Artists honour Jeff Healey

Jeff Healey got the all-star tribute treatment from rock, blues and jazz musicians on Saturday night during the first of two weekend concerts honouring the blind Toronto guitarist. Healey lost his battle with cancer earlier this year at the age of 41.

Such classic rockers as former Cream vocalist and bass player Jack Bruce, Deep Purple's Ian Gillan, and Randy Bachman of The Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive performed solo sets before a packed, sold-out crowd of 2,500 who squeezed into The Sound Academy club on the Toronto waterfront.

But it was a rousing finale of two Healey hits, See the Light, and his cover of The Beatles' While My Guitar Gently Weeps -- which actually featured George Harrison when Healey re-recorded it -- that put a perfect cap on the evening.

See the Light saw Bachman, Gillan and Bruce return to the stage, along with previous performers Colin James and David Wilcox, but While My Guitar Gently Weeps featured just the Jeff Healey Blues Band -- the evening's outstanding backing group -- and a poignant slide show of Healey performing.

Before that Bachman had the liveliest set of the night with the three BTO songs Let It Ride, You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet and Takin' Care of Business, and The Guess Who classic American Woman, although Bruce came in a close second with such Cream gems as Sunshine of Your Love and White Room, and the Jimi Hendrix classic Manic Depression among his five-song set.

"We're here to celebrate Jeff Healey, not to be sad but to be happy -- f---in' happy!," said Bruce, who survived a recent bout of liver cancer and subsequent transplant in 2003. "Here's a guy who put his arms around me when I was at my lowest point." 

Gillan's five-song set included such Deep Purple hits as Highway Star, Lazy and Smoke on the Water.

CBC radio was taping the entire event while classic rock station Q-107 was doing live cut-ins from the performances on Saturday night.

The late musician's widow, Cristie Healey, took the stage about midway through the show to say how much her husband would have appreciated the tribute.

"I'm sure he's very proud of what's gone on so far," she told the crowd. "This is an incredible night and an incredible way to pay tribute to my husband and the courage that he had."

Other performers included Blue Rodeo, Alan Frew of Glass Tiger, Alannah Myles, Greg Godovitz, and Jeff Healey's Jazz Wizards.

Blues guitarist-singer-songwriter Jimmy Bowskill, who was just 11 years old playing outside Healey's Roadhouse when Healey brought him inside to play on stage, seemed thrilled to be among Saturday night's entertainers.

"It's great to be here tonight celebrating the life of an amazing man," said Bowskill, a native of Peterborough, and still only 17 years old.

Healey, who learned to play his guitar at the age of 3 by lying it in his lap, rose to stardom as the leader of the Jeff Healey Band, a rock-oriented trio that broke through to international acclaim with the 1988 album See the Light.

As a child, he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, retinoblastoma, which resulted in his loss of sight.

A second jazzier all-ages tribute was planned for last night at Healey's Roadhouse in downtown Toronto.

Proceeds from both weekend's concerts will go to Daisy's Eye Cancer Fund.

"It's an enormous research foundation which has already helped our son who also has the genetic mutation that Jeff had," said Cristie, speaking of their 3-year-old, Derek. "He did not have to go through what his father went through because of the enormous research. It's incredible what they've done, even in the last 10 years. And someday I want my son to wake up and know that he does not have to face what his father did."

http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/2008/05/04/5464366-sun.html