Chris Rea’s link with Montreux runs through one man: David Richards, the Mountain Studios engineer, who co-produced with him “Water Sign”, his fifth album, released in March 1983. The record was born in difficult circumstances, the label having refused to fund it: the gravel-voiced British singer had to fall back on tracks recorded as mere demos, played most of the instruments himself and turned to drum machines. The album only reached number 64 in the United Kingdom, but its unexpected success in Ireland prompted a long tour there, the starting point of the recovery of his career.
Chris Rea: “Water Sign”, the album nobody would pay for
A record born of a refusal
In the early 1980s, Chris Rea’s career was stalling. His record company refused to fund his fifth album. With no recording budget, he had no choice but to start from what he already had: tracks recorded as mere demos.
The result is a record made almost alone. Rea plays most of the instruments himself and turns to drum machines, which was hardly like him. The constraint became the substance of the record: “Water Sign” is barer, more intimate than what came before.
Montreux, and an engineer who becomes co-producer
It was at Mountain Studios that the record took its final shape, and that is where David Richards came in. The in-house engineer did not merely record it: he co-produced the album with Rea.
The Montreux studio often played that part for artists in difficulty: a place set apart, without a record company breathing down the corridor, with a man able to run the desk and offer an opinion. “Water Sign” was released in March 1983.
Ireland restarts everything
The record did not succeed everywhere, but it sold well in one country: Ireland. Rea then mounted a long tour there, which gave him back an audience and a reason to carry on.
That is where his career restarted, leading to the big successes of the following years. An album his record company would not pay for, shaped in a Swiss studio, served as the turning point.
The free exhibition inside the real Mountain Studios, where Queen recorded seven albums between 1978 and 1995.
Music recorded in Montreux
1983
Water Sign
The first of the four albums Chris Rea recorded at Mountain Studios between 1983 and 1986, along with “Wired to the Moon”, “Shamrock Diaries” and “On the Beach”. The guitarist’s artistic rebirth on the shores of Lake Geneva.
