The Fabulous Presentations and Music of Chris Rea

 I am writing this because Facebook wont let me properly share a recent YouTube album cover video that I post on three Chris Rea releases :

• "The Return of The Fabulous Hofner Bluenotes" 
• "Santo Spirito Blues"
• "Blue Guitars"

I have also discovered another set "La Passione" which could be a Christmas present as it's another well presented set with good reviews and given my reevaluation of the first of these sets will be a worthy addition to my collection.

The first one I didn't think I liked. The presentation pack is wonderful but thought the music was a little too sixties stylised. It consists of a book with lots of photographs and some of Chris's paintings (he is a great artist) , two ten inch vinyl albums and three vinyl replica CDs.

Yesterday , thanks to the excellent RPM supplied record player (close on two years old now) I played the first vinyl album , and while very Shadows influenced you can tell it's Chris Rea, and it sounded a lot better than I expected. I am listening to my digital copy as I type this and it is extremely listenable, and you can sort of spot the songs that the tunes have been lifter from, but that is no bad thing, it just adds another level of enjoyment to the listening, and The Shadows are always a great starting point (two of my favourites are "Apache" and "Wonderful Land" and Hank Marvin was responsible for the killer intro to Cliff Richard's best ever record , his debut single "Move It").

As this progresses it becomes more and more contemporary Chris Rea rather than Chris Rea being The Shadows.

"Santo Spirito Blues" is a book with two film DVDs , accompanying CD soundtracks and a stand alone CD bearing the title of the collection. I haven't yet watched the films but the "Bull Fighting" is extremely Spanish influenced guitar and orchestral music and very good.

The biggest surprise is the half hour "Santo Spirito" CD  which sounds like "Wish You Were Here" era Pink Floyd with overlaid accordions, shockingly and unexpectedly excellent and will be on my player a lot more often. A very impressive package.

"Blue Guitars" is an absolute tour-de-force, 11 CDs each with a different blues style all composed by Chris Rea and performed by him and the band , plus a DVD and page upon page of excellent Chris Rea art pieces. When this was released it was about £30 , which is less than £3 a CD, the art book alone is probably worth that. You will pay £60 for a copy on Amazon and there may be copies on Discogs as well.

11 CDs provide about eight hours continual listening and then you have a DVD to watch and an artbook to enjoy. The amazing thing is that this was produced in under two years and I still enjouy dipping into this today.

Hopefully people will check this out, and Chris Rea is an artist who still produces impressive album packages in this digital age. Although you can download the MP3 copies , you really want the physical copies to appreciate how good they are.

A Nightmare

 I woke from , what for me is, a recurring nightmare, although it is very mild compared with what most people would class as a nightmare. I think I am slightly claustrophobic , so it's a manifestation based on that.

Earlier this week I dreamt I was in a house and many of the rooms had no windows, big buildings with no windows I find, creepy, rooms with no windows creepier because you are inside.

The latest was for some reason I was holidaying in the far north of Scotland (which I would like to do) , and while being shown around the place I had to squeeze past the host in the doorway to the "main room" and then felt even being there it was too small to get out. It's this situation where you are at the risk of getting stuck and unable to free yourself and often have variations on that theme, though I always manage to get past the difficult part.

In real like it reminds me of the ascent of Scott's Monument in Edinburgh which manged to combine my claustrophobia with vertigo, but I managed to do that and got some great photographs, and to be honest, my body size is not increasing, so once this lockdown is dealt with (if that happens) I may do it again. Similarly the "gateway to Cow Hill from Grandstand Road is a very tight squeeze for me , although I could climb over or through the fence.

I don't like small caves or underground tunnels and when I see these cavers squeezing through holes , often also underwater it sends my blood cold, I think that happens in the film "The Descent" , which for me is a real horror film.

Other nightmare scenarios are being up high and having to traverse gaps in stairs or ladders to go up, knowing you have to do the same coming back.

The thing is, with all these nightmares, I either get through it or wake up, and with tonight's , because I am on a staycation, I can write about this at 3:30 am knowing I don't have to get up at 5:45 as usual. Every day is like a Saturday , although today I have to go to Newcastle University to help with research into my Cirrhosis of the Liver so it won't be just lying around doing nothing, listening to music , read or playing.

So something dark to accompany this post, or maybe not. I'm been listening to a lot of Chris Rea recently and maybe "Nothing To Fear" is a more suitable piece to sign off with. I just posted a Youtube video of some of his amazing album packaging here, although some people may think that Chris Rea's music is a nightmare but given his prodigiously good output I can forgive "Driving Home For Christmas". 

It is now 4:10 am

Musical Boxed

While a great deal of music and now books are downloaded and in e-format , I still like to have something I can hold in my hand. Also by getting a physical item it's probable that you have paid for it and the artist will get their rightful royalties . One of the issues I have withillegal downloading is that children are brought up believing they don't have to pay for music.

Anyway I'm getting sidetracked . The display above has loads of recent , box sets of CDs which are available for  under twenty pounds , in some cases under ten , meaning that the individual CDs working out around £2 each and you have a beautiful package as well . Leonard Cohen and The Kinks have had decent retrospective reissues out recently , and not forgetting Chris Rea's superb Santo Spirito Blues  3 CDs and 2DVDs for £15 !! In the display above are loads of great value boxes that should keep you occupied for a long time

These are the sort of reasons why I will always by music that has a physical presence. I'm not against downloads , and infact downloads are a great way of getting music out  to people , like Amazon Free MP3 section and iTune's single of the week. Included a video of Emerson Lake & Palmer's Hoedown , just noticed it when searching for something else , a brilliant deconstruction / reconstruction of a classical piece , wish every ELP song was as good as this!!