{"id":2208741,"date":"2025-12-22T16:34:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T16:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2208741"},"modified":"2025-12-22T16:34:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T16:34:13","slug":"chris-rea-driving-home-for-christmas-dies-at-74","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/chris-rea-driving-home-for-christmas-dies-at-74\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Rea, \u2018Driving Home for Christmas,\u2019 dies at 74"},"content":{"rendered":"

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LONDON \u2014 Chris Rea, the singer and songwriter best known for the hit \u201cDriving Home for Christmas,\u201d has died at 74, his family said Monday.<\/p>\n

Rea died in the hospital following a short illness, according to a statement from his family to Britain’s Press Association news agency.<\/p>\n

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What You Need To Know<\/b><\/h4>\n
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  • Chris Rea, the singer-songwriter best known for \u201cDriving Home for Christmas,\u201d has died at 74<\/li>\n

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  • His family announced Monday that Rea died in the hospital after a short illness<\/li>\n

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  • Rea rose to fame in the 1980s in Britain with hits like \u201cFool (If You Think It\u2019s Over)\u201d and \u201cLet\u2019s Dance\u201d<\/li>\n

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  • \u201cDriving Home for Christmas\u201d became a beloved festive song over the decades<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/h5>\n
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    Rea found fame in the 1980s in Britain with hits such as \u201cFool (If You Think It\u2019s Over)\u201d and \u201cLet\u2019s Dance.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Two of his studio albums, \u201cThe Road to Hell\u201d in 1989 and \u201cAuberge\u201d in 1991, went to number one in the country.<\/p>\n

    “Driving Home for Christmas” did not become an overnight hit when it was first released in 1986, but the gentle track proved to be an enduring success over the decades and remains one of the U.K.’s most-loved festive songs. It featured in a TV advertisement for the retailer Marks and Spencer just this year.<\/p>\n

    The musician was born in 1951 in Middlesbrough, in northeast England, to an Italian father and Irish mother. He took various jobs after leaving school and helped out in his family’s ice cream business.<\/p>\n

    He came late to the guitar, picking one up at 21, and played in bands before going solo.<\/p>\n

    He had suffered from health problems including pancreatic cancer, and in 2016 he suffered a stroke. In more recent years he turned away from pop and released several bluesy records.<\/p>\n

    Rea is survived by his wife and two daughters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

    \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source spectrumlocalnews.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    LONDON \u2014 Chris Rea, the singer and songwriter best known for the hit \u201cDriving Home for Christmas,\u201d has died at 74, his family said Monday. Rea died in the hospital following a short illness, according to a statement from his family to Britain’s Press Association news agency. What You Need To Know Chris Rea, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2208742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[22793,22800,22811,22804,21741,105894,21737],"class_list":["post-2208741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-all-markets-rank-everywhere","tag-app-for-your-consideration","tag-app-top-stories","tag-associated-press","tag-entertainment","tag-nnt","tag-top-stories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Chris-Rea-\u2018Driving-Home-for-Christmas-dies-at-74.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2208741"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2208743,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2208741\/revisions\/2208743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2208742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2208741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2208741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2208741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}