R.I.P. Jeff Healey

[angelophile]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7275162.stm

Blind Canadian rock musician Jeff Healey has died in a Toronto hospital aged 41 from a rare form of cancer, his publicist has said.

Healey, famed for playing his electric guitar flat on his lap, died of retino blastoma which originally claimed his sight when he was a one-year-old child.

His 1988 album See The Light was nominated for a Grammy award and sold one million copies in the US. Healey was considered a prodigy and earned numerous Juno and Grammy nominations in the course of his career.

His publicist Richard Flohil told broadcaster CTV: "Jeff was an intriguing player to watch, because he played guitar - by any conventional standard - all wrong, with it flat across his lap."

"But he was a remarkable, a virtuoso player," he added.

Healey played with blues legend BB King and Stevie Ray Vaughan and recorded with Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton and the late George Harrison.

Early last year, Healey underwent surgery to remove cancerous tissue from his legs, and later from both lungs; aggressive radiation treatments and chemotherapy failed to halt the spread of the disease.

Healey - who was adopted as an infant and didn't have any information about his birth parents - said in an interview with the Citizen in July 2005 that he didn't know if he inherited the illness or developed it due to external factors.

"I do not regret the situation I am in at all," he said.

While his daughter, Rachel, didn't inherit the form of retinoblastoma Healey had, his son wasn't so lucky. Amniotic fluid showed that the now three-year-old Derek carried the mutation.

It also wasn't until 2005 that Healey learned that he and his son were at risk for secondary cancers.
"I used to believe that once they had removed my eyes, that was the end of the story," Healey said. "I understand now that having this (mutation) in my blood, this won't be my last encounter with cancer.".

Damn, this is sad. "Hell to Pay" was one of my favourite albums for a good long while and his guitar works was stunning. His cover with George Harrison of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is perhaps the definitive version of the song for me, maybe even surpassing the original.

Great vocalist, great guitarist, great musician, big big loss at a young age in such a tragic way. And his poor family. Fate really can suck sometimes.