March 2, 2008
Canadian guitarist, singer, and all around great guy, Jeff Healey, died of cancer. Healey had lost his sight to retinoblastoma, a cancer of the eyes when he was only eight months old, resulting in his eyes being surgically removed. After living cancer free for 38 years, he developed sarcoma in his legs. Despite surgery, the sarcoma spread to his lungs, and ultimately, was the cause of his premature death.
Healey released over 12 albums of varying genres, presented a long running radio show, which today can still be heard weekly on JazzFM91 from Toronto, and worked with many artists including Stevie Ray Vaughan, Buddy Guy, BB King, ZZ Top, Steve Lukather, Eric Clapton and Ian Gillan, to name a few.
I met Jeff in Thunder Bay at the Blues Festival in 2002. Super nice dude. Chatted with him and had a smoke on the patio, then he went inside and sat in with the Down-child Blues Band. Amazing night.....
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