Chris Rea, who died last December, was an English pop/rock musician who had a pretty big hit in the US way way back in 1978 with "Fool If You Think It's Over," which is a song he wrote for his 17-year-old sister when she was dealing with a breakup. It's a great summer romance vibe song, that is one of those things that takes me back to that time right at the beginning of college etc. I ran into it the other day, went down an internet rabbit hole, and discovered the following:
(1) Rea was 27 at the time, and the song was rather uncharacteristic for him, as he was a bluesy guitar player, and this is a rare song of his that doesn't feature his guitar playing (it has a sax solo instead).
(2) This was his first hit of any kind anywhere, yet he never had another hit in the US, which is why I didn't recognize his name at all.
(3) Despite his lack of subsequent success in the US -- he never toured here even once -- he became actually huge in Europe and the UK, selling around thirty million records, and having many hits all across the continent. One of his YouTube songs has 42,000 comments! He had a gigantic Christmas song in England, which is sort of what that Mariah Carey song is over here. He had another giant hit that sounds very much like Dire Straits. (Embedded below)
(4) He's a very rare case of somebody who was cured of pancreatic cancer by the radical surgery that can sometimes though rarely be used for people who have that terrible disease. The last 25 years of his life were plagued by health problems and and the treatments he underwent to deal with them, but he remained a big star in Europe.
This post has been brought to you by the YouTube Universal Nostalgia Machine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjruFXixTFE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcW-BSEB3ng