Guitarist JEFF HEALEY Passes Away
March 2, 2008, 16 years ago
CTV has issued the following report:
Canadian Blues Guitarist JEFF HEALEY Dies At 41
Legendary blues and jazz guitarist Jeff Healey has died, his publicist said Sunday. The Canadian rock musician had battled cancer his entire life.
"It was something he fought with considerable bravery," his publicist, Richard Flohil, told CTV Newsnet.
Healey, 41, had also lost his eyesight to a rare form of the disease, Retinoblastoma, when he was only one year old.
The musician had performed with such acclaimed guitar players as B. B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Albert Collins and George Harrison.
His full name was Norman Jeffrey Healey and he passed away Sunday in the city of his birth, Toronto, at St. Joseph's Hospital.
Healey first began playing guitar at the age of three and formed his first band while still a teenager, according to his website. He played with a very distinctive style, with laying his guitar flat across his lap.
One of his best-known songs, 'Angel Eyes', came from the Grammy-nominated album See The Light.
His blues band, simply called the Jeff Healey Band, has sold more than 1 million albums in the United States. But along with rock and blues music, Healey was also an accomplished jazz musician.
In his final years he had hosted a jazz program on Jazz-FM in Toronto, playing rare tracks from his vast collection of more than 30,000 78-rpm records.
Healey leaves behind his wife, Cristie, 13-year-old daughter Rachel and three-year-old son Derek.
