Jeff Healey's Jazz Wizards

"Man, he is really going to revolutionize the way the guitar can be played." When Stevie Ray Vaughan uttered those words after watching Jeff Healey perform, he wasn't being prophetic. He was simply stating a fact. Jeff Healey was born in Toronto on March 25, 1966 with a rare form of eye cancer called Retinoblastoma that left him blind at the age of one. He received his first guitar when he was three and learned to play it lap style because his hand was too small to grip the instrument's neck. Although unconventional, this lap top technique allows Healey to make unique string bends, thumb hammers, and stretches creating riffs that are very elastic and have a greater range than those of his contemporaries. When Jeff cuts loose on a solo, the effects are positively electrifying! By the age of six, he was singing and performing and by his teens he had played in several bands and explored numerous musical genres. His emerging recognition as a music prodigy gave him the opportunity to perform with such blues guitar legends as Albert Collins, Stevie Ray Vaughan and B. B. King. In 1986, Jeff teamed up with drummer Tom Stephen and bassist Joe Rockman to form the Jeff Healey Band. Befo... more...