Remembering Jeff Healey
A great gathering at The Redwood
The Redwood Theatre was a love-in for Jeff Healey last night with a gathering of friends, fans and old bandmates of Jeff who came to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Eve Kinizo documentary called Healey’s Hideaway. They shared songs and stories to the delight of the packed house at this show put together by the Toronto Blues Society. Manny DeGrandis put it together, herded the cats (and played a little bass) and Dave Murphy was the musical director - what an amazing musician and he raised the temperature every time he took a solo, waving some magic wand over his keyboard.
It was a great night for guitar aficionados with stellar performances by Jeff’s childhood music buddy Rob Quail, Suzie Vinnick, Kyle Ferguson, Clayton Yates, Toney Springer (aka Wild T), Eric Schenkman of the Spin Doctors and, not to be outdone by anybody, Jeff’s long-time second guitarist Dan Noordermeer, who always blew me away anytime I saw him, with Jeff or otherwise. I picture legions of Jeff Healey fans leaving a show and saying it was great to see Jeff but “how about that other guitarist he had with him?” And in the film, the boys from the band, the Jeff Healey Blues Band, not the Jeff Healey Band, talked about how Jeff was always featuring the other players to the point that Alec Fraser had to tell him, “Jeff, you’ve got 50,000 people out there who came to see YOU”. The boys did not talk much about the acrimonious breakup of the first band but I could see some of them biting their lips to avoid saying what they really thought. Jeff’s other band, his not-so-secret pleasure, was the Jazz Wizards, where you would hear Jeff playing trumpet and singing Louis Armstrong songs.
The Redwood show opened with a couple of tunes by two former Wizards, Mike Daley and Reide Kaiser, and I mentioned the guitarists that played, but there were some fine singers on that stage too – Paul Reddick, Jaime Oliver, Virgil Scott and a solid rhythm section of Tom Bona and Stan Miczek. A couple of folks talked about the last song Jeff ever played, his favourite song in the world, Stardust. And after hearing Mike Daley’s rendition of it, as well as performances by Danny Marks and Jeff himself in the film, I think I’m going to learn that tune. This little video montage starts with the house band playing the tune that Jeff would start the show with, I’m Ready.
On a personal note, I never got to play with Jeff, though I heard him many times, and I only had one conversation with him when I approached him at the bar as he was ordering a drink. I asked him about an obscure jazz guy he had played on his radio show and he proceeded to rattle off a full biography and discography of the guy, who’s name I can’t even remember now. Then there was the year I took on the extra duties (and $$$) to be the “receptionist” at the Toronto jazz festival office, in addition to my duties as (barely)managing editor, and fielded many a call from Jeff to my boss, Pat Taylor. I played both of Jeff’s clubs but never had my name on the marquee – it was always special events or benefit concerts and, not sure if we knew it at the time, but I played the last jam at Healey’s Roadhouse, with Danny Marks hosting and Layla Zoe and Jimmy Bowskill sitting in.
For my beloved paid subscribers (my investors!), I’m happy to report that I’m back at work on the musical. The gig at Winterfolk (3 plays over a very stormy week-end) got me totally sidetracked so I’ve been away from the project and I had to practically re-learn some of the songs but that’s good because I was able to do a little fine tuning and even explored doing solos on a couple of them. And I even experimented with a voice processor so that when I provide my next run through, I can have a different voice for each character. Actually it’s still my voice with an added layer of a voice that’s higher (for Melissa) or lower (for Clive). Been doing a little character development as I go along. I’m thinking Melissa has to be more of a “firecracker” - not the demure East Coast gal I’ve imagined. Watch for a full video update later this month
Always appreciate hearing about the events in Toronto including actual clips of the music and the historical stuff and personal stories you can share. Good lyck with the musical!