Mixed Bag by a Talented Artist
3
By tjphoto
Chris Rea has a deep, raw, smoky voice and can play some powerful or subtle guitar to accompany his best songs. This album is very much a mixed bag—some of his greatest songs are here, but many are missing, and the emphasis seems to be on more of his early stuff and what I’d call the lounge sound in several songs that are not his best at all. To its credit, the album contains a few stellar compositions that he performs in that unique way of his—“The Road to Hell,” “Let’s Dance,” “Josephine,” “On the Beach,” “Auberge,”and a couple of others. But missing are “Heaven,” “Set Me Free,” “Looking for the Summer,” “Too Much Pride,” “Candles,” and others that represent the compositions and style that I associate with Chris Rea at his best. There’s another collection called by a similar name, “The Best of Chris Rea,” that is somewhat better, but I’d recommend you check out the “Auberge” album or pick and choose songs I mentioned from the collections you can still find here. Rea deserves more acclaim for his enduring legacy, though the body of his work remains uneven.
