Jeff Healey – Angel Eyes

I wrote this a while back, but Deke sent me another song that was incredible on guitar. So I canceled this one for that weekend and came back to this today. This was my introduction to Jeff Healey, as it was to many people. 

When I think of this song, I think of a dark, smoky bar because we were playing as a house band, and this was on the jukebox. We would listen to it between sets. The way Canadian Jeff Healy played guitar was very interesting. Healy was of course, blind, and he was given a guitar, and no one taught him how to play it. Jeff Healey was a Canadian who started to play guitar when he was 3. He could bend the notes to a limit that normal guitar players normally don’t. His solos were just as interesting as the songs themselves.

In 1989, Jeff Healey came out with this song that peaked at #5 in the Billboard 100, #86 in the UK, and #16 in Canada. The song was written by John Hiatt and Fred Koller. It helped bring Healey into the mainstream and broadened his audience.

He formed The Jeff Healey Band in 1985 with Joe Rockman and Tom Stephen. The band gained recognition in Toronto’s blues scene before being discovered by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert Collins. They were signed to Arista Records, and they released their 1988 debut album, See the Light. This song came from that album. He would release 5 albums with The Jeff Healey Band and also played with the Jazz Wizards. 

Healey was adopted and raised in Toronto, where he developed a passion for music. He was blind from early childhood due to retinoblastoma and had a great career until his passing in 2008.

Angel Eyes

Girl, you’re looking fine tonight
And every guy has got you in his sight
What you’re doing with a clown like me
Is surely one of life’s little mysteries

So tonight I’ll ask the stars above
“How did I ever win your love?”
What did I do?
What did I say
To turn your angel eyes my way?

Well, I’m the guy who never learned to dance
Never even got one second glance
Across a crowded room was close enough
I could look but I could never touch

So tonight I’ll ask, the stars above
“How did I ever win your love?”
What did I do?
What did I say
To turn your angel eyes my way?

Don’t anyone wake me
If it’s just a dream
‘Cause she’s the best thing
Ever happened to me

All you fellows
You can look all you like
But this girl you see
She’s leavin’ here with me tonight

There’s just one more thing that I need to know
If this is love why does it scare me so?
It must be somethin’ only you can see
‘Cause girl I feel it when you look at me

So tonight I’ll ask the stars above
“How did I ever win your love?”
What did I do?
What did I say,
To turn your angel eyes my way? 
Hey, hey, hey, yeah, awww

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

34 thoughts on “Jeff Healey – Angel Eyes”

  1. Great song choice today. Healey was much better known in Canada but he certainly developed a following around the world. He was a real student of early Blues and Jazz. He had radio program where he played from his own collection.

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    1. This one I’ll never forget….it was my introduction to him no doubt. I didn’t realize how great he was until I saw him do that other song…blew me away.

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      2. Yes! It’s just a shame that this one is the only one we really knew in America….he had so much more. Mobster Tiger saw him…I love his description in the comments…I so wish I could have seen him!

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      1. Max my brother you would have been in awe as I was…classy night, full moon stage with round tables and white table cloths and this cat comes out playing behind his back, with his teeth, and slinging his guitar while his bass player is trying to lead him on stage! Dude was all over the place laying down the blues.

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      2. When I saw that late night perforrmance of him just tearing up a guitar…I was in awe. This is the only thing I knew him by for years…while it’s great…I didn’t know a quarter of what he could do. I can’t imagine that man! Awesome dude.

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  3. Pingback: Jeff Healey – Angel Eyes – MobsterTiger

  5. A couple of years after to relocating to Vancouver B.C. from Montreal in 1983, I was at this grungy bar/restaurant downtown that had live entertainment on the weekends. It was a Friday night and the place was packed and loud, very loud. At around 9PM the band started to make it’s way onto the stage and I noticed that the setup had this lone chair center stage with a microphone beside it, which I thought was odd. Then I noticed someone leading this guy to the chair and placing a guitar on his lap. The band was introduced and the guy in the chair just started shredding. It only took about a minute for the entire place to go silent as we all stared at Jeff Healey and what he was doing with that guitar. That was my introduction to him and it’s as clear to me now, 40 years later, as it was then. Thanks for reminding me!

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    1. I can’t imagine not knowing what you were about to see and then seeing this guy on guitar! What a shock that must have been. Being an American…this is the only song I knew by him until a blogger turned me on to his other music as well. I am so jealous of you….what an introduction that must have been!
      Thank you for sharaing this story.

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  6. a great musician and musicologist (he had one of the biggest collections of old Blues 78s and early records and had a regular radio show for a few years playing them and talking blues music , maybe some jazz). Toronto has always been proud of him and it’s nice that he got some recognition here too, I think the movie ‘Roadhouse’ put him on the map. I wish I’d seen him live – I quite like his music on record but would imagine he was so much better in person. That was teh case for Colin James, another Canadian bluesy guitarist from the same era

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    1. Dave….I sure wish I could have seen him. Look at Mobster Tiger and quadzillabynorth comments on him. They are incredible.
      I just saw a video of his wife talking about the anniversary…she seems so genuine….That is so cool about his record collection…he was the real deal….such a great guitar player and almost impossible to mimic.

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  12. He had talent to burn. If Stevie Ray and Albert Collins think you’ve got it, chances are pretty good that you do. Beautiful song by Hiatt and great performance by Healey and co. I only have one CD of his of covers, but I am really going to check out his whole catalog further.

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    1. That other song I posted…just incredible eye popping guitar playing…I had no clue how good he was at the time. This is the only song I heard for years.

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  16. Good stuff Sir. I was lucky to see the Healy band more than a few times as he would always stop in town. First time I saw him was early November 1988. We had a bar in our area (about 2 miles from my house) at the time called the Jolly Roger or JR as we called it.
    A buddy of mine told me “there’s this blind rock dude coming to play the JR” Once I heard that I was like I gotta see that… Jeff blew my mind ..we were so blown away that night at how much of a ferocious player he could be at time yet dial it back…
    Just a few short weeks later there he was on the Tonight Show with Carson. That blew my mind as here he was basically in my neighbourhood and bam in LA with Johnny!
    I call that the rocket ride hahaha…

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    1. “There’s this blind rock dude coming to play the JR”….little did you know. Another two in the comments described seeing him and one like you…not knowing what he was about to see. I can’t imagine being that shocked…
      That was a fast climb!

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