He lost his sight to eye cancer when he was a year old and was given his first guitar two years later. At a school for the blind, he was shown how to play the guitar the usual way but found it felt more comfortable on his lap. Among the first to recognise his talent was Albert Collins, one of blues music’s elder statesmen, who became his first champion and invited him to share the stage at a show in Toronto. Before he was out of his teens he had also played with Stevie Ray Vaughan and B. B. King. Jeff was also a highly talented trumpet player and a hot jazz afficianado releasing a series of jazz albums and amassing a collection of over 30,000 78rpm records.

Healey’s literally hands-on approach to the guitar gave him an unsurpassable level of attack & sustain rivalling that of Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan which he combined with an absolutely devastating high octane thumb fretting technique and soaring string bends. I saw Jeff in the early 90`s in London and the performance was absolutely mesmerising, highly physical and intensely emotional.

If you’re struggling to find inspiration and the practice routine or lessons are getting you down perhaps try doing it with your eyes shut – sitting down is optional, unless you`re on the toilet, or in the car…

I’ve added the George Harrison masterpiece “While my guitar gently weeps” below because it affords some close up shots of Jeff’s hands in action. Sadly the cancer that robbed Jeff of his sight caught up with him in March 2008 and ended his life.

Cheers,

Jake Edwards

After finding an online video teaching the two-fret (whole tone) string bend as a fundamental blues lick, there has been a certain degree of disagreement around the office as to whether this simple bend can constitute a blues fundamental.

Does the simple two fret, tone long string bend qualify as a lick? Well I think it does and Dave thinks that it can`t.
So, we`ve grabbed an acoustic and tested the hypothesis.

How can something as simple as this elicit so much passionate debate?

Well, it`s all about emotion, passion and technique. A simple string bend is, although fundamental to guitar playing, nothing, without emotion. This emotion comes from experience. Some people claim to move the molecules rather than the strings and at the end of the day the TRUTH about guitar playing is that it`s in your hands… in every sense.

For me the ultimate blues lick would probably have to consist of only one note and some might say that maybe no-one has played it yet. On Texas Cannonball Freddie King’s “Pack It Up”, and “Shake Your Booty Baby” King takes this simple single bend technique and pushes it to its emotional maximum. The Album Freddie King 1934-1976 proves just exactly what a master guitarist can do with timing & expression and exactly why  Eric Clapton has always considered Freddie the true master of Blues Guitar.  Both Eric and Freddie get together on this album on “Further on up the Road” and this track is worth the price of the album alone.

The instrumental “Hideaway”, Clapton`s tour de force with Mayalls Bluesbreakers  Beano Album is actually Freddie King`s track and you can hear more of the three King`s and Buddy Guy’s, wonderful influence on Clapton`s phenomenal Just One Night Album.

The ultimate blues lick consists of just one note, your hands and ensuring you`re on fire every time you play.

So Drink petrol.

Cheers,

Jake Edwards