Hi Baggies,
I also listen to a lot of CR stuff and honestly I hardly hear any similarities
"Sail Away" reminds me of some Motown tracks and of course older songs by CR himself, though. Unfortunately he is prone to copy himself quite blatantly...on "King Of The Beach" he even covers his song "Guitar Street" from 1982 (from the album simply named "Chris Rea", a very underrated one!), but it's alright, it's his music
KOTB in my opinion is one of his weakest albums - it can't hold a candle to e.g. "Dancing With Strangers" or "Auberge".
Cheers,
Tobi