Welcome to the latest instalment of Jeff Healey Rarities! This time, we’re taking a look (and a listen) to ‘Cynical Complications’ by Uncle Bevy (Rory Hochman · Randy Starr · Jeff Berg · Rudy Bromberg and featuring special guest, Jeff Healey!)
Let’s slide back 25 years, courtesy of front man Randy Starr, who pops in to share some great memories of this time..
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“When we were recording our first full-length album in 2001, Jeff Healey was already part of our musical DNA. Growing up in Toronto, you didn’t just know his music, you felt it. He was one of ours.
Around that time, Jeff had opened Healey’s at Bathurst and Queen. We were there one night in the summer, a benefit for a young kid named Jesse Farquharson, who was battling retinoblastoma, the same rare cancer that had taken Jeff’s sight years earlier. It was one of those nights where music felt like it actually mattered.
Jeff was in the room and heard us play our own songs. Nothing fancy, just us being us. Later, we managed to book Healey’s for our upcoming CD release party, and riding that momentum, we decided to take a long shot and ask if he’d play on the record. We sent a thank-you note and an invitation, not really expecting anything.
He said yes.
Jeff came into the studio and laid down his part in a single take. No dress rehearsal, no overthinking. He simply picked up my guitar, stepped on my wah pedal, and absolutely crushed it, literally. nearly breaking it in the process, but somehow turning it into this raw wah-distortion sound we never could have planned.
That was Jeff: generous, fearless, and completely in the moment. And for one song on our first record, we got to be part of that.”
Randy Starr
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This is yet another prime example of how Jeff had no compunctions about giving a helping hand to up and coming artists.
His tone, his note choices… Jeff is absolutely on fire and completely in his element. 100% in the moment, Jeff always thrived on improv and his playing on ‘Cynical Complications’ is a prime example.
Dig!
Rog #JH60
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Great story of course Jeff just nails it!
Great track – and awesome and generous contribution from Jeff! He never wavered in his support of young musicians. It would be cool to someday see a “tree”’of all of the musicians and bands he personally mentored, raised awareness and influenced (Philip Sayce and Jimmy Bowskill to name only two) but it would be a forest!