Heal My Soul

Provogue

healeyThis month marks the eighth anniversary of Jeff Healey’s death from cancer but also sees his first new blues-rock studio album in more than 15 years — released on what would have been his 50th birthday (March 25).

Healey’s widow, Christie, and longtime friend Roger Costa have spent more than a year lovingly creating a “lost album” from the four-year span of sessions that yielded the guitarist’s final blues-rock studio record to be released in his lifetime, 2000’s “Get Me Some.”

Surprisingly, “Heal My Soul” is at least as good as “Get Me Some” — which came out just before the Jeff Healey Band called it quits and the artist began his foray into 1920s/30s jazz.

Between “Get Me Some” and his death, Healy released three albums of jazz standards (two studio, one live). Posthumously there was a half-live, half-studio blues-rock album comprising cover tunes; a live blues-rock album of more cover tunes; his final jazz/swing studio disc; and two multidisc live blues-rock albums collectively comprising six concerts.

So after a decade and a half, “Heal My Soul” — a set of originals and covers — is most welcome.

Good New Music reached co-estate administrator Costa by email to ask how much of the record was newly recorded and overdubbed:

“Mostly just drums (were added),” Costa said. “Many of the songs had unfinished drum tracks, placeholder recordings, and even electronic drums in a couple of cases. It was quite common for whoever was around at the time to lay down a quick drum track for the song to be built on – sometimes even Jeff!

“We recorded new drums for nine out of the 12 tracks with an exceptional musician and dear friend, Dean Glover.  Joe Rockman, Jeff’s old bass player and bassist on most of these songs, came down several times to hang out during this (process), and the mixing stage. Beyond that, the bulk of what little was added was for color — the odd bit of percussion, some electric piano and B3 on one track, etc.  All of Jeff’s performances are intact.”

Two of the remaining three songs feature original trio drummer Tom Stephen, and a third was stripped down to just Healey’s guitar, with the above-mentioned keyboards overdubbed.

The Albert Collins tune “Put the Shoe on the Other Foot” is the only number that can be found, albeit in a different version, on any other Healey album — it was part of the 2013 German-concert compilation, “As the Years Go Passing By.” This new studio version has Healey on vocals rather than 2000 tour guitarist Philip Sayce.

Of the 12 songs on “Heal My Soul,” four are originals, two are are under “copyright control” (composer unknown) and six are covers. But other than the Collins song and Richard Thompson’s “I Misunderstood,” the covers are euphorically obscure.

Case in point: “Baby Blue” by Tim Beattie, a New York songwriter turned Nashville songwriter whose résumé includes stints as lead singer and harmonica/lap steel player for the Four Horsemen and as a member of Chris Whitley & The Bastard Club. It’s a beautiful acoustic/electric ballad that eventually appeared on Beattie’s out-of-print “Tim Beattie and Big Dog.” Here Healy overdubs a half-dozen vocal tracks to astounding effect.

“Moodswing” and “Love in Her Eyes” are by The Phantoms, a popular blues-rock outfit from the mid-’80s to mid-’90s on the club scene in Toronto, Healey’s home town. The two songs are a little harder-edged than typical Healey fare but, overall, in keeping with the album’s progressive tone. They come from The Phantoms’ unreleased fourth and final album.

“Perhaps I’ll release that lost Phantoms album one day,” lead singer and harmonicat Jerome Godboo told GNM by email. “I have several unreleased CDs. I seem to delight in making them (but am) a little weak in the distribution department.”

Every song — original or cover — on “Heal My Soul” is a beaut. But the album’s centerpiece is the midtempo hard-rock ballad “Kiss the Ground You Walk On,” written in the early ’90s by power-pop meister Parthenon Huxley (P.Hux) and heavy metal guitarist Marc Ferrari (Keel, Cold Sweat, Medicine Wheel).

Good New Music tracked down the two via email for the never-released song’s backstory: “Marc and I were paired up when I was a staff writer at MCA Music Publishing,” Huxley revealed. “We were always very proud of that song. We felt it was a hit and deserved a good home.”

“(We were) just two guys getting together to see where things may go,” Ferrari offered. He added that “other artists demoed that song, including Curtis Stigers — who almost cut it for ‘The Bodyguard’ soundtrack — and the singer of Simply Red (Mick Hucknall).”gnm_end_bug

Tracks
1. Daze Of The Night
2. Moodswing
3. Baby Blue
4. I Misunderstood
5. Please
6. Love In Her Eyes
7. Temptation
8. Kiss The Ground You Walk On
9. All The Saints
10. Put The Shoe On The Other Foot
11. Under A Stone
12. It’s The Last Time

Total time: 51:58

External links
artist’s website
amazon.com
iTunes Store