A blues man, jazz wizard and inspiration

“Steady and strong I still hold on, waiting for my chance to come.” - from the song Someday, Someway off the Jeff Healey Band 1988 debut album See the Light.

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade—and if life gives you the blues, make music. Jeff Healey, one of the finest and most distinctive guitar players this country has ever produced, died on Sunday after a lengthy struggle with cancer. He was 41.

Life was never easy for Healey, and he was handed a hard dose of lemons at an early age. Robbed of his sight as a baby due to a rare form of cancer, he started playing the guitar at age three. Due to his small size, he held the instrument across his lap, and forged a trademark playing style that continued throughout his musical career. What the young man lacked in eyesight (his eyes had to be surgically removed, and he was given artificial replacements) Healey more than made up for in musical skill. Rather than cry the blues and shut himself off from the world, he became a performer.

His band’s debut See the Light was an instant success and Grammy nominee. Audiences couldn’t get enough of the guitar virtuoso. Often quiet and reserved away from the stage, he liked to close his concerts by leaping out of his chair, jumping up and down, and searing the room with an energy and talent that few performers would attempt, let alone equal. He landed a supporting and memorable role in the movie Road House, and earned a Juno Award in 1990 as Entertainer of the Year. As the ‘90s progressed, so did Healey’s music, and he turned to his real love, classic jazz from the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s. He hosted a radio jazz program, and was known for playing rarities from his personal collection of more than 30,000 vintage 78-rpm records. In recent years, Jeff Healey’s Jazz Wizards saw the versatile musician regularly play acoustic guitar and trumpet on Saturday afternoons at his music-based club Healey’s, situated in Toronto. He eventually moved on to a larger location, and named it Jeff Healey's Roadhouse.

Early last year, Healey underwent surgery to remove cancerous tissue from his legs, and later from both lungs. Despite the disease, he continued to tour the country. Jeff Healey’s Jazz Wizards played The Old Roxy not so long ago, and he joked during the show that he had never seen a finer theatre.

I even had the good luck to sit in on drums, when a local band opened for Jeff Healey a couple years earlier, at a show in the community centre. It was a far cry from a sold out 70,000 seat arena, but Healey didn’t care. He played with his usual fire and flair, and was nothing but a professional and a gentleman. With a new blues rock album, Mess of Blues, set to hit the shelves this spring, it is clear that Healey’s work and music was by no means done. He lived for the music.

Ultimately, Jeff Healey lived life the way it should be lived, never losing his sense of humour or his musical playfulness. Whether he was playing the blues, blowing jazz on his trumpet, tending bar, or talking with his many fans, he was always steady and strong—and an true inspiration.