b. Norman Jeffrey Healey, 25 March 1966, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, d. 2 March 2008, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Blind since developing the rare eye cancer retinoblastoma at the age of 12 months, this white blues rock guitarist and singer played in an unusual, instinctive lap-held style. He received his first guitar at the age of three and became a proficient multi-instrumentalist in childhood. At 17, he formed Blue Direction and gigged regularly in the Toronto area. In 1985, Healey was invited to play alongside Texas bluesman Albert Collins who, much impressed, in turn introduced him to Stevie Ray Vaughan. The Jeff Healey Band - Joe Rockman (b. 1 January 1957, Toronto, Canada; bass/vocals) and Tom Stephen (b. 2 February 1955, St. John, New Brunswick, Canada; drums) - was formed the same year and began playing across Canada. They released singles on their own Forte label - and produced accompanying videos - before signing to Arista Records in 1988. See the Light was released the same year and came wrapped in a sash bearing tributes from guitar giants such as Vaughan and B.B. King. The album sold nearly two million copies; a world tour followed later in the year.
The 1989 movie Road House, starring Patrick Swayze and Ben Gazzara, featured Healey in an acting/singing role as a blind blues guitarist. The following year’s studio album Hell To Pay tended more towards hard rock and featured Mark Knopfler, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne and Bobby Whitlock in addition to Healey’s regular band. It went on to sell over two million copies worldwide. Feel This (1992) was a strong and energetic blues rock album, and the back-to-his-roots Cover To Cover (1995) was a collection of favourite songs by some of Healey’s mentors. He wanted this record to be fun and to recall the times when he made little money from his music.
After a long gap Healey returned with the reassuringly blistering Get Me Some in 2000, featuring the outstanding ‘Love is The Answer’. His next three albums saw the guitarist pursuing his passion for traditional jazz, a musical genre Healey obviously felt was more suited to his talents than rock and blues (and allowed him the opportunity to play the trumpet and trombone). He toured with his own jazz group, the Jazz Wizards, and also regularly hosted a radio show on the CBC channel, playing selections from his vast collection of 78 rpm records. Healey did return to rock for a new studio collection, Mess Of Blues, but died shortly before the album was due to be released. The cancer that cost him his sight as a baby had finally spread to the rest of his body, and he passed away in his home town of Toronto in March 2008.
