Jeff Healey stood apart from most blues-rock guitarists because of a technique that also caused some fans to regard him as little more than a curiosity: the sightless musician rested his Fender Stratocaster across his lap rather than playing it in the conventional upright position. That unorthodox placement allowed him to produce unusually fluid bends and hammer-ons, giving his lines a distinctive elasticity that few rivals could match. At the same time, his song choices tended to stay within familiar AOR blues-rock territory, limiting opportunities for extended improvisation, although the moments when he did break free revealed instrumental command that could startle listeners.
Eye cancer cost Healey his vision at the age of one. He took up the guitar at three and, by seventeen, was performing with the group Blues Direction. In 1985 he assembled the Jeff Healey Band, whose lineup included bassist Joe Rockman and drummer Tom Stephen. The trio’s independent single on the Forte label secured a contract with Arista. Their first album, See the Light, arrived in 1988 and quickly built a loyal following within blues-rock circles. Powered by the hit single “Angel Eyes,” the record achieved platinum status in the United States; later releases by the band remained popular without matching the debut’s commercial peak.
With the arrival of the new century, Healey shifted course. He mastered the trumpet and moved toward the traditional jazz of the 1920s and ’30s that had long held his interest. On his own HealeyOphonic imprint he issued the classic-jazz albums Among Friends in 2002 and Adventures in Jazzland in 2004; a third such project, It’s Tight Like That, appeared on Stony Plain in 2006. Although he continued to present blues-rock material in concert, he increasingly performed with his jazz ensemble, the Jazz Wizards.
Healey succumbed to cancer in 2008, one month before the release of his final studio blues album, Mess of Blues. Ruf Records issued Songs from the Road, a set of live blues-rock recordings from 2006 and 2007, in 2009. His last studio jazz album, Last Call, followed on Stony Plain in April 2010. Additional archival material continued to surface, among them Heal My Soul, a collection of previously unreleased studio tracks that emerged on what would have been Healey’s fiftieth birthday, March 25, 2016.
