Chris Rea is a busy man. Not content with producing his first album of original solo material in over 10 years and preparing for a UK tour in 2012, his new offering is a value-packed three CD and two DVD package entitled Santo Spirito Blues. With Rea’s distinctive gravelly tones and silky smooth slide playing, the album is a triumphant return to form – but it’s the soundtracks and DVDs that will really raise your eyebrows. Both were written and directed by the man himself, and they top off a splendid package and an ambitious project. ‘I love creating things,’ says Rea, ‘and I believe that we as artists should be looking for new ways to bring what we do to the public. There are no rules… and there are alternatives to the bloody TV talent shows!’
Sitting down with one of the UK’s premier singer/ songwriter guitarists in a plush Covent Garden hotel, it becomes clear that Rea is on a personal mission to offer value for money… and perhaps create a new genre along the way. He confesses that he can’t be bothered to simply produce a new CD. ‘The luxury of selling over 30 million albums has allowed me to try new approaches,’ he explains. ‘The whole package is just /13.99. AH I ask is that you let people know that – it’s part of my crusade to provide value, ‘cos it’s needed in the business. One day younger artists may look at what I’m trying to do by marrying the visual arts and music, and start a whole new movement. Then I’ll know it’s all been worthwhile.
Santo Spirito is in many ways the natural progression from his two most recent outings, the encyclopaedic Blues Guitars, which packed a whopping ii CDs into a beautiful book (a decision which was seen as pure madness by his record company; he was forced to finance and produce the project personally, and it went on to gross 5 million euros) and The Return Of The Fabulous Hofner Bluenotes, which included three CDs, two full vinyl albums and another sumptuous book. ‘The record company thought I was mental,’ says Chris, ‘But I did a lot of research – mainly ‘cos I was ill for two years. The blues playing is different in each part of the States so it took a lot of research, but it sold 165,000 copies at 30 euros each.
Why does someone who could just sit back and cruise set such a heavy workload? ‘I just love music, and I love guitars, so everything else comes off the back of that,’ Rea says simply. ‘The question is, how do I love music and guitars and get away with it! It’s not enough anymore for me to just to do another 10 tracks – I’ve done that over 20 times… and I don’t think it’s enough for the public either. I think they want something else.
‘If everyone was doing this they’d sell a lot more music, because the idea of what I’m doing now is inspired by the way I saw music when I was a kid. You’d save up for a record and you’d have to think about which one and talk about it to your mates. You’d buy it, go for a few drinks, maybe light a joint, face the speakers, and it was fantastic! So that’s what I’m trying to do. Instead of “this is Chris Rea’s Spanish music album,” you’re watching a film about bullfighting as you’re listening. We developed the images to go with the music. Many of my fans think the Florence film [Santo Spirito] is the best electric guitar I’ve ever done, and I tell you it’s the most genuine, because I’m doing it on my own, and it’s unedited. More people should be doing it.
Despite some tough times early on in his career when money was tight and UK success was elusive, Chris knows his good fortune. ‘I’ve been lucky in work but not so lucky in health,’ he smiles sagely, referring to his very near-death experience in 2001. Given only a 25 per cent chance of survival, he’s pulled through – and it’s apparent that the experience has changed him both personally and professionally.
The first feature film on Santo Spirito Blues is called simply Bull Fighting. It’s a brutally honest chronicle of the event and features a soundtrack of Spanish-themed gypsy music.
‘The ending is shot from the bull’s perspective and it leaves you in no doubt whether it should allowed or not,’ says Rea. ‘I felt I had to be respectful to the matadors, as they’re earning their livelihood doing it. They are brave, it’s nonsense to suggest otherwise, but it’s wrong and I feel that I prove it in this film. I was once a massive bullfighting fan. I had all the books and had seen it on TV many times, so for my birthday my daughter sent me to Seville – firstly for the guitars, which was daunting to say the least. You walk into a place where they’re making flamenco guitars and the guy checking the tuning sounds like Hendrix. It’s a shame that flamenco has been classed by many as some kind of Torremolinos package holiday music – these guys are unbelievable. It’s a different kind of playing entirely.
‘Then we went to the bullfight and I thought something had gone wrong, because I’d never before seen what I saw – certainly not on telly. The matador finishes and he goes to the crowd and they throw flowers and cheer and applaud, and meanwhile back in the ring there’s five guys trying to kill this thing and it just won’t die. It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen. There was panic, they were stabbing it and it still wouldn’t go. You don’t see that on the TV. I thought I was going to go back to the hotel and see “Bullfight goes wrong” on the news and then the second fight came on and the same thing happened, and I’d had enough. And I thought, I know what to do with that music now…
The films are a collaboration between Chris and Scott McBurney. ‘He’s a genius, fresh out of university. I was having trouble working within the normal film world. They were just driving me insane — they don’t take risks and everything takes too long, and they’ve never worked film after music, and so on. We had big arguments and they told me I was wrong, but they’d missed the point completely. So Scott was brought in, and it was fun and he comes up with great things and we sat and edited it together, but it all starts with the guitar. Music first, images later.
Born and raised in Middlesbrough, Chris’s family ran a chain of ice cream parlours. ‘Ice cream shops in Middlesbrough were a recipe for a thousand broken noses,’ he grimaces. ‘It was horrible – I used to have to go weight-training just to deal with the fucking twats. But my father’s family were all musical; gypsies really, and they all played accordions and mandolins… a lot of diminished chords. It’s something that a lot of rock journalists have always given me grief over, but I’ve found over the years that it’s an English thing to class a gypsy violinist as restaurant music!
‘Real gypsy violin playing is some of most haunting stuff you’ll ever hear. It’s born out of pain and anguish. So with those influences I got a lot of negative press because I went somewhere else instead of staying on Chicago blues. The blistering fast stuff that Buddy Guy and Clapton are unbelievable at… I’ve never done it. I don’t sing songs about losing women and getting pissed – I tend to be more religious, and was drawn to the gospel spiritual side of blues. Blind Willie Johnson is it for me. He seems to go deeper than Robert Johnson…
‘People ask me what I do on my day off, and I say “Play the guitar!” If s not work to me and I never wanted to be a rock star. I didn’t start until I was over 20 -1 suddenly became fascinated with the music.
‘The true story is that my mum had a little radio alarm thing that she was very proud of, though it never worked properly. I was in her room — it had two mirrors, so if you were getting ready for a Saturday night you could see the back of your head. This thing came on, and it was Charlie Pattern on an American radio station via a new satellite. It stopped me for the rest of my life, because it sounded like my dad’s voice! I’d found someone who wasn’t a great singer, like me, but was getting away with it.’
Rea has done more than get away with it, but there have been leaner times. ‘In many ways, I had the misfortune of having a hit too early. Fool If You Think It’s Over was in the US Top 10 for seven weeks so I became a goose that laid a golden egg. I had to be what they told me to be, regardless of what I wanted, and I couldn’t get out of it. They were gonna watch me die and disappear rather than let me do what I wanted. Knopfler had started to do his own thing; Sting had
latched on to the new wave stuff, and I was a “man at a piano” and I was fucked! I was actually looking at Italian restaurants in London before the Water Sign album, but that took off and saved my career.
‘Some of the gospel chords in Fool If You Think It’s Over were considered too soft in the ’70s. I’ve still got a piece of paper with the original arrangement, and at the top I’d written “96bpm song for Al Green” and that’s all I ever thought it would be. I had no intention of doing it myself, and I still struggle because I don’t think I’m good enough. Ego is not a problem – if you’re healthy, you’re as rich as you’ll ever be.
Chris has learned that the hard way. Diagnosed in 2000 with cancer of the pancreas, duodenum and the colon, his life was saved by a 15-hour operation to remove the afflicted organs. ‘I was in hospital for 16 weeks and on morphine for 10 weeks, and then I had a year and a half to try and live without a pancreas, and they give you a one-in-four chance. I left my old self, and when I started coming out of it my wife Joan would start giving me things to do, because I’m not good at being an invalid!
‘She told me to tidy my top drawer – which everyone has – and at the bottom I found a record by Sister Rosetta Tharpe and I just burst into tears. I remembered this record predated me ever having a record deal or any success. So I got the old record player working, and by the time Joan got back from the shops I was sat there listening to it. She said, “I remember the day you bought that. You didn’t even play guitar.’”
There’s a definite spiritual edge to the new material. The second soundtrack and feature shows the journey of a man through the streets of Florence in search of the truth – a topic Rea clearly has given much thought to, particularly since his illness.
‘A pal of mine says he can suss whether someone was raised as a Catholic or not by their lyrics. I’ve learnt how to do that, and it’s true. Their metaphors are spiritual – even if you say lightly “Yeah, I was brought up a Catholic and now I’m not,” if you’re a creative person and you don’t know what creativity means ‘cos nobody’s told you, and you’re in the back streets of Middlesbrough, the effect of what the priests and nuns taught you was big shit. You didn’t question if there were angels or the devil, and if you thought something else you would go to hell forever. You were taught that, and in those days with no internet or TV, you had no reason to think anything else. Religion was a science, it was true… and that sticks and does something to your brain.
‘But I know there’s something else, and it’s touched on in the Florence film. Santo Spirito in Florence is like Chelsea was 100 years ago, the place where young artists hang out; no tourists go there. It’s a wonderful place, and so funky – you can eat in Santo Spirito cheaper than in McDonalds, and it’ll be the best meal you’ve ever had. So in the film there’s a guy searching, and there’s this weird figure who’s like the truth, and it opens up so many questions. Once you realise that even north and south are only relative to the sun and not the universe, then you can frighten yourself. If you look at a beach, I think our knowledge now is less than one grain of sand…