Dancing With Strangers: How Chris Rea Whirled His Way To The Top

Rea follows it with another song which confounds any expectations the title might suggest. Rock has no shortage of tunes complaining about music that sucks, but Chris uses the title I Can’t Dance To That as a metaphor: He’s repelled by the decadence he sees around him, and rejects it. When he speaks of “a cold machine”, it’s not just a drum machine he’s moaning about (he soon proved himself a master of making great rock with electronic gear), it’s the mechanisation of life at the expense of human beings. Setting the verses to a John Lee Hooker-type boogie drills home the sense that the singer would welcome a return to earthier values. It’s immediately followed by another resonant track, Windy Town, whose piano and guitar rolls over a ceaseless beat that offers a sense of the road’s endless grey ribbon, giving the song’s protagonist time to reminisce over crosswinds on a cold stone street, good times and bad. Rod Stewart, tempted by the song’s brilliant evocation of the touring life in a cold climate, covered it on A Spanner In The Works, though Rea’s version remains definitive, somehow injecting romance into the everyday grind.

The most affecting guitar lines Rea has delivered

The bigger, brassier Gonna Buy A Hat, attacking politicians’ detachment from the people their work sometimes destroys, contrasts strongly with the downbeat Curse Of The Traveller, which kicks off with Davy Spillane’s haunting uilleann pipes before unravelling an atmospheric tale of regret that features some of the most affecting guitar lines Rea has ever delivered. Dancing With Strangers’ only big hit single, Let’s Dance, flips the mood again. First recorded in 1986 with a jazzy Latin beat reminiscent of George Benson’s version of Breezin’, this more direct cut hits the spot. There were club mixes, too; it’s as if Chris, watching a growing onslaught of electronic dance music, is reminding us that good times could also be the preserve of rock.

Recycling also helped create Que Sera, in which Rea repurposes lines from his self-titled fourth album’s ballad When You Know Your Love Has Died. Placed in this fresh uptempo context – a dream of freedom that cleverly underpins driving Tex-Mex rock with a subtle Bo Diddley beat – his old lines are even more affecting. Back in 1981, Rea’s singing never sounded this sure-footed and relaxed. There’s also Josie’s Tune, which again features pipes, in the first of Dancing With Strangers’ instrumentals; and, in complete contrast, one of the best Chris Rea songs of the era: Loving You Again, built for the road and purring smoothly like a Jaguar XF Cruiser on Middlesbrough’s A66.

The back-to-basics That Girl Of Mine is a boogie monster, streaked with Rea’s slide guitar like vapour trails in the sky. Dancing With Strangers initially closed with September Blue, a touching ballad in which Chris makes a few lyrical lines appear eternal. Further tracks were subsequently added in I Don’t Care Anymore, with the singer’s Celtic heritage surfacing in the tangle of acoustic instruments; the rootsy, Ry Cooderish instrumental Donahue’s Broken Wheel, named for Jerry Donahue, the folk-rock stalwart who handles six-string on five of the album’s tracks; and the tender Danielle’s Breakfast, an instrumental with guitars twining and echoing into the distance.

The pinnacle of most musicians’ careers

Dancing With Strangers might have marked the pinnacle of most musicians’ careers: it was quite an achievement. For the first time, Chris Rea had demoed and partly recorded the album at home. It gave him more control and helped cement his vision, which caught the record-buying public’s imagination.

Released in September 1987, the album spent 46 weeks on the UK chart. But that’s where ill luck decided to remind Rea that nothing could be taken for granted – as if a guy from his tough background could forget that. Dancing With Strangers peaked at No.2, stuck behind the pop juggernaut that was Michael Jackson’s Bad, released two weeks before. But Rea had taken the correct route at that crossroads: his record went platinum, selling 300,000 copies in the UK alone. Its success would persuade Warner to buy out Magnet records, and the major label’s muscle would soon help Chris Rea fulfil his superstar potential with his next all-new set, The Road To Hell. But that’s another dance altogether.

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