Canadian rocker Jeff Healey, perhaps best known for his hit "Angel Eyes," has lost his life-long battle with cancer.
Via Wiki:
Healey was never particularly enamored with the world of rock music,
however, and soon left it for music he preferred, vintage jazz. Jeff had been
sitting in with traditional jazz bands around Toronto since the beginning of his
music career.
In his later years, he released three CDs from his true passion,
traditional American jazz from the 1920s and 1930s. He was an avid record collector and
amassed a collection of well over 25,000 78 rpm records. For many years
Healey ran his music-based club Healey's on Bathurst Street in Toronto,
where he played with a rock band on Thursday nights, and with his jazz group,
Jeff Healey's Jazz Wizards, on Saturday afternoons. Healey had moved his club to
a bigger location at 56 Blue Jays Way and named it Jeff Healey's
Roadhouse.
I remember seeing Jeff Healey in concert when I was in high school. He was the opening act for Bon Jovi, and put on a heck of a show. It was interesting because they completely shut off the arena lights when he came on and left the stage, so that the audience wouldn't see him being led to his guitar stand. I enjoyed his act almost as much as the Bon Jovi performance.
I never knew until now that the cause of Healey's blindness was cancer. Music lost a good one today, and he'll be missed.
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