Eight years after Jeff Healey died of cancer in 2008, his estate is releasing a new album to mark what would have been the musician’s 50th birthday.
“Heal My Soul” is a compilation of 12 “lost” tracks -- that Healey's friend admits were never really lost at all.
Roger Costa, the album’s executive producer, says he always knew the songs on this album existed; he had heard them all when Healey recorded them between 1996 and 1998.
A year or two after Healey died, Costa got the idea to dig out the recordings and release them to his fans. But it took him and a team of Healey’s colleagues years to gain access to the storage space where the master tracks were kept.
By then, the tape reels were degraded after collecting dust for years. But Costa found that Healey had kept copies of all of the tracks that made it onto the new album, which signalled to him that these songs obviously meant something special to Healey.
The final result is an album of digitally remastered tracks that Costa thinks may be some of the best rock performances Healey ever did.
“Jeff’s guitar and his voice – it sounds cliché – but they’re plugged right into his soul. His playing and his singing are more passionate and powerful than anything I’ve ever heard on record,” Costa told CTV’s Canada AM Monday.
Healey’s widow, Cristie, who married Healey in 2003, says she had never heard any of the songs until about 18 months ago. At first, she says, she couldn’t even listen to the tracks because the sound of Healey’s voice stirred too much emotion in her.
“It was difficult to listen to at first, because there was so much passion there. Something so new and sounding that intimate, it was tough at first,” she said.
But just as Cristie learned to listen to Healey’s songs on the radio without rushing to turn them off, she also learned to hear the news songs with fresh ears.
“When I got to the point where I could listen to it, it was a completely new experience for me,” she said.
Costa says all the tracks were recorded during a highly creative four-year period for Healey when he was on the road, writing, recording and collaborating with other musicians.
Healey recorded 36 songs during this time with his band and only 12 of them ended up on an album released in 2000 –- his last with the Jeff Healey Band before he moved into jazz and blues.
Cristie says the passion that is on this album is the passion she knows drove Healey throughout his life – both in his work and in his family.
“He was someone who had unbelievable determination and passion and drive in anything he did,” she said. “It obviously showed in his music but it showed in his family with our son Derek and his daughter Rachel. His whole life was his kids.”
