Barikada
- World Of Music - Svastara - 2008 |
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NORMAN JEFFREY "JEFF" HEALEY
March 25, 1966 - March 2, 2008
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Norman Jeffrey "Jeff" Healey
March 25, 1966 - March 2, 2008 |
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Arguably one of the most recognized blues-rock guitarists
of the early 90s and beloved around the world, Norman Jeffrey "Jeff" Healey
passed away in a Toronto
hospital today (March 2, 2008) after a long bout with cancer. He was 41.
Healey
came
into the limelight in the early 90s with his Grammy-nominated album for Arista
Records, "See the Light" that blended blues with a rock sensibility,
topping the charts with the single "Angel Eyes."
Blinded at birth
with
a rare form of cancer, retino blastoma, Healey became well known after
his appearance as part of a bar band and an integral part of the movie
soundtrack in "Roadhouse" with Patrick Swayze. The movie along with the
single would propel Jeff Healey and his power trio, the Jeff Healey Band
into Canada's highest music honor the Juno Award for Entertainer of the
Year.
Healey would go on to release two more albums for Arista that
never reached the same success as "See the Light". As the 90's passed, Healey
picked up his love for early jazz from the twenties through the forties
culminating in the Jeff Healey Jazz Wizards' release on Stony Plain last
year in which Healey played guitar, drums, and trumpet and had British
jazz virtuoso guest star on called "It's Tight Like That".
Healey, a family man with a wife and two children who survive, preferred
to stay home in Canada in his last years. However, he remained active in
the music scene, having a jazz-oriented radio show for Canada's CBC.
At the time of his death he was about to see the release of his first
rock / blues album in eight years, "Mess of Blues", which is being released
in Europe on March 20, and in Canada and the U.S. on April 22. The album was
the result of a joint agreement between the German label, Ruf Records, and
Stony Plain, the independent Edmonton-based label that has released his three jazz CDs.
Early last year, Healey underwent surgery
to remove cancerous tissue from his legs, and later from both lungs;
aggressive radiation treatments and chemotherapy, however, failed to halt
the spread of the disease. Despite his battle with cancer, he undertook frequent
tours across Canada with both his blues-based band
and his jazz group; he was set for a major tour in Germany and the U.K.
and was to be a guest on the BBC's famed Jools Holland Show in April.
Remembered by his musicians - and his audiences - for his wry sense of
humour as well as his musical playfulness, Healey was a unique musician who
bridged different genres with ease and assurance.
For further information, please contact:
Canada: Richard Flohil,
416 351-1323 / 416 997-4788 - rflohil@sympatico.ca .
Holger Petersen,
Stony Plain Records,
780 468-6423 - holger@stonyplainrecords.com .
Europe:
Thomas Ruf,
Ruf Records,
011 49 (0)36087 / 92200 - ruf@rufrecords.de .
United States:
Mark Pucci, MP Media,
770-804-9555 - mpmedia@bellsouth.net .
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