Vaughn and Healy

As I get older my relationship with music has started to come full circle in so many ways. It's always interesting to me to hear some music that I really liked in my youth and get a chance to rediscover it. It always surprises me how good my taste in music was very early on. And how complex some of it was. 

I had one of those moments this week when I stumbled on this video of Jeff Healey and Stevie Ray Vaughn playing "Look at Little Sister" on an old CBC show in the late 80's. According to one of the comments on the video, SRV was in Toronto for some shows, saw Healy at a bar and invited him to perform with him on TV. It's also apparently the only time these two miraculous legends played together.

I've loved Stevie Ray Vaughn for as long as I can remember. He's not someone friends introduced me to, in fact I wouldn't find another person who loved him as much as me until I was in my 20's (RIP to my friend Steve Deschambault). I first caught wind of him on a PBS broadcast of Austin City Limits where SRV and Double Trouble just absolutely melt the roof off of the venue they play at. It was only in researching this post that I learned how old some of that performance was - going back to 1983 - when I was only about 2!

Jeff Healy also captivated me in my youth. Because of my own vision issues and love of guitar, he was constantly brought to my attention because of his own vision impairment. And while his achievements are all the more notable for overcoming that challenge, I always found the way he played guitar across his lap like a pedal steel to be even more interesting. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think that vision impairment makes it any harder to play guitar in the standard position.

The things I've read say that he did this so he could have both hands on the fretboard which does make a bit of sense. But he also started playing very young - at age 3 - and it's said he developed his own style. Apparently, the lap-style posture lent him more strength in his playing. I think that his lap style was more about learning young than about learning blind. Either way, as a guitarist, it's more than impressive to see him play the kind of music he did in the style he did. 

The most melancholy part of that video is that it's the only time these legends play together. SRV would go on to help Healy's career and raise his profile, but this one song is the only time they're both on stage together. 

Stevie Ray Vaughn died in a helicopter crash in 1990 and Jeff Healy passed away in 2008. I missed an opportunity to go see Jeff Healy in the early 2000's. He was doing more jazz stuff than blues at the time and I chose to skip the show - and it's been a regret ever since. Just like Tom Petty a decade later, he would die shortly after he came around and I never got a second chance. 

I try to to bemoan missed live shows too much. I'll never see Pink Floyd or the Beatles play. And I've been lucky to see a reunited I Mother Earth when I thought that was impossible. Some people will see the band that would never reunite, Oasis, soon. But at the end of the day, we have recordings of performances like these that we can enjoy. I can go see Pink Floyd play their most spectacular show in the Imax in the next few months and maybe that's what I need to be grateful for.