Christopher Anton Rea (4 March 1951 – 22 December 2025) was an English rock and blues singer-songwriter, guitarist and record producer. He was known for his distinctive gravelly voice, slide guitar playing and music style blending soft rock with blues.
For me, his music has always carried a kind of quiet honesty, those weathered guitars, that gravel‑warm voice, the way he could make a simple melody feel lived‑in and human. Rea never chased trends; he built his own world, one song, one story, one brushstroke at a time. Blue Guitars, Auberge, On the Beach, these weren’t just albums, they were places you could return to, each one shaped by his craft and his stubborn, beautiful independence. Losing him feels like losing a companion on the long road, but the music stays, and that’s where he’ll keep speaking to us.
I am posting the box set Chris Rea – Blue Guitars [2005] I’m posting Blue Guitars because it’s one of those rare projects where an artist goes all‑in on a vision and actually delivers something monumental. Chris Rea didn’t just make an album here, he built an entire blues atlas from the ground up, eleven discs of original material that trace the form from its earliest roots to its modern electric branches. It’s obsessive, handcrafted, and quietly ambitious in a way that fits the spirit of what I like to highlight: music made with intent, depth, and respect for the lineage it draws from. This box set isn’t about hits or nostalgia; it’s about an artist immersing himself in a tradition and emerging with something vast, personal, and beautifully detailed. It earns its place here because it stands as one of the most committed genre explorations ever put to tape.
Blue Guitars was released in October 2005 on Rea’s own Jazzee Blue label in partnership with Edel Records, Blue Guitars is a monumental archival statement—eleven themed CDs, one DVD, and a full-colour hardback book of paintings, lyrics, and liner notes, all housed in an earbook-style box. It’s not a compilation, but a fully original body of work: 137 newly recorded tracks spanning the entire history and geography of blues music, from African roots to modern electric forms. For collectors, it’s one of the most ambitious single-artist blues projects ever issued, with each disc functioning as a standalone concept album.
Rea recorded the set over 18 months, reportedly working twelve hours a day, seven days a week. Each disc explores a distinct blues idiom—Beginnings, Country Blues, Louisiana Blues, Mississippi Blues, Texas Blues, Chicago Blues, Blues Ballads, Gospel Soul Blues, Celtic & Irish Blues, Latin Blues, and 60s & 70s Electric Blues. The sequencing is deliberate, with each volume offering stylistic fidelity and period‑specific instrumentation. Rea plays most instruments himself, using vintage gear and analog techniques to evoke the sonic character of each era.
The accompanying book adds visual and narrative depth, with Rea’s own paintings serving as thematic anchors. The DVD includes a documentary on the making of the project, reinforcing its archival intent. Unlike most blues tributes, Blue Guitars avoids covers and standards; every track is original, written in the style of its respective zone. That makes it not just a homage, but a reimagining—an artist’s attempt to inhabit the form from the inside out. For serious listeners and archivists, it’s a rare example of genre immersion done with integrity, scale, and emotional clarity. (Butterboy)
