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HEALEY, Jeff

(b 25 March 1966, Toronto; d there 2 March 2008 of lung cancer) Blues-rock guitarist and vocalist with impressive technique. Blind since age one, playing since age three, he played the guitar in his lap like a steel guitar; he appeared in film Road House '89. Led trio with Joe Rockman on bass, Tom Stephen on drums. Albums included See The Light '88, Hell To Pay '90, Feel This '92 and Cover To Cover '95 on Arista; the first two were top 30 in USA. He appeared in the film Roadhouse '89 and on the soundtrack album. His searing yet soulful approach was well-liked; the bar-band-trio format seemed to be a limitation, but had also played with the likes of B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughan, and recorded with George Harrison, Mark Knopfler and others.

His first love was traditional jazz of the 1920s and '30s; he taught himself to play trumpet, and had a radio show called My Kind Of Jazz. He released two albums on his own HealeyOphonic label, Among Friends in 2002 and Adventures In JazzLand in 2004, both later reissued on Canada's Stony Plain label. In 2006 he released It's Tight Like That on Stony Plain, by Jeff Healey & The Jazz Wizards, recorded live with England's Chris Barber guesting on trombone and vocals.

In early 2007 Healey was recovering from surgery to remove cancerous tissue from both lungs. He was no stranger to this, having gone under the knife four times for cancer, first in his eyes as a child, in his left leg twice in 2005-6, and now in his lungs. His doctors, however, reported a successful operation, and Healey was expected to be hosting his radio show on Monday nights at 91.1 Jazz FM in Toronto again in February 2007. He also planned on getting back on stage at his new club, Jeff Healey's Roadhouse, which relocated in mid-December 2006 to 56 Blue Jays Way in Toronto's entertainment district. He always surprised doctors with his speed of recovery; 'I'm stretching the definition of the word indestructible,' he quipped from his hospital bed three days after the op in early 2007, but his rotten birth luck finally caught up with him.

His first rock/blues album in eight years, Mess of Blues, was to be released in Europe in March and in Canada and the USA in April 2008. The album was the result of a joint agreement between the German label, Ruf Records, and Stony Plain, recorded in studios in Toronto, with two tracks recorded at his club in Toronto and two at a concert in London, England.