Jeff Healey 1966 - 2008

Monday March 3, 2008 • 1 Comment 

Hearing that Jeff Healey had died of cancer yesterday on this morning’s news caught me completely off guard. First of all, I didn’t realize that he was only 41. He seemed a whole lot older than that.

But when I thought about it, the Jeff Healey Band was the first concert that my wife and I ever went to, back when we started dating in the 80’s. He was opening for Tom Cochrane and Rod Stewart at BC Place. I was there to see the JHB, and my wife was there to see Rod Stewart, so it worked out for both of us.

If you’ve never seen Jeff Healey play the guitar, it’s almost in the manner that you’d play a steel guitar. He played sitting down, with the instrument on his lap, and his fingers didn’t wrap around the neck, but he played with his fingers on top. It’s very unique to watch, especially when he’d jump up from the chair during a solo and found his way back to the chair despite being blind.

In the last few years he moved away from the world of rock, something that he was never really comfortable with, and moved back into his first love, jazz. Unfortunately I only got the one chance to see him live, and the last Jeff Healey CD I bought was 1992’s Feel This. But the type of music that he played back in the late eighties on the See the Light album showed a completely different type of music that I’d never been exposed to before, and for that I’m grateful.

I’ll keep listening to the older stuff and start picking up the newer music that Jeff Healey put out, and just remember what that music meant to me, and how it changed the type of music I listen to.

Thanks, Jeff. Rest in Peace.