Chris Rea, known for hits including Driving Home For Christmas and The Road To Hell, has died after a short illness, according to a family spokesperson.

A statement on behalf of his wife and two children stated: “It is with immense sadness that we announce the death of our beloved Chris.

“He passed away peacefully in hospital earlier today following a short illness, surrounded by his family.”

The Middlesbrough-born musician was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had his pancreas removed in 2001, and in 2016 he suffered a stroke.

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Rea found fame in the late seventies and eighties with hits such as Fool (If You Think It’s Over), Let’s Dance and The Road To Hell.

Known for his gravelly voice and latterly for his slide guitar playing, he was nominated for a slew of top awards, including Brit Awards, at the height of his success and sold millions of records.

Rea’s debut album, titled Whatever Happened To Benny Santini?, a reference to the stage name his record label wanted him to adopt, was released in 1978.

His track Fool (If You Think It’s Over), from the album, went on to be nominated for a Grammy.

He did not find such success again for a few years, but by the time his eighth album On The Beach was released, he was a star in the UK and around Europe, with sporadic hits in the US.

When Road To Hell was released in 1989, he became one of the biggest solo stars in the UK. Two of his studio albums – The Road To Hell (1989) and Auberge (1991) – went to number one in the country.

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His famous song Driving Home For Christmas, first released in 1986, features in this year’s M&S Food Christmas advert – which sees comedian Dawn French sing along to the single in her car.

Speaking about the song during the 2020 Mortimer And Whitehouse Gone Fishing Christmas special, he told comedian Bob Mortimer: “I was on the dole when I wrote that.

“My manager had just left me. I’d just been banned from driving, right. My now wife, Joan, she had to drive down to London, picked me up in the Mini, and take me home, and that’s when I wrote it.”

The singer returned to his blues roots after a string of health problems.

“I wasn’t frightened of dying,” he once said in an interview.

“It did look like the end, but what got me through was the thought of leaving a record that my two teenage daughters could say, ‘That’s what Papa did – not the pop stuff, but the blues music. That’s what he was about’.”

Stars including Liam Gallagher, David Beckham and Paul Weller have gathered to pay tribute to The Stone Roses star Gary “Mani” Mounfield.

The Stone Roses and Primal Scream bassist died last month at the age of 63.

His death came two years after that of his wife, Imelda Mounfield, who was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in November 2020. The couple welcomed twin boys in 2012.

He had been due to travel the UK later this year for an in-conversation tour sharing memories of his rock experiences.

Liveblog: Famous faces say final goodbye to Stone Roses bass player

The funeral, which was held at Manchester Cathedral, drew hundreds of fans, including a guard of scooter riders with black bands and a photo of Mani on their bikes.

Arriving at the service, The Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown said Mani was “a brother to me”, calling him a “beautiful human being”.

Some of the biggest names of British 1990s music were at the ceremony, including Oasis star Liam Gallagher, singer-songwriter Paul Weller, Primal Scream frontman Bobbie Gillespie and Bez, from the Happy Mondays.

Tim Burgess, lead singer of The Charlatans, Elbow frontman Guy Garvey, Ian McCulloch of Echo & The Bunnymen, Mike Joyce, drummer from The Smiths, Inspiral Carpets keyboardist Clint Boon, and former Joy Division and New Order bassist Peter Hook also came to pay tribute.

Former Manchester United players David Beckham and Gary Neville were also among hundreds of mourners arriving for the service.

Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and Coronation Street star Sally Lindsay were also in attendance.

Hundreds more fans gathered outside the cathedral and applauded as the cortege arrived, and as I Wanna Be Adored – one of The Stone Roses’ biggest hits – blared from the speakers.

The coffin, which was decorated with artwork from the cover of The Stone Roses – the band’s self-titled debut album – had travelled around eight miles from Heaton Moor in Stockport to the cathedral.

Gallagher, along with The Stone Roses drummer Alan Wren – also known as Reni – and bandmate John Squire carried the coffin from the ceremony after the service.

Mani was part of the Stone Roses’ classic line-up alongside Brown, Squire and Wren.

Pausing briefly as he went into church, Brown said he was there to celebrate “what a beautiful human being that he was”.

Asked what his bandmate meant to him, the singer said: “Everything. He’s a brother to me.”

Forming in 1983, Mani was part of The Stone Roses until they split in 1996, playing on both the eponymous debut album, released in 1989, and their 1995 follow-up, Second Coming.

The “Madchester” band was known for blending indie with acid house, psychedelia and pop.

Mani went on to play with Scottish band Primal Scream for 15 years, leaving in 2011 to rejoin the reuniting Roses.

Siobhan MacGowan almost looks surprised as she remembers.

“It went very, very quickly. Even the first year went really quickly. Two years… you know,” she tails off.

The 24 months since her brother Shane died have flown by in one sense, but it’s clear that the family’s grief has barely subsided.

“It’s still very raw for me,” Siobhan says. “I can’t listen to Shane’s music, and I can’t watch him on video or listen to him speak.”

Legendary frontman of The Pogues, Shane MacGowan died on 30 November 2023 at the age of 65, following a long illness.

He passed away in the lead-up to Christmas, a time when his voice is heard on every radio station and in every pub – in the form of Fairytale Of New York.

For his sister, the festive anthem – which he co-penned with the band’s banjoist Jem Finer – is now a visceral torment.

“You can be a genius, the way you can avoid it [the song]”, Siobhan says. “If it’s coming on, I just turn it straight off. If I’m in a supermarket, I just block it out, or I go into the loo, or I go outside, or I do something like that, but I have to block it.”

She can’t listen to Fairytale “at all”. “It’s just pain. Pain in my heart. It’s just so painful.”

We look at a picture of Siobhan and Shane from Christmas Day 1987. Fairytale Of New York was number one in Ireland, but had been pipped by the Pet Shop Boys in the UK.

“I remember him saying he wouldn’t have minded if it had been Michael Jackson that had beaten him,” Siobhan recalls. “But he couldn’t forgive the Pet Shop Boys. And it was a terrible cover of Always On My Mind! It was dreadful like, so he couldn’t forgive that.”

But Shane got over it? “No,” she bursts out laughing.

On a fresh, clear winter’s day, we are sitting by the banks of the Shannon in Dromineer, Co Tipperary. It’s one of the locations that inspired Shane’s song The Broad Majestic Shannon. Since the death of the singer, born in the UK to Irish parents, fans have made the pilgrimage to this part of Ireland, desperate to seek out the places that shaped his music.

Siobhan, along with Shane’s widow, Victoria Mary Clarke, has launched a self-guided walking tour called Unravelling Shane, in a bid to give some structure to those journeys.

In the town of Nenagh, we visit some of the spots on the map, including Philly Ryan’s pub, Shane’s favourite watering hole. Philly is behind the bar, an ebullient force of nature, dressed like an undertaker. That’s because he is one. In time-honoured Irish fashion, he is both publican and funeral director.

In one role, he enjoyed many a raucous night with Shane MacGowan. In the other, he planned the funeral of his great friend. “Such a shock,” he says, recalling the phone call from Siobhan after her brother died.

Sitting among endless Shane and Pogues memorabilia, Philly reckons the late singer would enjoy the posthumous boost to Tipperary tourism.

“Shane loved Nenagh,” Philly says. “He’d have loved to get that attention onto Nenagh as a gift from Shane MacGowan to people of Nenagh. Nenagh was his town and he loved it dearly.”

Fans from all over the world wander into the pub now, looking for a tangible taste of Shane MacGowan’s legacy.

“We’ve had requests from places like Serbia, Italy, Germany, America, Japan,” says Carmel Ormond of the new walking tour. She’s a tourism officer with Destination Lough Derg.

“It’s a huge amount of people interested from Japan, from Australia. We’ve requests from all over the world. We constantly meet people that are rambling around trying to find an area. It has become a huge tourist attraction.”

Another stop in Nenagh is the St Mary of the Rosary church, where Shane used to attend Sunday mass with his mother. Two years ago, it was the venue for his funeral. Attended by Johnny Depp and Nick Cave, it was streamed live around the world, as family members danced in the aisle to Fairytale Of New York.

“I danced with my husband and my heart was absolutely breaking,” Siobhan remembers. “I danced through it, and I did it for him. It was a dance of defiance against death. I thought, death is not going to stop this song.”

As his family continue to grapple with their loss this festive period, Shane MacGowan’s legacy is continuing to be shaped. Siobhan says his passing made her finally appreciate the full gifts of her sibling as an artist and a person.

“It was then I realised the huge volume of work and people’s reaction to him and his work that, to me, was extraordinary. Like I thought, wow, look at what you did. That’s what I said, look at what you did, you know.

“It only seems to be getting stronger. His legacy only seems to be getting stronger.”