Healey, 41, lost his long battle with cancer at St. Joseph’s Heath Centre in his home city, Toronto, mere weeks before the release of his tenth album, Mess of Blues. He was a gifted jazz and blues-rock musician whose ten albums over a 20-year career that began with 1988’s platinum-selling See the Light displayed phenomenal talent and versatility.
Born Norman Jeffrey Healey on March 25, 1966, in Toronto, he was blinded by a rare form of cancer while still an infant. Given a guitar at age three, he was shown how to play it the usual way but found it more comfortable to lay the instrument flat across his lap. He preferred this playing technique as he grew up and honed his formidable guitar skills.
Healey formed his first band at age 17 and later rose to fame in the late 1980s with his trio, the Jeff Healey Band, after being “discovered” in a Toronto nightclub by blues-rock guitar legend Stevie Ray Vaughan in 1982. Guitar Player magazine named Healey best new talent and best blues guitarist in 1990.
Healey, who is survived by his wife and two children, cultivated an ardent love for traditional jazz and in later years hosted a Canadian radio show on which he played selections from his collection of more than 30,000 vinyl records.