I remember in 1984 bringing home a vinyl copy of the Rising Force album by Yngwie, I was 15 yrs old and I swear I had a listening to Van Halen 1 in 1978 experience. The sheer accuracy and precision just blew me away and I wanted to be Yngwie. I saved and saved and eventually bought a red usa strat with maple neck to play thru my peavey bandit 65 in the bedroom and drove my mum and dad insane with reverb soaked high gain and endless speed picking and sweeping arpeggios.
This was all fine and dandy for years until I had the experience in 1988 which shook my guitar world. Cant remember where I was or what I was doing but I heard the track "see the light" by Jeff Healey and I was shellshocked to the boots.
Had to find out more and then imagine my shock when finding out he is blind and plays the guitar horizontally on his lap whilst seated. Got the see the light album on vinyl and stuck it on dads turntable and sat down to listen. Where Yngwie ran up and down the same E harmonic scale on nearly every song and just didnt let up for a whole album at a time, Healey could literally stop traffic with a single note, that vibrato, that tone and that intensity and Yngwie grew old immediately.
I can appreciate Yngwie for what he did back in 84 but nowadays I find his music apocalyptically boring. May Jeff Healey rest in peace, my guitar hero forever and the man who killed my interest in Yngwie and the whole shred thing stone dead. When did you not want to be Yngwie, or do you want to play just like him ?
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I love Jeff Healey though, one of my favorite musicians.
I saw Jeff Healey play a small club in Manchester, somewhere around 1990. He was stunningly good....
Wow.
I was always and still am a big fan of Jeff Healey.
That's got to be an amazing memory.
Lyrics on his records were awful.
Perpetual remains my favourite piece of his.
Yes, it's impressive, yes, it's skilful. yes, it's boring, yes, it's self indulgent.
In the words of the well known music critic @RandallFlagg it's 'drivel'.
Then when I saw his hair it reaffirmed my decision!
Only joking. Until I started playing the guitar in the late 90’s and bought a magazine I’d never even heard of him...
Not my type of music I’m afraid.
First heard his name through word of mouth from other guitarists. They spoke more of his self-aggrandising attitude than of anything he played.
No and yes. I think of YJM as a Ritchie Blackmore devotee who took it too far. Blackmore came up with actual riffs that people can hum.
i since listened to some of YJM's stuff and liked it more than Vai but less than Satch. I long ago gave up on trying to become a shredder myself though. Recently I started to get into hybrid picking with a pick (hitherto I'd always dispensed with picks for acoustic fingerstyle) to explore more electric country sounds. It's great fun but really hard. I honestly think that trying to play Susie Q properly is one of the hardest things I've tried to learn on the guitar. Much tougher than dozen note legato runs or tapping!
it was the Grand National weekend in Liverpool in the very early 90's and me and 4 mates had a great long weekend on the sauce culminating in Jeff Healey playing in town.
he was epic all night. Some girl down the front was shouting for 'Angel eyes' off the first album. She was bloody relentless and would not shut up. He patiently ignored her calls in between every song until she came out with this:
'Jeff, Jeff, play Angel Eyes for me and then make love to me'
sharp as a tack he responded:
'I would love to but the wife's backstage and I don't think she would like it.'
Classic
ps. Never wanted to be Yngwie either. Jeff Healey is far funnier!
The moment I first heard him.
Sorry not my bag.