Eyes Jeff

While the 1990 self-titled debut release by the band Eyes is certainly a good album, the main reason to check it out is the presence of journeyman vocalist Jeff Scott Soto. Soto, who has made his mark working with the likes of Yngwie Malmsteen, Axel Rudi Pell, his own band Talisman, and (briefly) as lead singer of AOR icons Journey, joined Eyes as a replacement for James Christian, who left to front House of Lords. The self-titled Eyes album was very much a product of its time, straddling the line between hard rock and AOR. It's the kind of feel-good party rock from a time when bands like Firehouse, Bon Jovi, Bad English, and Damn Yankees were dominating the airwaves.

Second (this is also the last album from EYES) full length release by Eyes, fronted by legend Jeff Scott Soto on lead vocals, Steve Doughtery on guitar and Aldy Damien on drums. 10 tracks including: It's all over, Cheyenne, City nights, Love is alive, Way back home, Living on the edge, and more… Their first is more pure hardrock, this is CLASS AOR !

This Deluxe Edition includes three previously unreleased concerts on 3 CDs and 2 DVDs with full liners notes and extensive photos. This compilation captures something truly unique. It contains a wonderful glimpse at the evolution of a performer… a look at an artist in three distinct phases of his career; the runaway rampant energy of the first big success, the confident virtuosity of one who's ridden the wave and continued to move forward, and the professionalism of a seasoned vet delivering a stellar performance through exhaustion and illness - winning the crowd and leaving them wanting more. The shows are presented as they were performed, live without the aid of studio gimmicks. Spanning eleven and a half years, they cover very different periods in the history of the Jeff Healey Band, 1985, 1995 and 2000.

The early 1990s were the height of Canadian guitarist Jeff Healey's popularity, particularly spurred by his conspicuous appearance in the 1989 Patrick Swazye film Roadhouse (United Artists). Healey, who passed away in 2006 at age 41, was noted for his novel guitar playing technique, developed possibly in response to his childhood blindness caused by familial retinoblastoma. Healey played the guitar flat on his lap, right handed, picking with this right hand and fretting this his left, playing in a guitar standard tuning (EAGDBE).

Jeff Healey was an astounding and varied talent as a singer, guitarist, and, later in his career, as a trumpet player, and it's difficult to imagine an artist quite like him. Blind from eye cancer since the age of one, he drew attention as a maverick guitar player (he played his Stratocaster on his lap, which allowed him to attack and bend the strings in a totally unique style; at his best, he roared and soared as well as anybody ever has on the instrument). This four-disc set (three CDs and a DVD) features Healey and his crackerjack band live in three separate concerts, and it makes clear what a powerful and empowering performer he was on-stage. The first disc catches the Jeff Healey Band blazing through an 11-song set at the 1989 Montreal Jazz Festival, with the second disc capturing a set from the St. Gallen Open Air Festival in Switzerland from 1991 (the performance was filmed and makes up the DVD included here), and the third disc presents a 1995 stage set from the Hard Rock in Toronto.