Chris Rea

I love being on tour. That's the best job in the world, if only I had a different body.

— Chris Rea

I'd never intended to write a Christmas hit - I was a serious musician!

— Chris Rea

Being on the road isn't hell - it's pure pleasure now.

— Chris Rea

It's bleak behind the Iron Curtain, although they do have the strongest vodka I've ever had in my life.

— Chris Rea

I do have this big weakness: I over-cooperate with people. People say it's because I'm Irish-Italian from Middlesbrough, and me dad was…

— Chris Rea

I think all the business stuff - the promotion, the hype, the high-power lunches, and the permanently injected smiles - is boring.

— Chris Rea

I think I've lost that ability to slow things down - that ability drivers have to calculate what's coming by you at…

— Chris Rea

Dad was a distant figure, autonomous, a cross between the Pope and Mussolini. He was very Italian, as were all of my…

— Chris Rea

My father's family were Italian ice cream men, and the knowledge was passed on, so I ran an ice cream van while…

— Chris Rea

After I got back my career and my artistic freedom in 1982, my golden rule is the music must never suffer.

— Chris Rea

If the heads of all the music companies had known about music and about Chris Rea fans, they wouldn't have worried about…

— Chris Rea

My father used to control the wholesale of many ice-cream items in Middlesbrough. He was central distributor for most of the region.

— Chris Rea

I remember my first day at grammar school, being the only person who was me. Everybody else was like everybody else, and…

— Chris Rea

I had to put me foot down with the first record company. It was about 1975, when singers were being given names…

— Chris Rea

I didn't start until I was 21, and most people I know were 13 when they had their first guitar - I…

— Chris Rea

When 'The Road To Hell' happened, I didn't know what I was doing. Your diary fills up, and you have no objectivity.…

— Chris Rea

I feel I've had three careers in one, really. There was the 'Benny Santini' stuff; that came with a general sense of,…

— Chris Rea

I'm never happy with anything I've done! If you sat me down and played everything I've ever recorded, I'd just sit there…

— Chris Rea

The operation left me very emotional. I cry a lot anyway. I've always been the type to feel hurt easily, but now…

— Chris Rea

When I came down south and was put together with big producers, I always thought that they knew best. I never thought…

— Chris Rea

I was born in the overdub years. I wish there wasn't such a thing as a multitrack tape player, because what you…

— Chris Rea

I live halfway between London and the airport, which means I can operate my European career and get home every night. It…

— Chris Rea

My heroes were gospel blues players like Blind Willie Johnson, Charley Patton, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, not whoever was number one.

— Chris Rea

I never got the chance to put drums on 'Watersigns,' because the company was in a rush to release it - and…

— Chris Rea

When I was young, I wanted, most of all, to be a writer of films and film music. But Middlesbrough in 1968…

— Chris Rea

Once I faced the fact I was going to deal with illness for the rest of my life, I got on with…

— Chris Rea

I'd become a corporate rock musician. I worked for 'Chris Rea.' He felt like another person. I even talked about him in…

— Chris Rea

The voice has been my joker card that sometimes has played like an ace and sometimes a joker. When you sing the…

— Chris Rea

The record companies didn't want 'Stony Road,' and it ended up being a gold album. They didn't want 'Blue Guitars,' and we…

— Chris Rea

You can't have F1 without Ferrari - you just can't have it. It's part of the theme that is the red car,…

— Chris Rea

Eric Clapton's scales - when he comes off a high note and it's time for a refrain or a little bit of…

— Chris Rea

I've given up my Ferrari - the idea of going through my village in a 488... You can't drive them on English roads.

— Chris Rea

I've had nine major operations in ten years. A lot of it is to do with something called retroperitoneal fibrosis, where the…

— Chris Rea

Rock n' roll was my art school. For many people from working-class backgrounds, rock wasn't a chosen thing, it was the only…

— Chris Rea

'Course, 'Santini' bombed in England, y'know. It came out at the height of the New Wave, which couldn't have been a worse…

— Chris Rea

I am in that unique little club where I went into music because I love music, not because I wanted to be…

— Chris Rea

In a funny way, the illness spurred me on. I thought to myself, 'I've got to get through this operation to make…

— Chris Rea