It isn’t often I take the time to mention the passing of individuals on this website. My mother, of course… Stanley Kubrick, because I loved so many of his films… Pope John Paul II… Christopher Reeve, because he was, in so many ways, Superman…
I spent most of the morning heads down on some work, barely noticing the world at all, but a few moments ago I broke away and opened a browser to CNN to get a peek at what was going on with the rest of the planet. Amid the usual political posturing and Middle East happenings, I find out that Jeff Healey died.
In 1988 I didn’t have a CD player yet, only this tape playing monstrous boom box. That Christmas, one of my gifts was The Jeff Healey Band’s See The Light. I must have played it a thousand times. And while my first car didn’t have a tape deck, my second car in 1992 did, See The Light became one of the treasured few that would be played until it broke. By then I had a CD player for home and I rushed out and bought it, and I’ve had it ever since.
I wouldn’t say that JHB was one of my favorite bands, I only own one other album by them, but they were a band I would never turn away from if the song came on the radio. But See The Light has always held a special place for me, and it always manages to find its way into my play lists and my CD rotations.  If I feel like bringing down a night of karaoke or serenading my wife or dancing one last slow song before hitting the road, Angel Eyes from that album is the song I most often choose. Jeff’s music has been and will forever be a part of the soundtrack that plays in my head as my life unfolds around me.
Thank you, Jeff. You will be missed.