Jeff Healey

A series of recordings from Jeff Healey, a companion to the superb ‘Heal My Soul’ album and finds Mr Healey in brilliant form, recording these tracks between 1996 and 1998 and before his cancer returned to rob us of his talents in March 2008.

When it was released last March I was enormously impressed by ‘Heal My Soul’ and these 5 studio tracks and 10 live numbers are of a similar quality.

His vocals are gruff, soulful and impassioned and his guitar playing is, as ever, sublime. His unique style of playing a regular Strat on his lap (because of his blindness) gave him the speed around the fretboard and the range that very few others could ever match.

Right from the off on ‘Love Takes Time’ you can hear his confidence with a screaming solo and all through the studio material he has a sense of timing and funk that sets him apart from the rest. ‘Dancing With The Monsters’ is the pick of them showing a fine sense of melody as well as rhythm.

The live material was recorded in Oslo in 1999 and he kicks off with a blistering ‘My Little Girl’ before ripping out a brilliant ‘Dust My Broom’. ‘How Blue Can You Get’ slows it all down and gets into a deep and intense groove with some stirring keys in the back. He does a fun version of Stealer’s Wheel’s ‘Stuck In The Middle With You’ which morphs into ‘Tequila’ before a beautiful ‘Macon Georgia Blue’.
A dark and powerful version of ‘Yer Blues’ leads to the title track for the album and the set closes with his ‘signature’ number ‘Saw The Light’ – all wah wah and seventies sytyle funk.

If you dig Jeff Healey and especially if you have ‘Heal My Soul’ then this is pretty well essential. Sadly missed.