[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$fEF10UKaAXvpTNJHqA05t38LumVVTB-_Iwwjn4CGaJ5k":3,"$feixG8fqaqeenBQoS4-M_T8Jr2DkEPk0azkpHVnEwmUw":51},{"author":4,"tags":50},{"author_id":5,"author_name":6,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"bio":9,"short_bio":10,"bio_jsonld":11,"slug":48,"image_url":49},200870,"Chris Rea","C",74,"The British rock and blues scene of the late twentieth century produced a generation of artists who drew on American electric blues traditions while working within the commercial structures of pop and rock. Chris Rea was one such figure, a United Kingdom citizen born on 4 March 1951 in Middlesbrough who went on to work across multiple roles in the music industry until his death on 22 December 2025 in London.\n\nRea worked as a singer, guitarist, songwriter, composer, and record producer, operating across a range of related genres that included rock, blues, blues rock, electric blues, soft rock, and pop rock. This breadth of genre association placed him at a point where the commercial appeal of pop rock intersected with the rawer textures of electric blues, and his work as both a performer and a producer meant he engaged with the recorded sound of his material at multiple levels. His work was conducted in the English language, and the Library of Congress Name Authority File records him under the years 1951 to 2025.\n\nBeyond his work as a recording artist and musician, Rea also worked as an actor, extending his professional activity beyond the recording and performance contexts most directly associated with his name. As a composer, his contributions were not confined to the singer-songwriter format alone, suggesting engagement with music in forms that reached beyond standard rock and pop structures. His dual grounding in blues and rock gave his output a character that sat across genre boundaries rather than settling firmly within any single one.\n\nThe Library of Congress Name Authority File's record of Rea, spanning the full arc of his life from 1951 to 2025, stands as a formal acknowledgment of his documented presence within the broader cultural and musical record. His career as a guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer, and composer, rooted in Middlesbrough and concluded in London, is catalogued within that institutional record as a body of work extending across more than four decades.","The British rock and blues scene of the late twentieth century produced a generation of artists who drew on American electric blues traditions while working within the commercial structures of pop and rock. Chris Rea was one such figure, a United Kingdom citizen born on 4 March 1951 in Middlesbrough who went on to work across multiple roles in the music industry until his death on 22 December 2025 in London.",{"@graph":12,"@context":47},[13,24],{"@id":14,"name":6,"@type":15,"sameAs":16,"birthDate":21,"deathDate":22,"description":23},"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q262314","Person",[14,17,18,19,20],"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Rea","https://viaf.org/viaf/84960566/","https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n91122070","https://d-nb.info/gnd/13151752X","1951-03-04","2025-12-22","English male singer-songwriter and guitarist (1951–2025)",{"@type":25,"author":26,"headline":29,"isBasedOn":30,"mainEntity":31,"reviewedBy":32,"articleBody":9,"dateCreated":33,"dateModified":34,"additionalProperty":35,"creativeWorkStatus":46},"Article",{"name":27,"@type":28},"Editorial Team","Organization","Chris Rea — biography",[14,17,19],{"@id":14},{"name":27,"@type":28},"2026-05-24T09:19:47.017059+00:00","2026-05-24T09:37:06.041943+00:00",[36,40,43],{"@type":37,"value":38,"propertyID":39},"PropertyValue","Q262314","wikidata",{"@type":37,"value":41,"propertyID":42},"0.955","factscore",{"@type":37,"value":44,"propertyID":45},"claude-sonnet-4-6","draftModel","AI-drafted, auto-published","https://schema.org","chris-rea",null,[],{"quotes":52,"pagination":115},[53,61,67,73,79,85,91,97,103,109],{"id":54,"quote_text":55,"author_id":5,"source_id":56,"has_image":57,"author":58,"source":59,"quote_tag":60,"commentary":49},3605030,"As soon as I paid the mortgage off in 1988, I started racing cars.",7,false,{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":62,"quote_text":63,"author_id":5,"source_id":56,"has_image":57,"author":64,"source":65,"quote_tag":66,"commentary":49},3605028,"Back in 1997, I got to race a Ferrari at the famous Monza circuit in Italy - a dream come true.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":68,"quote_text":69,"author_id":5,"source_id":56,"has_image":57,"author":70,"source":71,"quote_tag":72,"commentary":49},3605026,"I spend as much time as I can in my garden, and if I'm not writing songs or gardening, I'm painting.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":74,"quote_text":75,"author_id":5,"source_id":56,"has_image":57,"author":76,"source":77,"quote_tag":78,"commentary":49},3605024,"Being on the road isn't hell - it's pure pleasure now.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":80,"quote_text":81,"author_id":5,"source_id":56,"has_image":57,"author":82,"source":83,"quote_tag":84,"commentary":49},3605022,"Touring is easy. My wife will be with me a lot of the time. We get spoilt rotten, and all I have to do is go on stage in wonderful places and play music.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":86,"quote_text":87,"author_id":5,"source_id":56,"has_image":57,"author":88,"source":89,"quote_tag":90,"commentary":49},3605020,"None of my heroes were big rock stars, and I thought, 'This isn't how it's meant to be.' It wasn't about making music so much as selling it.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":92,"quote_text":93,"author_id":5,"source_id":56,"has_image":57,"author":94,"source":95,"quote_tag":96,"commentary":49},3605018,"I'm lucky to be alive. I'm one of only 40 people who have survived the surgery I had, and when you've been that close to dying, you re-evaluate what's really important to you - and it's nothing to do with fame and money.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":98,"quote_text":99,"author_id":5,"source_id":56,"has_image":57,"author":100,"source":101,"quote_tag":102,"commentary":49},3605016,"Dad was a distant figure, autonomous, a cross between the Pope and Mussolini. He was very Italian, as were all of my uncles, although they were second generation.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":104,"quote_text":105,"author_id":5,"source_id":56,"has_image":57,"author":106,"source":107,"quote_tag":108,"commentary":49},3605014,"I remember my first day at grammar school, being the only person who was me. Everybody else was like everybody else, and there I was, tanned, in a freezing cold playground in the middle of Middlesbrough, wondering what on earth I was doing there.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"id":110,"quote_text":111,"author_id":5,"source_id":56,"has_image":57,"author":112,"source":113,"quote_tag":114,"commentary":49},3605013,"My father used to control the wholesale of many ice-cream items in Middlesbrough. He was central distributor for most of the region.",{"id":5,"author_name":6,"slug":48,"author_name_first_letter":7,"article_count":8,"image_url":49},{},[],{"currentPage":116,"totalPages":117,"totalItems":8,"itemsPerPage":118},1,8,10]