Driving Home for Christmas singer Chris Rea dies aged 74

Chris Rea, the British singer-songwriter whose hits included Driving Home For Christmas, has died at the age of 74, a spokesperson for his family said.

The statement said that he died “peacefully in hospital … following a short illness”.

Rea blended blues, pop, soul and soft rock on 25 studio albums, featuring hits including The Road to Hell, taken from a UK No 1 album of the same name; Driving Home for Christmas, a perennial seasonal favourite; and tracks such as On the Beach and Josephine that earned popularity in the Balearic dance scene. He sold more than 30m albums.

He was born in 1951 in Middlesbrough to an Italian father and Irish mother, and had six siblings. “To be Irish Italian in a coffee bar in Middlesbrough – I started my life as an outsider,” he later said.

Rea’s 1980s smash Driving Home for Christmas tells the story of a weary traveller making his way home in heavy traffic.

This year, it has been brought to new audiences as the backdrop to the M&S Food Christmas advert.

In 2020, the singer’s social media platforms posted a chat between the Rea and his friend and fellow Middlesbrough native Bob Mortimer, explaining how he came to write the track.

Rea said he was on the dole at the time, his manager had just left him and he had been banned from driving.

His then-girlfriend Joan (who he met when they were both 16 and went on to marry) had to pick him up in London in her mini and drive him home.

That’s what inspired the song, which was written in 1978, 10 years before it was released as a single in 1988.

Asked about what he thinks of when he hears the song, the singer joked about how it bought him “that lovely little holiday in the Maldives”.

The song has since been covered by artists including Engelbert Humperdinck and Stacey Solomon.

Rea was good friends with Mortimer and in 1997 they recorded Let’s Dance for Middlesbrough Football Club’s FA Cup Final.

But alongside the singer-songwriter’s success, he had suffered with various bouts of ill-health over the years.

He had his pancreas removed a few years after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the age of just 33 in 1994, which meant he developed type 1 diabetes. He later had a stroke in 2016.

Rea was born in 1951 in Middlesbrough to an Italian father and Irish mother, and had six siblings. He began his working life helping out with his family’s ice-cream business.