No. 1 on the U.K. albums charts - 1989’s The Road to Hell and 1991’s Auberge - and landed one song in the U.S. top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, “Fool (If You Think It’s Over),” which topped out at No. 12 in the summer of 1978. One of the singer’s other most beloved tracks is a seasonally appropriate one, the melancholy 1986 ballad “Driving Home For Christmas,” about a wintry trip home for the holidays penned while he was actually driving back from Abbey Road Studios in London through snowy traffic while longing to be in the cozy confines of home. “Driving home for Christmas/ With a thousand memories/ I take look at the driver next to me/ He’s just the same,” Rea sings in his gravelly voice over gentle piano, brushed drums and jazzy guitar. Born Chris Anton Rea in Middlesbrough, England on March 4, 1951, Rea eschewed a career in his family’s ice cream factory and bought his first guitar when he was in his early 20s, focusing his self-taught bottleneck slide style on his love for early blues players and his singing on inspiration from gospel singers. After a stint in the local band Magdalene in which he was briefly bumped-up to lead singer, Rea set out on his own and formed the group the Beautiful Losers, before going out on his own and releasing his debut single, “So Much Love,” in 1974. He hit pay dirt a few years later in the all-important U.S. market when “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)” charted in America and earned Rea his first, and only, Grammy nomination in 1979 for best new artist, which he lost to disco act A Taste of Honey (“Boogie Oogie Oogie”) in a tight competition that also included Elvis Costello, The Cars and Toto. The song was included on Rea’s 1978 debut album, Whatever Happened to Benny Santini? , which topped out at No. 49 on the Billboard 200 album chart, with the title track hitting No. 71 on the Hot 100. He followed up with Deltics in 1979 and Tennis in 1980, neither of which made much of a dent on the U.K. or U.S....

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