After Dinner Speakers: Chris Rea, Suzi Quatro, Dermot Reeve

b. 4 March 1951, Middlesbrough, Cleveland, England. Rea is a songwriter, singer 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 group 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 Britain by Elkie Brooks. With the UK in the grip of punk and new wave, Rea's earliest supporters were in Germany, and throughout the first part of the 80s he steadily gained in popularity across the Continent through his gruff, bluesy singing and rock guitar solos, notably the instrumental track, "Deltics". His backing group was led by experienced keyboards player Max Middleton. Rea's most successful record at this time was "I Can Hear Your Heartbeat" from Water Sign. In Britain, the breakthrough album proved to be Shamrock Diaries. Both it and "Stainsby Girls" (a slice of nostalgia for the northern England of his adolescence) reached the Top 30 in 1985. Two years later, Dancing With Strangers briefly went to number 2 in the UK charts although the gritty "Joys Of Christmas" was commercially unsuccessful. In 1988, WEA acquired Rea's contract through buying Magnet, and issued a compilation album which sold well throughout Europe. The album reached the Top 5 in the UK and suddenly Rea was fashionable, something that this unpretentious artist has been trying to live down ever since. This was followed by his first UK number 1, The Road To Hell, one of the most successful albums of 1989/90. The powerful title track told of an encounter with the ghost of the singer's mother and a warning that he had betrayed his roots. Like its predecessor, Auberge topped the UK chart while its title track reached the UK Top 20. "Julia' a track from Espresso Logic became his twenty-seventh UK hit in November 1993. Rea has remained loyal to his roots, refusing to join the rock cognoscenti, but seriously overreached himself with 1996"s misguided film project, La Passione. He sensibly returned to easily accessible, crafted MOR on The Blue Cafe. The following year he took the lead role in Michael Winner's black comedy Parting Shots, and released the disappointing The Road To Hell Part 2. In summer 2000, Rea enjoyed an unlikely club hit in Ibiza with José Padilla's remix of "All Summer Long", taken from his new album King Of The Beach.