Overview
- A spokesperson for his wife and two children said he died peacefully in hospital on 22 December following a short illness.
- The Middlesbrough-born musician was celebrated for “Driving Home for Christmas,” a perennial chart returner featured in this year's Marks & Spencer advert.
- Over five decades he released about 25 studio albums, with The Road to Hell (1989) and Auberge (1991) topping the UK chart, and sold tens of millions of records.
- He endured serious health problems, including pancreatic cancer and major surgery in 2001, a stroke in 2016, and an onstage collapse in 2017.
- Tributes were posted by fans and by Middlesbrough FC, and he is survived by his wife Joan and daughters Josephine and Julia.