David Smyth talks to guitarist Chris Rea, who believes he's found a way to save the music industry, and look's at what's new on the net.

ROAD TO HELL AND BACK

At 56, while the industry that made him wealthy is struggling to survive on cutbacks and giveaways, Chris Rea thinks he has discovered the future of music - books.

In 2005, the Middlesbrough-born guitarist released Blue Guitars, a vast collection of 11 CDs, 130 new songs and a DVD, all bound in a hardback book adorned with his own paintings.

It seemed like a specialist product only suitable for Rea fans so dedicated they were already sitting outside his house wearing night-vision goggles. However, at the bargain price of £34, it has now shifted 165,000 copies, a figure which has even taken the author of Road to Hell by surprise.

"We thought we'd be lucky to break even at about 30,000 sold," he tells me. "But if books with a dozen discs inside were eligible for the charts, it would have gone to number one!"

His newest project is called The Return of the Fabulous Hofner Bluenotes, and is self-released through his Jazzee Blue label on 11 February.

Though it features less music (a mere 38 tracks), the concept is more elaborate. It features Rea pretending to be two different fictional bands - the Delmonts, who make Fifties-style twangy instrumentals on vintage guitars; and the Hofner Bluenotes, the Sixties blues band that they supposedly became after the departure of their keyboard player.

The hardback book that tells this story is a beautiful thing, incorporating two vinyl records, three CDs designed to look like vinyl, dozens of photos of swinging Britain and Rea's paintings of guitars, including a Hofner Colorama depicted in the shadowy style of Caravaggio.

If Rea's gruff voice and crisp guitar work aren't to your taste already, you're not liable to be converted - but the enthusiasm with which the old dog has set about his new tricks is worth much praise. It's all the more remarkable, too, given his tumultuous recent history.

A cancer operation in 2001 gave Rea a one-in-three chance of survival, and has left him with no pancreas and Type One diabetes - he needs seven injections and 36 different pills a day.

While it would have been easy to reissue his greatest hits over and over, Rea's brush with death has inspired him to change his way of working. Ditching the adult-orientated rock that made his name, he has gone back to the ancient blues he loved as a young man, and been inspired to find new ways of presenting it.

"I'm not a saint - I only changed because I was seriously ill," he admits. "Otherwise, I'd probably still be horse-trading away like I used to."

Having sold 24 million records in the glory days of the music biz, he seems amused by its misfortunes today. He is adamant that his new music will not be downloadable: "There are enough people in the world who still want album culture," he says.

He now aims to start a music book company, encouraged by the success of his own books and other efforts such as Radiohead's luxurious In Rainbows box. "Take someone like Annie Lennox, who has now lost her record deal. She still needs an outlet to be creative, so I'd say to her, 'Here's 80 pages. Fill 'em in.'

"Whatever people think of you, just because you're over 50 doesn't mean you can't have a good time with music."

• Chris Rea presents The Fabulous Hofner Bluenotes at the Albert Hall on 28 March (020 7589 8212, www.royalalberthall.com).

AN EARLY LISTEN TO ...
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (Mute)

The last Bad Seeds album was a 17-track double, and last year Nick Cave released both a sleazy, rudimentary rock'n'roll album with Grinderman and a moody soundtrack to the film The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. But still he hasn't run out of energy.

His 14th album with the Bad Seeds, released 3 March, belies his inaccurate reputation as a musical ghoul. It's actually pretty good fun. The gospel choirs of his 2004 set Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus have been replaced by a squalling Sixties organ, and enjoyably funky grooves are generated on Moonland and the title track.

Lyrically, Cave is as extraordinary as ever, still exploring Biblical themes but there's humour too. The story of Lazarus is transposed to modern New York as Cave questions whether the poor chap actually benefited from being raised from the dead.

Everything here will make a powerful addition to the band's live sets, which cannot come soon enough. Tickets went on sale this morning for their Hammersmith Apollo show on 7 May (0870 400 0700, www.hammersmithapollo.net).

NEW ON THE NET

• For a band who used to cavort with women wearing horses' heads, Goldfrapp make a surprisingly low-key comeback on Sunday when new single A&E is made available in download stores. It's a muted, electronic folk ballad that may not be as showy as past work but gets prettier with each listen.

• Badly Drawn Boy is making music for romantic comedies again, following his successful foray into soundtrack work with About a Boy in 2002. A new version of his song The Time of Times is in new romcom Definitely, Maybe, and in download stores from Monday.

• The cliché of the saucy Frenchman continues with upcoming sex-mad albums from Paris by The Teenagers and the marvellous Sébastien Tellier, whose Sexuality album features a cover shot of a lonely cowboy traversing a giant naked female form on horseback. An early free taster of his Daft Punk-produced electronaughtiness can be downloaded at http://gvsbchris.com/Divine.mp3.