Today, GuitarWorld.com presents the exclusive premiere of "Baby Blue," a new lyric video from Heal My Soul, the "lost" album by the late Jeff Healey.
Heal My Soul will be released March 25 by Provogue, just in time for the guitarist's would-be 50th birthday. He died in March 2008 at age 41.
The music on Heal My Soul captures Healey in full flight, displaying the virtuosity that made the Toronto native one of rock's most revered guitarists during his brief lifetime.
Under the direct supervision of the Jeff Healey Estate, the tracks on Heal My Soul were painstakingly restored and brought to life.
“This is a project we have wanted to tackle for years," said Jeff Healey Estate co-administrators Cristie Healey and Roger Costa in a joint statement. "It contains material recorded during one of the most creative periods in Jeff's rock career. Until now, it has never seen the light of day.
"Jeff was very proud of this work, and it features some of the most powerful and impassioned performances he ever committed to record. We've laboured hard, tracking down recordings, identifying the right performances, restoring them to their proper stature and mixing and mastering them from the ground up. This has been a true labor of love for us from beginning to end and we're thrilled to be able to finally share this release with the world.”
Key tracks include “Daze of the Night,” the soaring acoustic ballad “Baby Blue” and Healey’s soulful take on Richard Thompson’s “I Misunderstood.”
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Healey lost his sight during early childhood due to retinoblastoma, a rare form of eye cancer. Playing guitar since age 3, he developed the distinctive lap-style technique that helped bring him attention by his late teens. Over the course of his career, he shared stages and earned the admiration of countless musicians, including B.B. King, Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, George Harrison, Stevie Ray Vaughan, the Allman Brothers Band and Steve Lukather.
"Jeff and I met at the Pori jazz Festival in Finland around 2000," Lukather told Guitar World last month from Oslo, Norway. "I was there doing a duo tour with Edgar Winter, and it was like finding a long-lost brother. His warmth and humor and soul just lept out at me and we were instant friends. That doesn't happen very often. It wasn't even the 'guitar brother' thing. It was deeper, something I can’t explain, really.
"We had like three days to hang and we were all doing shows, and he came out and sat in with us. At the time we were both still enjoying a few cocktails, and we had some mega-laughs. I remember banging on his door just to fuck with him and he came out in his underwear and he said, 'Fuck you, Lukather. I can smell you'!" Damn, I miss him. His playing was like nothing I had ever seen anyone do nor will we again. A master musician with a deep soul.
"I just want for him to remembered as the great guy he was. He touched people with his music, and he was the least 'handicapped person' I've even known. I will miss him, but the experience of getting to be his friend and make some music together is one I won’t ever forget. I was honored to know him."
01. Daze of the Night 02. Moodswing 03. Baby Blue 04. I Misunderstood 05. Please 06. Love in Her Eyes 07. Temptation 08. Kiss the Ground You Walk On 09. All the Saints 10. Put the Shoe on the Other Foot 11. Under a Stone 12. It's the Last Time
Damian is Editor-in-Chief of Guitar World magazine. In past lives, he was GW’s managing editor and online managing editor. He's written liner notes for major-label releases, including Stevie Ray Vaughan's 'The Complete Epic Recordings Collection' (Sony Legacy) and has interviewed everyone from Yngwie Malmsteen to Kevin Bacon (with a few memorable Eric Clapton chats thrown into the mix). Damian, a former member of Brooklyn's The Gas House Gorillas, was the sole guitarist in Mister Neutron, a trio that toured the U.S. and released three albums. He now plays in two NYC-area bands.
