Musician Jeff Healey dies of cancer

Jack Spearman and Jessey Bird, Canwest News Service

Guitar wizard Norman Jeff Healey of Toronto died Sunday of cancer. He was 41.

Healey was considered a prodigy and earned numerous Juno and Grammy nominations in the course of his career.

He lost both his eyes to retinoblastoma before he was eight-months-old, but never let that slow him down.

"What we've lost is a virtuoso musician," said Richard Flohil, Healey's publicist. "He followed his own passion, which oddly enough was not playing blues rock music, but playing classic rock jazz.

"He just cancelled a concert a few days ago in Nepean (Ont.) and we made this very kind of bland, not-to-worry statement," said Flohil. "At that point, we didn't want to say that Jeff was basically dying, although we all knew he was."

The Canadian blues and jazz great died in a Toronto hospital Sunday evening after a lifelong battle with cancer.

Flohil, who had been friends with Healey for about 20 years, said the news of his death will be very hard on his family, friends and fans. "He was lovely," said Flohil. "He was very generous, very warm-hearted, with a great sense of humour."

"He was just an awesome guitar player," said Danny Sivyer, owner of Ottawa blues bar The Rainbow Bistro. Sivyer said he brought Healey to The Rainbow Bistro for his first Ottawa gig when he was just 19-years-old. "He blew us away the first time we heard him." said Sivyer. "We were setting up, it was a busy night, and we looked over and there was this three-piece band with a blind 19-year-old musician."

"Then we sat down and listened and the whole room was stunned," said Sivyer. "Everybody loved him right away."

Healey was only three when he started to play guitar.

By the time he was a teenager, Healey had formed a four-piece band called the Blue Direction and was playing in clubs throughout the Toronto area. His best known work came when he formed the Jeff Healey Band several years later with bassist Joe Rockman and drummer Tom Stephen. His career took off when he appeared in the movie Road House, which starred Patrick Swayze.

In 1988, his Grammy-nominated album See the Light included the major hit single, Angel Eyes. In 1990, he earned the Juno for entertainer of the year.

Healey became an internationally-known star who played with musical greats that included B.B. King and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

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*Canada.com