To celebrate Jeff’s birthday
the limited edition prints are officially available for purchase!
March 25 marks the birthday of Norman Jeffrey “Jeff” Healey. renowned Canadian jazz and blues-rock vocalist and guitarist.
When he was almost one year old, Jeff lost his sight to retinoblastoma, a rare cancer of the eyes.
Jeff began playing guitar at three, developing his unique playing style of the guitar flat on his lap. In time, with the guitar on his lap, he could make unique bends and hammer-ons, making his licks different and more elastic than most of the competition. When he “cut lose” his instrumental skill was electrifying.
The band Blues Direction, was formed when he was 15 – by 17 they were performing regularly.
The Jeff Healey Band was formed 1985, with the trio releasing one single on its own Forte record label. That led to a contract with Arista Records and in 1988 released the debut album See the Light, featuring the hit single “Angel Eyes”. The song “Hideaway”, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. While recording See the Light, filming (and recording for the soundtrack) for Road House, the Patrick Swayze film. Jeff’s band played the house band for the bar featured in the film. and also had numerous acting scenes with Swayze.
The images are printed on 18X24 inch archival paper
Print Sales Support Daisy’s Eye Cancer Fund for Children
In 1990, the band won the Juno Award for Canadian Entertainer of the Year. The albums Hell to Pay and Feel This gave Healey 10 charting singles in Canada between 1990 and 1994. A cover of The Beatles’ While My Guitar Gently Weeps featured both George Harrison and Jeff Lynne on backing vocals and acoustic guitar.
An avid record collector, who from time to time, hosted a CBC Radio program entitled My Kind of Jazz, playing from his massive collection of well over 30,000 vintage 78 rpm records. He later hosted a program with a similar name on Toronto jazz station CJRT-FM.
By the release Get Me Some, in 2000, Jeff began to concentrate on a different musical direction and form, jazz. He taught himself to play the trumpet and began to lean toward traditional 1920s and ’30s jazz that had always held a fascination for him, releaseing three CDs. Though known primarily as a guitarist, Jeff also played trumpet during live performances.The jazz group, Jeff Healey and the Jazz Wizards both recorded and toured.
For years, Jeff toured throughout North America and Europe, and sat in with a long list of legendary performers that includes The Allman Brothers, Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy, BB King, ZZ Top, Steve Lukather, Eric Clapton and more!
On March 2, 2008, Jeff passed away from cancer at St. Joseph’s Health Centre in Toronto – he was only 41 years old. A month later Mess of Blues was released, his first rock/blues album in eight years.
A tribute concert held on May 3, 2008, to benefit Daisy’s Eye Cancer Fund, which, according to Cristie Healey, had helped make major strides in research and future advances for people born with the same genetically inherited retinoblastoma which led to Healey’s blindness at eleven months of age.
In 2009, Healey was inducted into the Terry Fox Hall of Fame.
In June 2011, Woodford Park in Toronto was renamed Jeff Healey Park in his honour.
In September 2014 Jeff received a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame.
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