Dancing Down the Stony Road is the seventeenth studio album by British singer-songwriter Chris Rea, released in 2002 on his own record label, Jazzee Blue.

[1] In 2000 Rea was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and in 2001 underwent a risky but life-saving surgical operation (Whipple procedure[6]), which left him ill and weakened.

During his months-long stay in hospital he experienced an epiphany after someone brought him a copy of Miles Davis Kind of Blue.

He later recalled that when found an old Sister Rosetta Tharpe album in his home he burst into tears.

[8] Rea said that he was not afraid of dying although "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.

"[9] In another interview, Rea said that "it's not until you become seriously ill and you nearly die and you're at home for six months, that you suddenly stop, to realise that this isn't the way I intended it to be in the beginning.

[6] Although the record company offered him millions to do a duets album with music stars,[8] having promised himself that if he recovered he would be returning to his blues roots.

[11] In the Uncut review was given 3/5 stars, concluding "it's pleasing, JJ Cale kind of fare, but it should never have been a double CD.

[16] Helmut Moritz in a review of Stony Road one CD edition for laut.de gave 4/5 stars and that "ingenious songwriter finds incessantly the concise chords that provide the stage for his gloomy life experiences [...] has created a unique collection".