Guitar wizard Norman 'Jeff Healey', age 41, died Sunday of cancer, with his wife Christy by his bedside at Toronto's St. Joseph's Hospital.
His publicist, Richard Flohil, said that "He followed his own passion, which oddly enough was not playing blues rock music, but playing classic rock jazz.
He just cancelled a concert a few days ago in Nepean (Ont.) and we made this very kind of bland, not-to-worry statement," said Flohil. "At that point, we didn't want to say that Jeff was basically dying, although we all knew he was."
He was broght into the American music scene in a big way when he appeared in the Patrick Swayze fim, Roadhouse. In 1988, his million-selling, Grammy-nominated album See the Light included the major hit single, Angel Eyes. In 1990, he earned the Juno for entertainer of the year. He was a big fan of Jazz music, recently had a show on Toronto jazz station CJRT-FM.
The blind performer lost both his eyes to retinoblastoma before he was eight-months-old.
Mess of Blues, Healey's first rock/blues album in eight years, is being released in Canada and the U.S. on April 22.
