Hello my Beautiful People.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a proper catch-up and we’ve got an awful lot of ground to cover so let’s get right to it shall we?

On the heels of its North American release, the overwhelmingly positive reviews for ‘As The Years Go Passing By‘ continue to roll in.

First off, we wanted to share with you this *great* review from ‘Firebrand Magazine‘ (please see pg. 24) Nice stuff.

…and another cool review that was posted on the Sonic Abuse site HERE.

We’ve added a bunch of terrific pics over the last little bit to our Photo Gallery section.

To our ‘Early Days‘ gallery we added a 1985 shot of a 19 year-old Jeff jamming with Jake Thomas of ‘Jake and The Fundamentals’…

In the ‘ Jeff Healey Band Days ‘ gallery we posted a live shot from 1989 that originally appeared in ‘ Guitarist Magazine ‘ (France); a shot of Jeff performing at the Music Express Awards in Toronto, Feb 1989 (© Biserka Livaja); An awesome rare pic of Jeff jamming with Harpist Joanna Jordan at Toronto’s legendary blues dive, Grossman’s Tavern in 1991 (© Gayle Hermuses); and a pic of Jeff and Joe Rockman live from ‘Guitar World’ magazine – April 1993 (© Chuck Pulin 1993)… Go check ’em out!

And with the April 19th anniversary of the passing of music legend Levon Helm, and we also shared this cool pic of Jeff & Levon from the late 90’s (© Walter Manzig).

The ‘With The Jazz Wizards‘ gallery has had a couple of fresh pics added; a great shot from the release party for ‘Adventures in Jazzland’ at Healey’s – June 2nd 2004 (© Mitch Ostapchuk); and this awesome pic of Jeff and Christopher Plock (Jazz Wizards) rockin’ some serious dental hygiene! (This is what the road does to you kids. Beware!)

…and to the ‘Sessions and In-Between‘ gallery, we added a shot Jeff and Pat Rush at the original Healey’s in May of 2003 with special guest, the fantastic David Gogo (© Nick Harding).

Some brilliant live clips were added to our ‘Video Gallery‘ section…

A couple of wonderful fan shot videos from Switzerland 2005 were added to our ‘Performances: 2000s‘ section; ‘The Thrill Is Gone’ and ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’.

…and in the ‘Performances: 1990s‘ video galley we added two fantastic performances; ‘Heart Of An Angel’ and ‘Angel Eyes’ from a 1992 MuchMusic session with the expanded JHB line-up, including Washington Savage, Mischke Butler, Toucu and the mighty Molly Johnson! So good…

The lovely Cristie Healey was interviewed recently for Rich Davenport‘s UK radio show. They talked about Jeff, the ‘As The Years Go Passing By‘ release and much more… You can listen to it HERE. (Cristie pops in at 37:29 on the show…)

We’ve had a fab and varied group of blog postings over the past while…

We celebrated Jeff’s Birthday and marked the 5th anniversary of his passing back in March HERE.

The latest entry in our ongoing ‘Essential Jeff Healey‘ series went up. This time we featured Jeff’s cover of the George Harrison Beatle song, ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps‘.

And we were pleased to announce the North American release of ‘As The Years Go Passing By: Live in Germany 1989-1995-2000’…

We also had the great privilege of being able to feature a couple of wonderful new Guest Blogs;

The first being a reminiscence from Jeff’s old friend, Steve Ashton… A great story that goes from Halifax to Toronto and back again. (read it HERE)

The second, an awesome recollection of a crazy cool jam session in Amsterdam in the 90’s from our good buddy, Jonah Ward. (find it over HERE.) Definitely worth the read…

(we also shared another great pic from the session – © Phillip Smith 1998)

Aside from those, we also posted a cool little piece on Jeff’s first professional video, ‘Adrianna‘, a silly ‘no-budget’ affair that paved the way for successes to come…

And we shared a great video and story about one of Jeff’s old Queen St. West, Toronto haunts, ‘Chicago’s‘…

Over the past couple of months we were saddened by the loss of several folks who were important to the Healey musical family and the greater music world as well…

On March 30th, legendary producer Phil Ramone passed away at the age of 72. The list of musicians he worked with in his incredibly storied career is truly mind blowing. He even produced an unreleased session with Jeff for a Les Paul tribute in the mid 90’s…

The musical landscape of the 2nd half of the 20th century is inarguably richer for his contributions. (to find out more about Phil Ramone, please check HERE.)

May 5th saw the passing of Toronto journalist and true gentleman, Greg Quill. Greg was a major champion of the Jeff Healey Band back in the pre-record-deal days and he was instrumental in getting the band noticed in a big way… Rest In Peace Greg, you will be missed…

A Message from Greg’s Family: As many of you know, Greg passed away suddenly but peacefully this afternoon from complications due to pneumonia and a recently diagnosed case of sleep apnea. We appreciate all the messages of sympathy and support. We loved Greg very, very much and it is clear that many of you did too. Thank you for keeping Greg in your thoughts.

…and on May 20th, we received more sad news… Doors co-founder, keyboard player and songwriter, Ray Manzarek passed away at the age of 74. Ray’s path had crossed several times with Jeff’s and Joe Rockman’s over the years and he was always very gracious and encouraging.

In the early days of the JHB, Joe Rockman brought the idea of covering the Doors song ‘Roadhouse Blues‘ to the band. Initially, it was because he could sing and play it at the same time… but Joe soon came to feel that Jeff’s voice would be better suited and the song went on to become a fan favourite and a featured track on the ‘Road House’ soundtrack. Joe’s signature bass intro helped to cement the track as their own.

And finally, back in April, our dear friend and one time Jeff Healey Band member, Philip Sayce posted this stunning, soulful new live vid. Dig!

Can you dig it? I knew that you could…

That’s it for now folks. Thank you all for your continued support! See you all back here real soon!

~Rog