Jeff Healy - a fantastic musician

Celebrated guitarist Jeff Healey dies of cancer
COLIN FREEZE

March 3, 2008

TORONTO -- One of Canada's most famous guitar players has died.

Jeff Healey, a 41-year-old musician who sold more than a million records in the United States, died yesterday from cancer, a rare form of which took his eyesight as a child. The Torontonian's most famous hits included Angel Eyes, See the Light and a cover of While My Guitar Gently Weeps by the Beatles .

"Early last year, Healey underwent surgery to remove cancerous tissue from his legs, and later from both lungs," said a statement posted on the musician's website yesterday. It continued: "aggressive radiation treatments and chemotherapy, however, failed to halt the spread of the disease."

The site noted that a rare form of the disease, retinoblastoma, took Mr. Healey's eyesight when he was a baby.

"He was a virtuoso guitar player, and they don't come along every five minutes," said Richard Flohil, a long-time friend of Mr. Healey's and, in recent years, his publicist. "He had an enormous range of musical genres he could play with great skill."

He said that children with retinoblastoma stand a 50-50 chance of developing other cancers later in life and that, because of this, Mr. Healey would quip, "I'm in the wrong 50 per cent."

At the apex of his popularity, Mr. Healey - who learned to play the guitar as a toddler and grew up to play with the instrument resting on his lap - was a fixture on rock radio. He was nominated for a Grammy and earned a Juno Award in 1990 as entertainer of the year. That year, he also played a musician in the movie Road House starring Patrick Swayze.

Over the years, the guitarist was increasingly involved in jazz. As the host of CBC Radio's My Kind of Jazz, his programs often showcased his collection of thousands of 78-rpm records, many from the early 20th century. He also ran a couple of Toronto nightclubs that carried his name.

This spring, Mr. Healey had hoped to tour in support of a rock/blues album, Mess of Blues, which is being released in Europe this month and next month in North America.

The guitarist, who leaves his wife and two children, last blogged about his condition in January. "I will be off to a clinic in Henderson, Nevada, for the first two weeks of February as part of an eight-week program I'm going to take," he wrote. "This involves my alternative therapy, but my wife and I seem to feel that it offers up some very potentially positive results."

He expressed optimism, talking of impending tour dates.

"At time of writing, my energy is up, my spirit is strong and I'm ready for anything ... We're all quite excited about the upcoming CD."