Canadian rocker Jeff Healy, who played his guitar flat on his lap, has passed away. Healy, 41, died in a Toronto hospital of a rare cancer – retino blastoma – that he had fought since birth and which claimed his eyesight at the age of one. “Visually, Jeff was an intriguing player to watch, because he played guitar – by any conventional standard – all wrong, with it flat across his lap,” his publicist Richard Flohil told broadcaster CTV. “But he was a remarkable, a virtuoso player.” Don’t forget folks, he was also blind. The Jeff Healy Band’s 1988 Grammy-nominated album See the Light, which included the hit “Angel Eyes”, sold more than 1 million copies in the United States. He worked with blues legends BB King and Stevie Ray Vaughn, and recorded with George Harrison, Mark Knopfler and Jimmy Rogers. Also unfortunate, at the time of his death, he was about to release his first rock-blues album in eight years – Mess of Blues.
Norman Jeff Healy March 25, 1966 – March 2, 2008
