Chris Rea

Also known as Christopher Anton Rea, Christopher Rea, Benny Santini

Christopher Anton Rea was an English rock and blues singer-songwriter, guitarist and record producer. He was known for his distinctive gravelly voice, slide guitar playing and music style blending soft rock with blues.

OverviewAI-generated

Christopher Anton Rea was a British singer-songwriter, recording artist, and actor. Born in Middlesbrough in 1951, he was a male vocalist with a baritone voice. He played the guitar, piano, and sang in English. His musical output spanned genres including rock music, blues, soft rock, and pop rock.

Rea began his work period in 1978 and continued until 2025. He was signed to United Artists Records and represented by PRS for Music. He was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. He had two children. Rea died in 2025.

Synthesized by Vinony from 25 facts across 2 sources: Wikidata, MusicBrainz. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

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Wikidata facts

Instance of: human
Given name: Anton
Gender: male
Citizenship: United Kingdom
Place of birth: Middlesbrough
Place of death: London
Occupation: record producer
Languages spoken: English language
Native language: English language
Field of work: music production
Genre: blues rock
Instrument: voice
Record label: United Artists Records
Discography: Chris Rea discography
Official website: www.chrisrea.com
Image: Chris Rea 01 AB.jpg
Number of children: 2
Voice type: baritone

Show 13 more facts

birth name: Christopher Anton Rea
Commons category: Chris Rea
date of birth: 1951-03-04
topic's main category: Category:Chris Rea
start of work period: 1978-00-00
name in native language: Chris Rea
social media followers: 250000
nominated for: Grammy Award for Best New Artist
copyright representative: PRS for Music
topic has template: Template:Chris Rea
date of death: 2025-12-22
end of work period: 2025-00-00
described at URL: baike.sogou.com/v225768.htm

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Encyclopedic overview

Christopher Anton Rea (/ˈriːə/ REE-ə; 4 March 1951 – 22 December 2025) was an English rock and blues singer-songwriter, guitarist and record producer. He was known for his distinctive gravelly voice, slide guitar playing and music style blending soft rock with blues.

Rea recorded twenty-five studio albums beginning in the late 1970s. Although he had modest success with Water Sign (1983) and Wired to the Moon (1984), his commercial breakthrough came with Shamrock Diaries (1985), followed by platinum-sellers On the Beach (1986) and Dancing with Strangers (1987). Two of his million-selling albums topped the UK Albums Chart: The Road to Hell in 1989 and its successor, Auberge, in 1991. He had already become "a major European star by the time he finally cracked the UK Top 10" with the single "The Road to Hell (Part 2)". His commercial peak continued with God's Great Banana Skin (1992) and Espresso Logic (1993), and was marked by million-selling compilations New Light Through Old Windows (1988) and The Best of Chris Rea (1994), later also The Very Best of Chris Rea (2001, with three million copies sold by 2014).

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Chris Rea” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.