Eyes Jeff

Released on what would've been Jeff Healey's 50th birthday, Heal My Soul is the first collection of unheard original Healey material released in 15 years. These recordings were left incomplete at the time of Healey's death, so it was up to his estate to complete the tapes, and the efforts are relatively seamless: it all sounds like it dates from somewhere in the early 2000s, a period arriving after his hits but before he started exploring hot jazz. In other words, it's guitar-heavy blues-rock, where the songs are sometimes nicely constructed ("Baby Blue," "I Misunderstood") but sometimes feel like vehicles for tasty licks. Because Healey isn't around to spin out more of these tasty licks, there's value to this – his solos and riffs are vibrant, elastic, and alive – but the record is best understood as a testament to his talent assembled by family for his fans to cherish.

California native Jeff Scott Soto is a journeyman vocalist who started out singing for theatrical metal guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen in the '80s. He then went on to front numerous not-quite-on-the-radar groups throughout the '90s before teaming with Journey guitarist Neal Schon in the group Soul SirkUS in 2004. Since 1995, Soto has also consistently released solo albums, this being his fourth. The opening song, and Schon co-write, "Believe in Me" is bravely out of time and place, sounding like an outtake from Journey's Frontiers (or like psyche-up music from an '80s teen film). "Soul Divine" has an '80s lite-metal bent to it, as does "Drowning" – and so it goes, without much deviation.

Appearing almost 18 months after his death, Songs from the Road collects highlights from Jeff Healey's 2006 performance at Norway's Nottoden Blues Festival, plus 2007 gigs in London and Toronto (the latter at his hometown club, the Jeff Healey Roadhouse). Songs from the Road paints a good portrait of Healey the road warrior, playing old favorites, both of his own and a wide variety of classic rock and blues artists, including Muddy Waters and two from the Beatles. Healey doesn't surprise here, either in repertoire or attack, but he does satisfy, both as a guitarist and an all-around entertainer, making this collection a nice coda to his career.

Capturing a homecoming gig for the conquering hero, Live at Grossman's 1994 finds blues-rocker Jeff Healey returning to a favorite club. Looking back, it’s easy to see that Healey was between stages: his most popular albums were just behind him and the years of him carving out a niche as a working bluesman who dabbled in jazz were ahead of him. Here, he was performing with the velocity and volume of a blues-rocker at his peak, invigorated by an intimate setting where he could just play, not worrying about throwing in “Angel Eyes” or “I Think I Love You Too Much.” The result is a set where he salutes his idols – Clapton, Elmore James, Albert King, Howlin’ Wolf, Hendrix, even the Beatles via an excellent “Yer Blues” – and it’s one of his purest and best records as a straight-ahead blues-rocker.

Wide Awake (In My Dreamland) is the 7th solo album by hard rock veteran Jeff Scott Soto that blends melodic rock/AOR with hard rock influences. The singer, who has more than 60 albums under his belt along with numerous collaborations and recordings, has established himself as a consummate professional who manages to expertly deliver with his vocal performances across multiple musical genres, from Metal to Hard Rock to Progressive Rock and even Funk. JSS currently also fronts Sons Of Apollo. CD versions of the album also include a bonus live album recorded at Frontiers Rock Festival in 2019, “Live At Frontiers Rock Festival 2019," which was released in digital format only this past April (2020).

Sometimes it feels like you hear a Bright Eyes song with your whole body. From Conor Oberst’s early recordings in an Omaha basement in 1995 all the way up to 2020, Bright Eyes’ music tries to unravel the impossible tangles of dissent: personal and political, external and internal. It’s a study of the beauty in unsteadiness in all its forms – in a voice, beliefs, love, identity, and what fills up the spaces in-between. And in so many ways, it’s just about searching for a way through.

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.

The last in Kent’s trilogy spotlighting black America’s involvement in the Vietnam war. It’s been a long wait but we feel that the 23 tracks here more than uphold the high standard of its predecessors – A Soldier’s Sad Story and Does Anybody Know I’m Here. Presented in loosely chronological sequence, Stop The War contains many highly significant musical statements on various aspects of the conflict, from shipping out to coming home. Even though the Vietnam war has been over for almost half a century it’s still possible, through these songs, to feel the frustration, anger and sadness that many Americans felt towards a conflict that lasted far too long and claimed far too many lives on both sides.