Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Tom Stephen: Toronto Mike'd #439

Episode Date: March 7, 2019

Mike chats with The Jeff Healey Band's drummer Tom Stephen about the band, Jeff Healey and his new book, Best Seat in the House.

Welcome to episode 439 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, ATM Canada, Alma Pasta, Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair, Buckle, and Camp Ternasol. time watch and jewelry repair buckle and camp turn this old I'm Mike from Toronto Mike calm and joining me this week is the Jeff Healy band drummer and manager and author of the best seat in the house Tom Stevens welcome Tom good to be No, it's good to have you here. I told you this before I pressed record, but I'm going to say it again, and I am not blowing smoke up your ass. I love your book. Thank you.

It's like made for me, man. Just really like raw and honest, like warts and all. It was just a great, great book. I really appreciate that and that was actually uh that was the desire when we started was to to be warts and all but at the same time pay tribute to what i consider to be one of canada's greatest guitarists and uh and a wonderful man jeff healy yeah uh i mean that we're going to talk about yourself of course but uh you're you're comfortable the fact the bulk of this show is going to be about Jeff Healy.

Absolutely. I wouldn't be sitting here if I hadn't met Jeff. And that seat you're in now, that's not the best seat in the house, just to be clear. So we'll talk about Jeff Healy, the Jeff Healy band, yourself. But what's your desired way for people to buy the best seat in the house? Like if people like what they hear and they want to read more and on straight up, I was really into this book because again, it's respectful to Jeff and his, his genius. But at the same time, you didn't sugarcoat stuff. Like I was reading it and I'm like, like, we'll talk about some, some facts you dropped. And I'm like, wow, that's just interesting.

But what's your preferred way for somebody to pick up the best seat in the house? In Canada right now, it's, I believe, in Indigo bookstores. And it's also online, indigo.ca. Indigo.ca. You know, I ask because I record a podcast with Mark Hebbshire. He's like a sports media guy. Yeah. And he was in this morning to do his show Hebbshire on sports and he just put out a book and he's like, he pushes people to buy direct, he says, because I don't need to know how books

like compensate the author or whatever, but he's like, he gets, I don't know, I'll make it up. He says, I get like two bucks if they buy it at Indigo, but I get like, you know, 15 bucks per book or whatever if they buy it direct. Like, you know what I mean? That's true, but at the same time, you know, this isn't necessarily for me about making money. It's getting the word out. And when it's in Indigo and you buy through Indigo,

it counts also as a sale. So that helps the conversation, if you will, right across the country. And that's really the goal of the book is to remember, you know, who Jeff was and is. And that's the goal of this episode of Toronto Mic'd. I warned everyone on Twitter, this episode's all about the Jeff Healy band.

Greatly appreciate it, man. That's excellent. And in your opinion, you might be a little biased on this one, but is Jeff Healy the best blues guitarist in the world? Look, you know, I'm not going to dodge it. I can tell you this. Forget what I think.

The best blues guitar players in the world who we got to play with thought he was the best blues guitar player they'd ever seen. They would know, right? Guys like B.B. King, Stevie Ray. Now, that's not to say, I mean, but God, Stevie Ray and Bebe were gentlemen and excellent. What Jeff had was a unique versatility that a lot of guys just didn't have and girls didn't have.

Jeff could hear a couple notes in any style of music and he'd be playing that track in 30 seconds. Obviously, the style was unique, but more importantly, the musicianship. That's what constantly I would hear from his peers. And we were very lucky. The greats at the time, anyone, whether it be George Harrison or our own Paul Schaeffer,

I mean, they were just blown away by Jeff. And oddly enough, in our own country at the beginning, people just blown away by Jeff. And oddly enough, you know, in our own country at the beginning, people were blown away by Jeff. So that's a story unto itself. I'd like to throw just a quick correction, if I may. Oh, yeah, of course. We co-managed. So I was not the sole manager.

We were basically a management team, per se. Born out of necessity, I might add, because nobody wants to manage us. I'm glad. You'll have to clarify throughout the episode as I butcher these facts. Oh, no worries, man. I appreciate the time. Now, I was thinking

as I'm like, I was excited I get to talk about the Jeff Healy band for like 90 minutes. I was excited because I bought See the Light on Cassette because I heard Confidence Man on Q107. Okay. And I got it. And then I heard, I love See the Light.

And we're going to deep dive in this very shortly. And of course, Angel Eyes. And I'm like, this is kick ass. It was kind of like, it was bluesy, but it was rock. I wouldn't pigeonhole it and call it blues was bluesy but it was rock like it was uh i wouldn't pigeonhole it and call it bluesy because it was i saw i heard it as rock and roll but i loved sincerely loved the jeff healy band as it was you know breaking it in in real time so i'm excited to kind of talk about them and uh you guys and and and revisit the great tracks but as i was thinking

about all this i I was thinking, I got to remember, some people listening aren't going to know who Jeff Healy is. I can't assume, right? So let's begin by stating something that will be very obvious to people who know Jeff Healy, but Jeff Healy could not see he was blind. Correct. Yes. Yes. And remind us, it was a cancer at the age of two? Actually, six months and one year, as I understood it from what Jeff had told me. So he lost both his eyes, you know. But he had no sight recollection, per se. So he didn't remember seeing. He didn't have any memory of sight, if you will.

No, no, which, you know, we talked about several times, but no, absolutely not. And so he had glass? Were they glass? Yes. Like what are the glass eyes? He could not see. Okay, great. And yourself, though, Tom, I also read in the book that you also had an illness as a child, right?

You almost died as a child? Yeah, I had psoriasis of the kidneys. And I got very lucky. I was in the hospital about a year, but they came up with a new drug. The funny thing, if there's anything funny about it, is that was my first time on the front page of a newspaper. And oddly enough, behind me was a monkey playing the drums. I didn't realize i was going

to be that monkey and this is the maritimes where are you yeah well that was actually st john de brunswick i was born and raised in st john but i spent a lot of my form of the beers in uh nova scotia but essentially i'm a maritimer maritimer i i don't think there's any uh bad maritimers they're all good people i believe so. Even Brad Marchand of the Boston Bruins? Sure, why not? Why not? He does his gig. Hey, when he's on Team Canada,

I cheer for the guy. So when do you first meet Jeff? 1984. I was just jamming around Toronto. In fact, my first time getting on stage was with Danny Marks, who promptly kicked me off the stage and let me know I wasn't much of a drummer.

So he did me a favor because it really made me kind of dig in and think about if I wanted to play. I met a guy called Buzz Upshaw, who was just a big teddy bear of a man. Very much a la B.B. King. Played similar style. Excellent player.

Garbage truck driver, but really all he wanted to do was last long enough to get his pension. As great as he was. Unfortunately, the poor fellow never lived to see that pension, which made me realize a lesson right then and there. If you have a dream, you should pretty much get at it, because you just never know how long you have to pursue these things. Jeff loved Buzz and used to come out and see us play. From that, we jammed once in a while,

and in one of those jams, he invited me to Grossman's Tavern, the idea being to sit in and see how it kind of went. Two things happened that evening. Firstly, having played with Jeff previously I didn't realize the extent of his sight restraints because Jeff got around so well

he had no idea that there was a sight issue I mean you knew but I didn't realize he was fully blind I've been told from friends that they golfed with Jeff Healy absolutely think about that he can nail a ball on occasion. And I mean, in your book,

you reference like Jeff Healy driving. Yes, yes. Motor boats, tour buses, cars. He was pretty open-minded. He was ahead of that whole bird box thing. I don't know if you... Yeah, absolutely. Way ahead of that.

You know, and then, in fact, that night he leapt out of his chair and I hadn't seen him do that. And Jeff was six foot two, 220 pounds. He knocked a lot of things over, including drinks, people, chairs. By the time he sat down, going back to what you said, he said, good night, everybody. Don't drink and drive. I know I don't, which later on I found out wasn't true. But when we went backstage, the short story is I had said, look, Jeff, I didn't mean coming for me because I caused a lot of trouble over the years in the band, but I said, look, we got to be serious. You can't really be drinking this much if we're going to pursue a career.

He said, Tom, I'm not drinking. I'm blind. And that was kind of an odd way to kick things off but what he told me on a serious note in the same conversation he was seriously thinking on going into radio because no one was interested in signing him and he was starting to feel there was no future in terms of a musician's career, which just, you know, I was gobsmacked because I knew nothing about music, but I certainly was a fan of music

and I'd never seen anybody play as great as Jeff Healy. Was he just too unique? Like, I mean, I've never seen anyone play on the lap like the way Jeff Healy played. Like, was he just too different? Like, what?

Because the chops are there, but... Well, you know, it's kind of like, we'll get into it a little later, but I had a bit of chip on my shoulder regarding the Canadian history for a long time. And it's only since I wrote the book with respect to this issue of why couldn't Jeff get a deal. And what you realize later in life, and speaking to a lot of folks in these interviews, is the guys at these labels and girls,

they have to protect their jobs. They got to be sure what they're doing. Blues necessarily wasn't the big music at the time, albeit Stevie Ray and Fabulous Thunderbirds and all these guys are breaking. So clearly, as all labels are, they're looking for that next big thing in that genre. What Jeff had told me was there's a sense it was too gimmicky but whether it be the blindness the style all of the above and i i i laughed i just didn't believe him and sure enough when we formed our our own management situation and i was i was kind of the point guy um a lot of labels just weren't prepared to to take that chance i had guys say it was gimmicky.

I had other guys say it wasn't gimmicky enough. But no one was really prepared to go there. And in a sense, he was kind of discriminated against for his disability. And that's why I kind of, in the book, try and mention that this isn't just a story of music. It's a story of, and Jeff would come back and kick my butt right now because, you know, he was not a guy who wanted to be coddled because he was quote-unquote blind.

But I mean, he overcame a huge hurdle here to achieve what he did, and that just makes it that much more remarkable, makes him that much more remarkable. So is this a good time to uh talk about so there's a trio so uh like is this at this point does the trio kind of form because of course uh joe is your bassist so you're the drummer joe's a bassist and of course jeff healy uh i noticed who gets his name in the band name i guess was there ever any uh chat about that one or no never

no i mean i i could think of no other i mean i mean i mean look i was just happy that the guy knew my name so okay so maybe just before that uh like would you say you were like a good drummer no no going into this i i i was starting to become a good drummer in that Buzz and Hawk Walsh before him and kind of from Downchild. Of course, Hawk took me on mainly because I think he liked to use my reel-to-reel recording. But, I mean, you learn these guys are hustlers and it's an interesting education. But I was starting to learn about the blues.

What Jeff liked about me was I hit him hard and I was free for him because you know I had never really played in a band so I was a garage guy who played the Led Zeppelin and the Who and so Jeff was free for him he he liked uh we never played or rehearsed so we never played the same song the same way later a few months later when we meet Joe and he became part of the trio he he fit into that really nicely. And in a sense, Joe became the timekeeper and I kind of jammed out with Jeff. Interesting. And I want to get you to New York because, and this is wonderfully detailed in the book, but tell me you had a plan to like bump into Paul Schaefer, right? This was the strategy, right?

Yeah, in writing the book, the co-author, because I realized at the beginning of this I was by no means an author and I would need help. And I met Keith Elliott Greenberg several years back and Keith had had a couple bestsellers, one on John Lennon and he's also a producer over at NBC in New York. And he was a fan of the band, but it was kind of a thing

where we had to really hang out for a couple years just to, you know, I had to really trust him because this is sacred to me, the band and Jeff. But Keith turned out, the agreement was, look, I'm going to do a lot of research which I had no idea the kind of things Keith was able to find because he found things I mean I lived through and didn't even realize and uh and the deal was essentially what what he found went in the book now I had a bit of a veto in the sense that if I thought something was just a little

over the top or too sensitive we'd have that conversation and he'd back off on that. But what I'd forgotten was, you know, my big plan at the time was I'd go find Paul Schaefer because he's Canadian. I mean, we were really green. We had no idea what we were doing. But those were his plans. That's not a bad plan. So you basically were going to travel to New York and bump into Paul Schaefer. And because you're both Canadian, he was going to get the Jeff Healy band on Letterman? Was that the plan? That was the plan, yes. Not a bad plan.

Or, you know, we always were shooting the moon at all times. Now, I didn't make it to Schaefer. In fact, I got kicked out of NBC. But along the way, I did meet the drummer, and he said, look, there's some A&R guys who might want to come down and see this gig tonight at, I can't remember the club now,

in New York. He was playing, and he said, if you can get in, I'll introduce you to some A&R guys. Now, I was so green, I didn't know what an A&R guy was. Well, tell us outsiders, what does A&R stand for? Artists and repertoire, which, by the way, I just had to find that out to write this book.

Well, I ask now, I'm pretending it's for the listeners, but it was for me. I'm like, what does that R stand for? Records? Reperture. And luckily enough, Anton was the man of his word. I made it into the club and managed to get our packages out. And a couple folks folks one from electra and one from uh arista records who represented clive davis uh mitchell cohen

and another guy howard thompson came to toronto saw the band and immediately flew us to new york um of course myself and jeff went out and hit every club in the city, including a place called, oh boy, it just went out the way, old age is kicking in here. It'll come to me. It happens to all of us. It was one of the great jam clubs where all the greats hung out, rock and roll, hip hop, whatever. It was a nice cross section. We ended up jamming there all weekend, and Jeff was just a total sensation.

Unfortunately, by the time we got there early morning, meeting with Clive Davis, which, by the way, I didn't know who Clive Davis was at the time. He was later explaining to me, think of him as the Beatles of record executives. We were in rough shape when we finally got in front of Clive, think of him as the Beatles of record executives. And we were in rough shape when we finally got in front of Clive, but the good news was the word

was out and he wanted to sign us literally on the spot. We did. You signed a nine album deal with Clive Davis at Arista. Now let's just get a little moment here to take this in, because Clive Davis is a big fucking deal, can I say that? Beyond. get a little like moment here to take this in because clive davis uh is a big big big fucking

deal can i say that oh yeah beyond and beyond this and at that time i guess so this is late 80s approximately what is this 80 87 going yeah so he's like right now his big project i guess would be whitney houston right is that all going on yeah yeah whitney's but but keeping in mind clive started with janice droplet i mean you I mean, that was his first huge project. And Aretha Franklin. I mean, it would take us an hour to explain all the things Clive did. But what... Sorry, carry on.

No, I was going to say that Clive Davis personally wanted to meet you guys. So he's flying here to New York to meet with Clive Davis. You must know at that point that good things are going to happen. Like Clive's probably not meeting with a bar band. You know what I mean? Well, oddly enough, he was because that's what we were. He saw something. But you're absolutely right.

I mean, when I showed him the video, when he had seen the video, and that's a story unto itself. We owe that to a guy called Alan Resnick. Okay, which video? See the Light, first video we ever made. Because it was done in like 86 or something. Yeah, 85, 86. Alan Resnick from Ryerson, 500 bucks.

And to this day is my favorite. We then had met the guys from Powder Blues, the Lavin brothers, who were transplanted Americans in Vancouver. When we were in Vancouver, they recorded our first single, See the Light, A, and Adriana was B. And the cool thing was all of a sudden now we're getting our own radio play, because again, we had no label, we had no management. Much music is just breaking at that time, and next thing we know, this video is getting a lot of play. We'll get a little see the light here.

Cool. Listen to that. Nothing like it. And Jeff wrote this song, right? Absolutely. I'm trying to see, can I get this to 11 here? I know we did.

So I'm wondering when the guitar sounds like that who cares about the drummer? Indeed. Can you see the light of me shining in my eyes? Can you see the light? Can you see the light of me shining in my eyes? Well, you know I need you, baby. And I'll shower and I'll serve you gold eyes. Now, that's a jam right there. Now, a little fun aside before we dive deeper here is that I told my mom you were coming on. Because the famous family story for decades now is this guy named Brother Tom from Newfoundland. Okay, brother like I guess in brother like as in not a priest, like a father, but a brother like something to do with the church.

He's Brother Tom. like a father but a brother like something to do with the church he's brother tom and he was related to my grandmother and i was in guilford ontario at my grandmother's house and brother tom was there and brother tom went to me i was like a teenager and he said do you know jeff healy and i said brother tom i love jeff healy like i was a big fan straight up. And he said to me, you're related to Jeff Healy. Okay, I guess it's true story. I know this was a long time ago. I don't know why I didn't have follow-up questions. Like, how am I related to Jeff Healy?

Yeah. I know. And if my mom has no idea, I go, how did you not have follow-up questions? But we figured it was like a, I don't know, a second cousin type situation because he must have been kind of distantly related. But I was told at that time, and I've decided to believe it's true. Whether it's not, I don't know.

But that I am related to Jeff Healy. Go with it. I'm going with it, man. And I think I've mentioned it a few times in the podcast. But when I mentioned it enough times, there's a gentleman named Al who has a Toronto Mike bingo card. He'll create a square for it.

And then people can get bingo. That's a whole inside Toronto Mic'd thing there. But See the Light, written by Jeff Healy. This is the song that you play for the video you show Clive Davis, and he gives you a nine-album deal. Yes. Okay. Pause right there.

That's amazing. But I have to give you some things now while I have a moment here let jeff go down here there's a six pack of beer in front of you tom that is courtesy of great lakes brewery beautiful let's give her a crack oh yeah oh do you want me to go up and get your cold one oh this is plenty okay that's cold down. My last guest was Jay Gold, and he told me it's too cold down here. But I think it's like the Letterman. Remember at the... It's nice. Very nice.

Okay. Which one did you crack open? Okay. Canuck Pale Ale. Yep. It's great. That is a great one. Enjoy, my friend.

Thank you. That's brewed here in... Is it after 12? Well, it's closer. It's 12 o'clock somewhere. In Nova Scotia. That's right. That's right.

No, it's closer. It's 12 o'clock somewhere. In Nova Scotia. That's right. That's right. Their local craft brewery here in Etobicoke, 99.9% of all Great Lakes beer remains here in Ontario. That other 0.01%, that goes to Halifax, actually.

There's a place in Halifax that sells Great Lakes beer. Okay. So next time you're there, pick some up. But you can also, of course, pick it up in Ontario. We love our Great Lakes. And I'll tell you, Tom, and everybody listening, you're all invited to Great Lakes Brewery on June 27th from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. We're going to have some great music from the Royal Pains, and then special guests, lowest of the low, are going to perform for the Toronto Mic Listener Experience. So this is an exclusive event for anyone who listens to

Toronto Mic'd or has been a guest on Toronto Mic'd. Again, that's no joke. That's Lowest of the Low. Did you ever cross paths at all in your CanCon rock career with Lowest of the Low? Nope. Because you guys were, they're more like the... We met some Lowest of the Low,

but no, not that. I think it's a quote from George Bush Sr. I think he said something about Lowest of the Low, but no, not that. I think it's a quote from George Bush Sr. I think he said something about Lois de la Low, I think. I think that's the origin story. Yeah, so come to Great Lakes on June 27th. And also, we talked earlier whether you wanted vegetarian or meat. I have one of each in the freezer. That's a lasagna from Palma Pasta.

And you're welcome to take that as well, Tom. I'm in. You're in. Four locations in Mississauga and Oakville. Palma Pasta is Mississauga's best fresh pasta and Italian food. Please go to palmapasta.com to find a location near you. And also, I'm told, of course, they cater events. So if you're, I don't know, for example, the daycare that two of my kids go to, they have this meeting of all the parents get together and they cater it at Palma Pasta.

So any event, use Palma Pasta, great family run business and proud sponsors of Toronto Mic'd. And here's a little fun game here. We're talking about lowest of the low. Let's go back even further in time. Let's see how you do on this one, Tom. 40, 40, no, 50, right? I'm doing the math in my head. 50, no, 40. Okay, 40 years ago

today, this was the number one song on the Billboard Hot 100. Tom, you want to dance now, don't you? Yeah, it's a great disco track. I can't remember who it is. It starts with G. It's on the tip of your tongue. It wasn't the name of the girl.

It was the name of the group. Oh, it's a girl, though. I think... Close. You've got it. Tom's working it out. You got me. Gloria Gaynor. Gaynor. Yes, this is I Will Survive.

Which was, of course, guys my age will tell you, we know it as a cake song. Okay, cake. Remember Cake, the band Cake? Nope. They covered this song like in the, I guess mid-90s or something like that. Remember the Time is brought to you by Fast Time Watch and

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Is Gloria done here? Let's see. We'll let Gloria here. Big finish here. Oh, she's still going, Gloria. I'm on the dance floor right now all right my friend you're signed to a nine album deal by clive davis and arista records this is where it all begins we already played see the light but tell me about uh tell me about the

debut album like how it came together and i'm really curious about the single Angel Eyes. And let's hear from you, Tom. You know, this whole thing about overnight success, I mean, we've been banging away in Canada for about four or five years. We signed a deal, I believe, 87, late 87. And next thing, not only are we told we have to make a record, but we're sending a script.

And in the script, it's a band in this roadhouse, and the band's fronted by a blind guy in a power trio. And I read this, and I'm like, man, come on, there's only one trio I know of who they are. And I phone Clive Davis, and I said, Mr. Davis, with all due respect, I'm pretty sure that's us. And he goes, well, Tom, why do you think I sent you the script? So, you know, live and learn.

Off I go to L.A. I meet Joel Silver, who's the producer of the movie Roadhouse. Right. And, you know, can Jeff act? Now, Jeff had actually acted a couple of times. I had not known that. Did he? A couple of bit things he told me later on. Never mentioned it while I was going known that. Did he? Like a couple of bit things he told me later on. Never mentioned it while I was going down there.

But the problem we all had was, well, who wants to be in a movie? And Joel said, look, can this guy, you know, is he smart? And I said, look, if you meet him today and you run into him five years from now and say, hey, Jeff, he's going to remember your name. I said, OK, we'll fly him down. Now, Jeff really wasn't sure if he wanted to be in the movie what I liked about this whole story is Hollywood's an obnoxious kind of place

and Joel was pretty heavy duty right out of the movies you know you'll never work in this town kind of guy and I remember he said to Jeff when we flew down Jeff you know I'm really thinking if you're a fit for this movie or not. And

Jeff kind of looked at me and said, well, Joel, to be candid, I'm kind of thinking the same thing. I'm not sure if I want to be in the movie or not. And that's Jeff. I mean, he had big balls. So we're listening here. This is Doors cover, Roadhouse Blues,

which was like it was a hit right? Yeah. It became kind of a theme song for the movie. So we ended up

doing two things. We produced our album and the soundtrack. Well I was going to ask you like the ordering because my brain's remembering See the Light

comes out first and then shortly thereafter the whole Roadhouse Blues. Is that the right order? Pretty much, yep. But keep it in mind that we're recording all this at the same time. So you're on the set at 6. Like Mr. Davis said, you guys are going to work 8 days a week, you know, 30 hours a day.

And I hope you guys are up to it. And he wasn't messing around because literally, you're on the set 6 in the morning. We'd be in the studio by six at night we'd be cutting tracks for the movie we'd be cutting tracks for our album um we got to work with the great jimmy ivy who founded interscope records um and then later greg ladani who's no longer with us produced the actual our own album um but it was you know all of a sudden nothing's going on and the next thing you're in Hollywood

working with the greats. Well, let's remind people if they haven't seen it, but that's a Patrick Swayze film. Absolutely. And Sam Elliott's in that thing. Yeah, great. And like you mentioned, Jeff's got a great role in that movie. Well, the role progressed as we were on set,

because what happens is we become drinking buddies with Patrick, and we became fast pals. And Patrick really took Jeff under his arm and really promoted him. And, you know, of course, I'm always pushing, can we get more, can we get more? And sure enough, Jeff actually becomes a pretty inaugural part of the film. And the lucky thing is all these years later, it's still on cable somewhere every two weeks. And this year is its 30th anniversary.

Oh, wow. Yeah. And you're in it because you're the bar band or whatever. Yeah. Amazing. Typecast. Yeah. So, I mean, one thing that strikes me is the Jeff Healy band is...

Hold on. He's doing his Jim Morrison here. He's amazing. I mean, the guy could do anything. Here's my question. Are you worried about being, at all, being pigeonholed as a blues band? Like, does it matter to you to be a rock band or not um you know in putting together the book I looked at lots of footage of interviews of the band cuz Jeff insisted as a rule that we

all be interviewed which was you know that was very gracious of him because candidly most guys won't care less of showing myself on or not I mean Jeff was the was the obvious star but in Jeff's, we were a blues-based rock band. And he felt, now later he would not really like the music that much. It just depended what day. I mean, we're all human beings. But no, we didn't really worry about that. And luckily, the reviewers seemed to think it was a rock record,

you know, steeped in the blues kind of thing. And keep in mind, I mean, Mr. Davis would have been happy if we sold 100,000 and the record turns around and sells a few million. So that's the good news. The bad news now is all of a sudden you're a commodity within a big industry. And what was just a lot of fun and a friendship and a bunch of guys playing music now becomes a big business and obviously the dynamics start changing well what i found interesting in the book and again i'm an outsider so it's like i'm getting to kind of peek inside uh behind the curtain you know like this is uh you know you guys are wrapping up here roadhouse blues

yeah i i think i think pretty good for a blind white boy. Yeah, and I thought you'd be bigger. Classic. Classic. Jeff often told me that's why he kept me around. He liked my endings on the songs. That's right. I was going to say, so See the Light is a Jeff Healy jam that he wrote.

Yes. And I think the first song, funny, so when Jake Gold was on, the same era, I'm thinking about that, the big breakthrough for the Tragical Hip, which was Up to Here, which was a bluesy rock sound too. And hearing, I remember it was Blow It High Doe.

That was the first song I heard on Q107. And similarly, this is actually the jam I heard first from the Jeff Healy band. Confidence Man, this is a John Hyatt song. Absolutely. So was that coming from Clive Davis? and you talk about this in your book of course but uh because we're going to get to uh angel eyes in a minute here but like are the are the gentle suggestions that other people's songs you might want to record for see the light not gentle not gentle no i was being gentle yeah um uh that's mitchell cohen and mitchell um to this day is one of the greats and um he he went to nashville and memphis and uh and met with hyatt and found angel

eyes and and confidence man which uh you know i mean in our career over the years there's been controversy and conversation and whatnot whether these were great songs should we have done them but i i look at it differently the label took the time to help us find great tracks this by the way became a hit yeah um as obviously angel i said that was our first uh top five on the billboard 100 so clearly it introduced us to a crossover audience so now you're going from being a bar band i mean i remember we're in seattle and there's all these lovely ladies walking around and i asked the promoter uh you know who all these people are going to see and he kind of looked at us you guys and and it was like oh um so you know sometimes you got to step outside clive in his own book he he writes about us he actually gives us a

couple pages and i i had the opportunity to speak to him after and you know clive's take on the band was that the band was okay jeff was an obvious star but that we were pretty stubborn and that um you know as mitchell pointed out hey um i shot the sheriff by clapton and uh and uh cocaine weren't written by you know Clapton but they're Clapton songs so what they're trying to introduce us to is the idea of you make them yours and it you know helps your career progress and uh we you know we didn't quite get that at the time I certainly in in hindsight being 2020 I understand where they are going and uh but I think I think in a sense it it it it great graded on Jeff a little bit

because Jeff was our primary songwriter. And to tell you the truth, songs like I Need to Be Loved, See the Light, I mean, I rate them up there. I think they're just as good and in some cases even better. But you can't argue with the success of some of those songs that were brought in. Now, what about yourself? I mean, you're kind of a self-deprecating guy, I noticed in this book.

You're not a good drummer, you're not a good songwriter, so is this just you being a realist, or is this just you being self-deprecating? I think it's me being honest. And also, luckily, Keith got to interview a lot of folks, so you learn what other people think. So you have to kind of assess that. Now, back to the drumming thing.

Yeah. Oddly enough, in the early days, our early press was, you know, we were a powerhouse rhythm section. Now you play 2,000 dates where you think you'd be a lot better, and all of a sudden we suck. Right? So it's kind of like, you know, people have to write things. Now you're in the big leagues. Clearly, a lot of people would like to replace us and be part of the rhythm section.

Other people want to be the manager. So there's some sour grapes out there. What I'll say about my drumming, not to defend it one way or the other, is it worked. I got to play in a few million records. And the many times Jeff would fire me, he'd hire me back usually within the next day or two. So there's something there that worked for us.

Would I now go on and become like the session drummer of the universe? No, I'm not that crazy to think that. But it worked for what we had as Joe worked for what we had. Our rhythm section seemed to really get it. And the proof in the pudding is I've heard a lot of the tracks Jeff played thereafter with other bands. And by the way, that's not taking anything away from the other bands.

And technically, they were probably better. But there was an energy that we had that didn't exist in those recordings. That's just my honest take. And, you know, we know, of course, like of the Supremes, for example. And then, you know, there's whole movies devoted to the fact that if there's like a trio or a group with maybe a superstar lead person and then that lead person, you know, record labels saying, for example, hey, we want the lead guy, but we don't want the rest of the band, and then you have that great moment in a movie where either the star either abandons the band or says, no, man, we're a combo or whatever. So that must have, did that ever happen with the Jeff Healy band?

Like, was there ever an attempt by either Clive Davis or anyone to say, hey, you're the star, Jeff, you don't need these two other guys? I'm just curious. It was never overt, but it was suggested, certainly. Now, to Clive's credit, no, he stuck it out day one. He said, look, you guys work. It works, but you're going to have to get your chops up. But he liked the bet.

Were we the best bet? No. But he got it. You know, the guy who summed up the best, I thought, was a game back to our buddy Paul Schaefer. In the book, Paul says, oh, by the way, Paul did become our buddy, and he played on a lot of our records. So as it turned out, I actually did get to meet him

after being kicked out of NBC. Out of Rockefeller. Yeah, 30 Rockefeller. But he put it, I thought, in a very reasonable way. And again, you know, with the interviews that were done, not with me, but with others. And he said, said you know he'd seen a lot of superstar bands but if you didn't have that thing there's a certain thing like and he put it like uh one time he said you know when when uh when jagger went off on his solo career it just didn't work because you know

there was something about mind you i'm not even closely comparing us to the Stones. I'm making the point of. Although I have, they come up later in this episode, the Stones, Keith Richards in particular will come up later in this episode. I was afraid of that. Okay. Well, you shouldn't put it in a book if you don't want me to bring it up. Well, I made the deal with Keith, so it had to go. It'll come soon.

That's a teaser. But, you know, it didn't really... It was more a mumble campaign. Now, for instance, conversely, Jimmy Iovine thought I should get out of the band and join Interscope Records that he was starting at the time. Well, because of your management

skills, right? Yeah. He thought I was a real hustler and he liked my management. Oh, I remember there's the book where you essentially said drummers are a dime a dozen, but your skill set is management. Management. And he tells me, you know, we're going to start this label and it's going to be all about rap.

And I, you know, like an idiot said, Jimmy, who the hell cares about rap? Now rap to me being an East Coaster was when you're studying for exams with a bunch of guys that you would never, ever talk to, but the night before, you're drinking beer, shooting the breeze, and we called that rapid. So I literally thought that's what he was talking about. And Chuck Reed in the

book, who's Jimmy's right-hand guy, tells this story how I kind of blew it by not joining Interscope Records. Now, that aside, I'm glad I didn't join Interscope Records, because to tell you the truth, I had 16 of the greatest years playing with the Jeff Healy I'm glad I didn't join Interscope Records because, to tell you the truth, I had 16 of the greatest years playing with the Jeff Healy band, and I don't think I'd trade that for anything, good days or bad days. Hey, you had the best seat in the house. Absolutely.

Once you get that seat, you don't move from that seat. No. All right, no more beating around the bush. Let's talk about Angel Eyes. So let's start by hearing the Jeff Healy band's Angel Eyes. Yeah. And every guy has got you near his side What you're doing with a clown like me Is surely one life's little Mr. B

So tonight I lie The stars above How did I ever win your love? What did I do? What did I do? What did I say? To turn your angel eyes my way? Angel eyes. So many questions.

Firstly, you said it went to number five? Number five on the Billboard Top 100. It was actually number one in a lot of countries, but in America, it got to number five. It's a tremendous single. It just reeks of hit. This is a hit, and it just sounds amazing in the headphones, too, even today.

It sounds amazing. Firstly, it's one of Jeff's great performances, and it goes to Jeff's roots, where Jeff is also a killer country artist, and this obviously is Shades of Country. I mean, this would be a hit today, where at Country Radio, where now Country Radio is really kind of where rock went to with the pedal steel, but oddly enough, now I heard Joe recently on, I think it was CBC in the Vaults or whatnot, talking about the song.

Now, with due respect to Joe, I remember the song a little differently. When we received it, and I played it for the guys in L.A., we didn't like it. Didn't like it a lot. It was totally different than what it is now. And it was kind of that song that was always in the background. But it's Clive and Mitchell saying, this is a hit voice. They knew this would be a hit.

And what I'm thinking is, I'm not going to fight with Clive Davis. Let's at least do our best. And to Jeff's credit, and all of a sudden one night he's noodling around and Joe gets this part right where he's noodling around on the acoustic. And all of a sudden it just fell in place for him and he played it through and we're literally in the studio and i think we cut it in

you know maybe within that hour wow because you know but that was a it was a hard one to get but when we got it it was nailed now obviously the background singers and whatnot and all that's put together and with the engineers and in the production I love the song, still do love the song. Gave us a huge crossword. But it also put us in a bit of quandary because we're thinking of ourselves blues rock a la Stevie Ray Vaughan, and now this is a little more,

now we're in Robert Craze's arena. And so, you know, you'd have people come out to see the band to hear a bunch of Angel Eye songs, and then next thing we're cranking out, you know, see the light or whatnot. So there was a little confusion. I can see that. Yeah. It's not that hard bluesy rock sound.

This is, like you said, now that you say it, now I'm hearing it very country-esque. It's funny how I never really noticed that. But absolutely. It's funny. I heard it played on The Voice a few months ago, and Blake Sheldon, as soon as he heard it, he went, oh, Angel Eyes, Jeff Healy band. That was exciting to me because it showed

Jeff's still current, and that's part of his mission. Now, so it's not your, you guys didn't write the song. Who wrote the song? Again, John Hyatt. Along with, and I cannot think he had a co-writer on this, it just escapes me. But basically both this and Confidence Man were from John Hyatt.

And the only thing Hyatt ever said to me was he built a part onto his house and that was about it. Oh, okay. So thank you. Yeah, this was a hit. And again, I talked to a lot of Canadian successful musicians who could only dream of having a hit in the USA, right? Because that's a game changer, right? Absolutely. And this was a bona fide American hit.

Yeah. Now, you're not the first. Okay, so John Hyatt writes this, but he didn't write it for the Jeff Healy band. Not specifically, no, but I, no. Confidence meant, I understood, to be more written for the Jeff Healy band. Now, you know, I'll never know that for sure, but that's what I've been told through time. Do you want to hear, you probably know this, but I have here the version of Angel Eyes pre-Jeff Healy Band. Have you ever

heard this? No. Okay. I didn't even... You're in for a treat here, Tom, because you have your research staff, I have mine here. No, no, no. By us or by a... By New Grass Revival is the name of this band. And it was released before we recorded it? Right.

You're kidding me. You ready? Heck yeah. Yeah. Ah. Girl, you're looking mighty fine tonight. Damn. And every fella's got you in his sight And what you're doing with a man like me Is surely one of life's little mysteries

Cause tonight I asked the stars above How did I ever win your love? What did I do? What did I do? What did I say? What did I say? To make you turn your angel eyes my way? Dino, what do you think?

I think it's great. But I'm also thinking, why the hell didn't he just send us this one in the first place? And as I listen, it's very different. It's angel eyes, but they're called New Grass Revival, but you can hear that whole bluegrass. Now, was that a hit for these folks? No, I don't believe it. I think it was super obscure. Like, I got to give credit.

I'll give credit here. What am I doing not giving full credit to Mark Weisblatt from 1236 who dug this up and sent it my way. So that's my... What year did this come out? Gosh, you know, I meant to document it. I believe 82 or something like that. Oh, okay, so we do it at 87.

Interesting. Yeah, for sure. And when I listen to it, though, I get a little bit of like the band vibe. In fact, there's a part of this song where I think it's going to go into the night they drove old Dixie down. Yeah, I'm waiting for Levon Helm to sort of get this going. For sure. It's brilliant.

I love it. Yeah. For sure. It's brilliant. I love it. But I mean, I'm thinking now like... That's even a bit of a reggae look there. Nice. Obviously, it's got the banjo sitting there.

Yeah. Holy smokes It's worth the drive to Are you kidding me? So Catovacom Oh yeah, fantastic Yeah, very interesting take Different take I'm kind of glad those

I mean, if you had heard this before you recorded What if it had influenced anything? Like the way you did it was so perfect. Like, you have the hit with this song. Well, maybe there's a reason they didn't send us this, because what we got was much more of a demo, and it didn't even sound anything quite

like this. It's funny, though, what I'm sitting here thinking is how Jeff worked it out. It's the same format. Yeah. It falls almost same format. Yeah. It falls almost, you know, verse, chorus, outro, intro, pre-chorus. It's very much the same. So, your Angel Eyes is a big hit.

See the light. How did it sell? You know, as I say, the label was hoping if they hit 100,000 sales, we'd be, you know, we'd hang around for the next record. But it did a few million around the world, that album, and obviously driven by Angel Eyes. But we also had hits with See the Light, and I can't remember the other track.

We had a couple hits on the rock charts as well. Beyond Confidence Man, because that was a hit too. Yeah. Yeah. Now, here's what I think would be the double-edged sword of uh angel eyes is uh is arista saying okay album number two uh we need another angel eyes yeah yeah oh my god yeah and uh and and therein therein starts i guess i don't want to say conflict, but all of a sudden now, this is where being your own management starts to become a little tough because on one side, they're telling me, look, Tom,

you guys are now in the big leagues, and now it's all about Top 40 Radio. And we weren't looking for Top 40 Radio. We went in there thinking, man, if we could get on Rock Radio, we wanted to be where stevie ray was you know that was he was our hero and he was our guy and and at that point him and jeff had become pals and he was very supportive of us um in fact one of the great concerts we ever did was with him clapton and uh in in our band here in here in toronto at the uh at the sky dome um uh with oddly enough, who was the rapper on it? There's a rapper on there as well.

Wait, Stevie Ray Vaughan. When did he pass? 90? Poor Stevie. Alpine Valley. I remember I was working at the C&E when it happened. I think it's 90. You know what?

I'm not going to pick. It's 89 to 91 because I worked those three summers and I was at the X when I learned he passed. Yeah, it's 91, 92. We were actually with him the night it happened. Really? Yeah, it's in the book. It was probably one of the, I mean, Jeff was devastated

because he just loved Stevie. And we'd actually been playing foosball with him before he got on a helicopter. And then the next day, we'd driven all night, I think, to Philly. This unfortunately happened in Alpine Valley outside of Chicago um there's a story in the book which Jeff or sorry Keith had researched thoroughly for instance I didn't know the helicopter guy in question uh really shouldn't have been flying that helicopter and the sad thing about it is Stevie was was you know

at the top of his game he cleaned up his his drinking side of the thing. His records were doing great. He was in love. That jam that night with him and Jeff and Clapton and Robert Cray, I mean, there was nothing I'd ever seen like that. And then the next day, the guys, excuse me, it kind of bothers me. Yeah, that's the Canuck Pale Ale there.

That's all good. Well, and a wee bit of a tear, but that was a loss. And when we went to the funeral um you know i don't think in some ways jeff was ever really the same i mean that was a huge loss you know because stevie was really the guy that gave us our first shot and he was he was the first guy that really you know obviously and i say that given full dude it was albert collins albert king who introduced stevie to jeff hit right here in toronto at albert's hall which i think now is a gambling hall or whatever but uh you know that's where we're we're where jeff got that jam with stevie you're not would you believe you're not the first canadian musician to sit

in that seat and tell me about uh how career was changed by Stevie Ray Vaughan. Do you want to guess another Canadian blues rock star? Colin James. Correct. And I think there's another guy too as well, but absolutely Colin. Yeah. Who, by the way, we were very good friends with Colin. I mean, it was a friendly rivalry. We were breaking at the same time, him and Jeff. In fact, Jeff couldn't make a gig one night, and Colin came in and was our lead guy for the night. So it was really cool. And we'd run into Colin here and there across the country.

And to this day, pound for pound, I think Colin's one of the greats. Glad to hear it because, yeah, he also was a protege i suppose you'd say of stevie ray yeah you know i i think we got a little luckier in in the big picture but uh stevie loved him man yeah uh terrible loss there but um let me pick up a couple of things uh and before we get to hell to pay so just before we get there one thing in the book which I found very amusing, and it might be the most fun fact in the book that I've never considered before, and I'll try to treat this topic delicately, but Jeff had a type of woman he preferred. Oh, God. I so wish I never wrote that. Okay.

Well, you have to. That is a detail that will be remembered. Okay. Okay. Well, you have to know that that is a detail that will be remembered. Okay. Yeah. I mean, again, Keith sort of came to me one day and he said, you know, I noticed that Jeff seemed to like, you know. Voluptuous? Yes. Heavy and... Curvy? Curvy.

And at one point, you know, I had mentioned to Jeff, we're thinking of going down to Jamaica, which has been a hang of mine since I was a kid. And I jokingly said, well, you know, Jeff, a lot of the Jamaican guys like the same kind of girls you like. And the joke was we never went to Jamaica. But that wasn't meant to be quite how it came out in the book. But you know what? It is what it is. But here's the part that's interesting

when you think about it. So you and I are both fully sighted people. Okay, so we can't really... Well, with these glasses, it's getting that way, but yes, more or less. At least you have memories. This is in the book, but a pretty face was wasted on Jeff Healy,

but Jeff Healy saw with his hands. And the curves and voluptuous woman, that would be a preference for somebody who saw with his hands. And the curves and voluptuous woman, that would be a preference for somebody who saw with their hands. It makes sense to me. I don't want to go there, and I'll tell you why. Because Jeff wouldn't go there. Meaning, I had those conversations with Jeff, and what Jeff really appreciated was intelligence.

And if you really, really want to be in Jeff's good side, male or female, was if you understood the music he be in Jeff's good side male or female was if you understood the music he loved which essentially was big band blues that's where Jeff's heart was at um um you know that was it he was there now the joking amongst the roadies I learned later was uh you know good good thing uh uh Jeff likes those kind of girls because, you know, Tom and Joe would never have got those tall, skinny models. Oh, God. That shouldn't have came. You know what?

No more beer. Cut me off. No more beer. You're done. Here, let me change the channel for you here and just ask you about, at this time, like when See the Light is breaking, Jeff has a radio show on CIUT.

Yes. Was it Sugarfoot Stomp? That's his radio show on CIUT yes was it Sugarfoot Stomp that's his radio show he had two because he plays 78's his own collection he had a vast collection of like 78's incredible collection and the thing that with Jeff's collection was

I'm not sure this went in the book but him and Armin Ertegun in Clapton got into a discussion one day. And we were cutting a track called Making Georgia Blue, which we'd basically finished in Canada in our own studio.

But we were in L.A. at the Complex, I believe. And I'm laying down the drums, which was with brushes, which was a challenge because, you know, all I knew about a brush was how you comb your hair. I never really played with them. And I don't know this, but Mr. Erdogan and Clapton are in the studio while I'm laying this down.

And Jeff's walking me through it, and he goes, great take, first take, that was great. Come in, I go in, and there's Clapton and Mr. Erdogan, which thank God I didn't know they were there because I would have had two heart attacks instead of one. But what they're discussing is, I can't remember the track, but whether this particular track was on Decca or Bluebird from the 78 Air. And the next day, Jeff gets me out of bed, I don't know, 7 in the morning,

and the next thing I know we're up by Ventura in some barn, and Jeff finds this 78 to make his case and point and sends it over to mr so but does he he really knew his stuff for sure but does i always wonder like is there braille on these covers no no but i'm telling you man that guy knew like he could tell by the the the grooves the grooves on on the record but also the grooves on the neck wow and and you could go i mean i can't remember in researching the book how many journalists referred to the fact that when they'd be in Jeff's house or apartment at the time, how Jeff would just go find a record

and touch that groove and know exactly what the record was. That's amazing. I guess, but they say if you lose one sense, other senses become more optimized or whatever, I guess. Well, since we're on the subject, let's keep going. Jeff hated that. Now, I'll tell you why. In Europe, particularly, journalists will say,

well, the reason you play the guitar so good is because you're blind, so therefore you hear better and this and that. And he, like, man, when Jeff was angry, he would curl his hair and he'd bite his lip and he'd be like, I can tell you it was ticked. And after one day, I said, man, these last few interviews, you've been kind of a little surly with these guys and we're trying to break a record over here. What's bugging you?

Yeah. He goes, man, you come to the blind school, half these guys couldn't carry a note, let alone play a guitar. It is kind of discrediting his genius, his gift. I can see that. I think so. Absolutely. Yeah.

Now, do you speak French? No, I do not. No, do you have the grade 9 French that we all have? Yeah, but outside of Louis Vu, you can see Vecmo from the song, probably not so great. Now, my nephews are totally fluent, but things have changed, obviously.

How old are your nephews? 26. Oh, they're older. Yeah, 26, 28. All right, for everyone out there who has younger nephews or children who you want to watch their French

skills blossom over the summer this is really cool this is Camp Tournesol Camp Tournesol they've been providing French camp since 2001 if you have a child ages 4 to 14 they have a French camp for you i mean it's not just for

those who are francophone it's also for those in french immersion or even children with no french experience they have day camps and overnight experiences so go to camp t.ca camp t.ca to check out the uh the day camps the overnight camps the leadership programs they're brand new love my planet uh which is out of concern of leadership programs. They're brand new. Love My Planet, which is out of concern of the environment. This is a brand new camp they've introduced. Go to campt.ca, sign your child up for French camp, and use

the promo code Mike2019. Mike2019, you get $20 off, and then it lets Camp Ternus all know that you learned about their fine French camps from Toronto Mike. You've never met Nana Muscuri, have you?

Any Nana Muscuri ever? Yeah, have you ever met Nana Muscuri? No, I have not. But a comment on the French thing, if I may. Yeah, of course. You know, the whole immersion French and what you're just promoting there is fantastic.

And I wish it was around in our day. I actually wish the same thing. I grew up hating French because I had miserable French teachers who clearly hated their jobs. And I always wonder, what would have happened if I went to Camp Tournesol? It could have been a whole different approach to French. Let's talk about Hell to Pay. So Hell to Pay, this is the follow-up to See the Light, which of course

went platinum in the US, which is amazing. And it sold 100,000 copies here in Canada too. We should point that out too. And I know I bought one. Talk to me about... Firstly, never name an album Hell to Pay. Is that because in the southern US

they'll see it as blasphemous? No, because there was Hal DePay getting that record done. I mean to be candid. No, be candid. You shouldn't give me this beer. Let me start. I'm just going to play a little Jeff Healy

while we talk about it. Can you name that tune? It's Mark Knopfler's track mark knopfler from dire straits i think i love you too much tell me about uh working with mark i mean that's that's pretty cool mark knopfler from dire straits we met mark a couple times but we never actually played with him and he had literally written this track for us, which was, you know, are you kidding me? It's Dire Straits. They're probably the biggest band in the world.

They're all over MTV. In the book, though, what you'll see is, inadvertently, we kind of upset the team, his staff, his management, and I guess indirectly, Mark himself. Yeah, he was angry. Like you pissed off Mark Knopfler after doing his song. I don't know if we pissed him off, but we certainly,

his manager was a lovely fellow, also a drummer, played in the Naughty Hand Hillbillies with Mark. Great guy, we got along for years. But after being polite to me, I kept trying to figure out, we'd flown to England. And, you know, why is Mark coming to, we're supposed to, he's going to be in our video, which is huge. And the lay boat spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get us over there. And to the point where we even offered to get a helicopter to pick him up.

And basically the manager said to me, you know, in the end, Tom, maybe you should have thought about that. You guys are a bunch of, I won't get into the words you call this, but you might have thought about that before you turned down Mark's parts on your record. And after three days of quite back and forth negotiation, he finally just put it in our face that it's not going to happen, which, of course, was not well received at the label. And to Jeff's credit, I don't think Jeff did anything necessarily wrong.

I think Jeff felt that that's what suited the song for the Jeff Healy band, of which he was Jeff Healy of the Jeff Healy band. And what I tried to explain to the management at the time was, look, there was no offense meant here, but candidly, in hindsight, probably wasn't one of our smarter moves. No, but hindsight's 20-20. Always, always.

Yeah. Now, there's a couple of other rock legends. By the way, it still sounds great, and I can hear his parts. So that's Mark Knopfler. Now, there's a couple of other rock legends that we're going to dive into now. I think you know which two I'm talking about, but one in particular that I'll bring down, I think I love you too much, because I'm going to let Brian Gerstein ask you about this other rock legend who has a song on Hell to Pay. So this is Brian Gerstein. He's a real estate sales representative with PSR Brokerage,

and he's got a question for you, Tom. Hi, Tom. Brian Gerstein here, sales representative with PSR Brokerage and proud sponsor of Toronto Mike. Phase one of the Galleria Mall redevelopment plan and its condos are being sold exclusively by PSR. Contact me now by phone or text at 416-873-0292 to put you on my VIP first access list. We are targeting late spring to sell them with a 2023 completion date. They'll be both investor friendly priced and also ideal for end users. Tom, when I kicked out my jams with Mike, one of my top 10 songs was While My Guitar Gently Weeps. Just listening now to Jeff's version in 97 at the Montreux Switzerland Jazz Festival, and I'm blown away by his version.

I read that George gave his full support to it and offered any help, plus he contributed to your Hell to Pay album. Any interactions between Jeff, the band, and George would be appreciated as George is my favorite Beatle. It's a great story and a good question. I had asked the label if they could get to George Harrison to be on the record because we've been playing that song and we'd decided we'd love that to be a single. And the joke then became we were recording in Warren Heights just outside Montreal. And Jeff was a very good mimic.

And every once in a while he'd phone me at the band house and go, Tom, George, and it'd be, you know, it was a joke. Well, the second last day we were recording, the phone rings and go, Tom, George. And it'd be, you know, it was a joke. Well, the second last day we're recording, the phone rings and it's George Harrison. And I literally hung up thinking it was Jeff. Of course. Then he phones back. And he was such a sweet, wonderful man.

And he said, can't come up to play, but I'll be flying through LA and I'll be going in the studio with Jeff Lynn. Would you mind also if Jeff played on it? Are you kidding me? Jeff Lynn and George Harrison? I'm like flying through L.A. and I'll be going in the studio with Jeff Lynn. Would you mind also if Jeff played on it? Are you kidding me? Jeff Lynn and George Harrison? I'm like, hell yeah. And that's basically what happened.

And after he heard the track, he sent a beautiful letter to Jeff with his phone number saying, you know, if you're ever in London, please look me up. I'm a huge fan of you and you're one of the greatest guitar players I've ever heard. Wow. In London, please look me up. I'm a huge fan of you, and you're one of the greatest guitar players I've ever heard. Wow. And to me, and to all of us, Jeff wasn't as awed by stars. I think I was a little bit more starstruck because I really grew up on the Beatles and the Stones,

and those were things I just loved, so I couldn't even believe. Well, it doesn't get any bigger than Beatles and the Stones, right? Not for me. But you've got to understand, Jeff wasn't that amazed by them because to him, it was B.B. King and the Stones, right? Not for me. But you've got to understand, Jeff wasn't that amazed by them because, you know, to him it was B.B. King and Albert Collins.

So now, now, that all being said, some of the negative things that Jeff may have thought about, for instance, even in the Stones cases, years later he said to me, he finally got it. He goes, you know, I get what you're saying because I'd always say to Jeff, look, man,

I don't know if Jagger's the best singer in the world or Keith Richards is the best guitar player, but goddamn, they wrote Satisfaction. I mean, that's a rock and roll track. That's right. So obviously, George liked your cover of... Loved it, loved it. Let's hear a little bit of it.

Yeah. It's eerie to hear their two voices together That's George. You were diverting to me Is it true, though, that Jeff mixed the George Harrison part down so low you could barely hear it, and then you brought it back up? No, no. Well, yes and no. It wasn't that. Again, Jeff was the leader of the Jeff Healy band,

and he did what he felt was right for the Jeff Healy band. Now, we had been told by the label that, man, where's George Harrison and all this? So, you know, Jeff, to his credit, he conceded that and brought him back up in the mix. There's a remix on a thing I did back in 89 that a guy did on Arbor Records. And that remix has a lot more of George in it.

And it's a very incredible mix. I think it's on Legends or Tribute. But nevertheless, it's just an incredible track with George Harrison. I mean, you know, as a Canadian, I don't know if it gets better now, let me know.

No, and I mean, is there any, I mean, it's one thing to cover a Doors, a bluesy Doors song. Of course, we all know Roadhouse Blues, that's one thing,

but it's another thing completely to kind of take on a Beatles track. but the thing is it you guys killed with it like your Nick this is a song everybody knows and loves already and you put your own Jeff Healy band spin on it and it's like I said listen to these headphones right now kickin ass well you know it's interesting because again in doing the research a lot of the reviewers we'd literally to cover to cover record and and you know at that point interesting because, again, in doing the research, a lot of the reviewers, we literally did a cover-to-cover record. And, you know, at that point, candidly, we were a little bankrupt in terms of fresh material.

So, you know, that's the go-to. But, for instance, Stuck in the Middle got excellent reviews to the point that people were saying, man, that's maybe even better than the original. So taking on any classic cover is always tough. But again, this goes back to the brilliance of Jeff. He was a mimic, too, in his own way. He could really capture the essence of the track and then turn it into his style.

And heck, one of my favorite songs is the Creedence Crayrottle thing, Jungle, on cover to cover. There's a lot of great tracks on that record. Bingo. Bingo. It's my favorite song on cover. It's my favorite song of it all.

I think it's brilliant. I'm with you. It's the only song, in fact, I loaded into the soundboard here from this album. Man, you did your research, sir. You're not done. Would you like a beer?

Yes, actually, but I have too many things to do here. I can't get hammered. But, well, you know, I know we're skipping steps here, but why don't you just touch on, so talk about Run Through the Jungle, since I'm playing it here and you brought it up. Well, we were probably inundated with, you know, a hundred cover songs.

Oh, man. Probably inundated with, you know, a hundred cover songs. It's got that grimy, dirty... Already he owns it. Right there, just in that vocal, he immediately owns it. I mean, not to take... It's Creedence, but he owns the track. And is it fair to say that this covers album, because you guys, you don't have to write the songs on a covers album. It really was because of maybe some creative bankruptcy that you were experiencing

at the time? Yeah, yeah. I think there's a pressure on what is the next album. But originally it was going to be called Undercover and then it ended up being Cover 2 Cover.

But we'd never really played this track and it was just a natural. Again, Jeff got that swampy vibe to it, like the second we went in our studio. And the guitar solo was killer. And again, I mean, the versatility of Jeff's vocal, I mean, there's a prime example. I mean, he's just nailing something

that he probably didn't do every day. And yet here it is is you know just just killer now's a good time oh sorry go ahead well it's funny but i hadn't listened to our band in years to be very honest and this is one of the first records i pulled out to sort of work my way back into it it's a great record if i may say i mean everything jeff could do and did and was amazed at it's all there and for that matter actually the the man really steps up as well so it's a good record now to bring us back uh to where we were so i have to while my guitar gently weeps of george harrison that was a great

story but there's another uh well he did i mean that was a good story he wrote you a lovely note he loved what you did but you pissed off you pissed off a member of the Rolling Stones. Can you tell me about Jeff versus Keith? Well, again, I wasn't too aware of that until, who is it? I think it's Big Ben in the book. When Keith does the interview, apparently Charlie Watts, maybe having a little fun at everyone's expense, but what had happened was we had gone on stage and played

we'd open for them at the government and if things worked out in our favor apparently there was going to be a bunch of dates some in the States, some in Europe The Jeff Healy band would open for the Rolling Stones, amazing Yeah, we opened for them at the government here and by Amazing. Yeah, we opened for them at the government here. And by the way, when we opened for them at the government, it was home run.

Our hometown crowd, they went crazy. I looked up and saw Mick Jagger jammed in behind the speaker. One of the few times they dropped the drumstick. But when we came off stage, they went on and immediately brought Jeff up. And he sat in with them. And the major promoter at the time came to me and goes, it's a lock. You guys basically, you know, you're going to have some dates out of this. And they loved you guys.

We had already played with Keith over the years. And Ronnie Wood in different events and whatnot. So Keith and Jeff had talked several times. What happens is apparently, again, I can't attest to this. I wasn't there, but I do know the aftermath, which we were told not to come to the after party, so I suspect a few things happened in between, which was Jeff had made his way to Keefe's dressing room.

And again, there's no negativity here except that Keefe, unfortunately, was half-dressed. So Jeff is trying to drag Keefe off to Grossman's Tavern to go see how guitar players play guitar kind of thing. And I don't think that went over so well. I pulled a line from the book. The line was

this is from Jeff Healy we're going to go jamming at Grossman's and I'll show you how to play some real guitar. And then the insinuation is that Keith Richards was insulted. Well, I guess Jeff insulted Keith Richards' guitar playing and that, yeah, you got booted from the tour and the after party. So that's how... Now, when I read that, I want to be clear here.

I can't imagine Jeff telling Keith, I'm going to show you how to play a guitar. Now, again, read that, I want to be clear here. I can't imagine Jeff telling Keith, I'm going to show you how to play a guitar. Now, again, it's third party. I suspect what he was talking about is to see some great guitar playing. Now, in honesty, did Jeff think Keith Richards was probably the greatest guitar player in the world? As I said earlier, in the early days,

he was not a Stones fan. Later in life, particularly after we lost the tour and whatnot, he really actually became a fan of the Stones because all of a sudden he got it. And, and which is interesting because Jeff normally got all music, good or bad, but there were certain bands that he just didn't understand, you know, why they were out there. He just didn't get it. Yeah. And to his credit, he was a perfectionist. So to Jeff, a great vocalist was a great vocalist.

Keith Jagger, in his mind, wouldn't necessarily be on that register. But it's funny how several years later, and not right after the event, but a few years after, out of nowhere, we're having a couple of cocktails one day, and he starts talking about the Stones. And we got into this kind of metaphysical why there's greatness and why there isn't greatness and that conversation went into black music and it you know it meandered all over the place but to his credit he said you know i i get how great the stones really are as he as he got bob dylan which he didn't originally get although we covered the hell out of all the great Bob Dylan songs. Another thing to Jeff's credit is he was the first to catch on to hip-hop. When I heard hip-hop, I thought, well, I don't know what that's about.

He knew right away that that was going to be a huge music. And he said, Tom, think it through. It's really a reflection of the black urban community, whether it be jail based or, and he likened it to blues. Although blues originally came from the fields, you know, it migrated through Chicago and New York and the northern cities. And it was protest and it was, you know, heartache. And it was talking about the situation of that community in that environment in America at that time. And he nailed that day one. And that

took me a lot longer. Well, I mean, how dumb could I be? I'm telling Jimmy Iovine who cares about rap. Right. You're like, oh, this Tupac Shakur is going to be nobody. Well, no. Tupac I got. Tupac and Biggie were incredible. Now, I'm going to play,

this is a song written by Tom Petty that you guys recorded. I noticed the theme, though. A lot of songs recorded by the Jeff Healy Band have to do with eyes or sight. This is called Leave the Light On. Is this Leave the Light On? Lost in Your Eyes.

Lost in Your Eyes. Sorry, Lost in Your Eyes. It's been a while. A good video as well. We'll play a little bit like this. What album was that on? Hold on, that's on... It's the one before cover to cover.

Is it... Oh, it's... Feel this? Yeah. Yeah. Great track. Stood there waiting But I realized

You know, if I may say, I think what happens with our label at the time is I think Jeff's music was actually, there's some hits, hit after hit, on the next couple albums. What's happening though is you have grunge coming in and hip-hop coming in, and I think aren't paying attention to to the quality of music now it's not like we're all all of a sudden going to turn around and become a grunge band or or start doing

hip-hop and that's kind of sad but it's also you know that's that's the nature of the business um this is a great track there's another another one by Diane Warren called I Tried, which was a stone cold smash, but never saw the light of day. In fact, I ran into Diane recently and to this day, that's one of our favorite tracks. I think she's got a record for most Oscar nominations without winning or something like that. Yep, she just won now with the song for... Well, she got nominated.

Yeah, she got nominated. She didn't win for this. No, because Lady Gaga won with Mark Ronson and all that. But that's not Diane Warren, though. You're right, you're right. But she's nominated a lot, and she hasn't yet won that one. And in terms of top five, I think she's in the top three of all time.

I mean, yeah. I mean, even Aerosmith recorded a big hit with a Diane Warren song. But I want to ask you, have you ever heard the Tom Petty version of Lost in Your Eyes? No. You want to hear it? Hell yeah. So that's a great

jam right there. Lost in Your Eyes by the Jeff Healy band. Now hold on. Tom had recorded this. Never released, but he recorded it. Man, you're digging in. Okay, let's hear this. ¶¶ Light from a window Gold and in black

Sound from a dream I was hypnotized I was paralyzed I could hardly speak Baby Baby Baby You never realized

I could have stood there Lost in your eyes Stood there waiting And not realize Love isn't easy And isn't always kind But I could have stood there Love isn't easy and isn't always kind. But I could have stood there, lost in your eyes.

So he recorded that in 1974. 74. 74. What do you think? Love it. Ben Montant, the keyboard, you know, we didn't have a keyboard player, but that's wicked. Now, 74. You know, we didn't have a keyboard player, but that's wicked. Now, 74. You know, it's interesting, in terms of the mechanics of how we laid it down, it's pretty much

the same structure. And again, didn't know this. So what are you... I'm actually thinking, well, what the heck did they send us? Yeah, I was going to say, did you just get sheet music? No, no, they were like rough demos, but it certainly wasn't, you know. But this was an outtake, so this was never released. It should have been.

Brilliant. It's just seen the light of day. Recently, of course, there's been, as you can imagine, the appetite for Tom Petty rarities has soared in his passings. Yes, very sad, very sad. Again, one of the greats. I mean, we were blessed with the folks that were willing to help us out. I have a question from Basement Dweller.

That's how he signs his comments on the open mics on torontomic.com. Basement Dweller says he's been wondering about this for over 25 years. So no pressure, Tom, but this is a 25-year question Basement Dweller's had. Whose idea was it to include that rap from Junior John on the Feel This track, If You Can't Feel Anything Else? And was there a lot of blowback at the time from their core audience? Got our ashes kicked, and probably my idea. So I'll have to take that one on the chin.

You're taking one for the team here. Well, you know, in fairness, I have to because I think that was the play where you're trying to be relevant, and Jeff kind of actually got it. There wasn't a lot of blowback, but in hindsight, probably one of my dumber... Okay, here, in your defense, Tom.

Dumber ideas at the time. Do you remember the Rush song, Roll the Bones? Yeah. First, I still like Roll the Bones. Yeah. In the middle of Roll the Bones, there's a rap. Yeah. In fact, in the video, it's like the skeleton or whatever.

And I always felt like, okay, maybe this is a sign that, you know, rap isn't cool anymore or whatever, that Rush is doing it or whatever but I don't know, I just think Rush can do it, Jeff Healy band can do it I don't know You're also kind of reaching not to be you're reaching but it's not even being relevant

you're also trying to kind of give a nod to that this is a like this kid was great, and we respected him. So it's kind of like giving a nod to the kid at the same time, but it really didn't belong in our repertoire in hindsight. On the other hand, I like what you say,

because I'll give a C for effort. Now, oddly, while we're on Rush, which just happened recently, is I see that john males just come out with a new track and he covered our track called um evil and here to stay and why that just gobsmacked me was um evil and here to stay is one of my favorite blues tracks that we ever did as a band in fact we cut that with Paul Schaefer, and it was pretty much live off the floor. Now I see he's covered that, and who's playing

lead on that is Alex from Rush. Wow, there you go. So what a great tribute to Jeff and the band. So I'm going to ask you, just before we talk about sort of the end of the Jeff Healy band, and then, of course, sadly, Jeff's passing, there's an artist,

a great artist, had a number one hit in the States, I believe, sadly, Jeff's passing. There's an artist, a great artist, that had a number one hit in the States, I believe, Amanda Marshall. And there's a, tell me about, like, what does the Jeff Healy band have to do with Amanda Marshall? I don't think people know that story. Yes. Jeff had actually met Amanda Marshall a couple times,

I believe, at our shows and had invited her down, I believe, for a jam at Grossman's. She had come down with her dad, Doug, and Jeff was just really, really impressed with Amanda and had brought it to my attention, saying, look, we have this label, here's our next artist. We'd been working with a couple artists at the time, I believe the Phantoms being one of them.

And clearly we're caught up in our own career we're pretty busy and I believe we were on the letterman show we're just about to go on letterman and you know about to play in front of 20 million people and Jeff I don't know where we're waiting to go on says by the way you know have you gone out to see Amanda yet I'm like well like, well, geez, Jeff, I'm a little busy here right now. But he just loved her. And the consequence of that is we ended up managing her. And, you know, she went on to do big things. Well, she did big things, including one really big thing here,

which... Birmingham. Birmingham. Yeah. Which I think went to number one I don't think we hit number one but it was definitely a hit I don't believe it was one to be candid

I think she had in Canada I think she was one of the first artists every single she put out went top 10 wow get a little taste here great singer Every single she put out went top ten. Wow. Get a little taste here. Great singer. His wife remembers well the man she knew.

Seems the dream she had Of all turned black and blue She's wasted here No time for tears Cause there's another chance A Sunday soon Shining like the alabama Birmingham, Amanda Marshall. Now, at the end of, this is all in the book, of course, but there's a lot of great stuff in the book we haven't covered.

People should buy this book and just read this book. It's really cool. But it sounds like, to me, by the end of the Jeff Healy band's run, that Jeff doesn't seem to give a fuck anymore. Am I being too crass there? Like he just doesn't seem to have... I mean, there's even parts... Does he sell you like...

He sells you the song... Yeah, the catalog. The catalog? It seems like he's... He doesn't sell it. Well, carry on. Sorry, I don't want to hear from you. No, I want to hear from you.

No one wants to hear my voice right now, that's for sure. No, please. I think, and what's interesting for me right now is, in writing the book recently, I've heard from some of Jeff's close friends and peers, candidly, folks who weren't fans of mine. There tended to be, I guess, two camps and pro-band and maybe not so pro-Tom. What was telling to me in these conversations, which I've had a few, several actually,

is that what I didn't realize is Jeff was getting really burnt. You know, we were drinking, we were, you know, putting in crazy hours. And toward the end, probably going back actually even to like the late 90s, he was pretty much done with the thing. You know, it was over. His heart was, he wants to go out and do his big band thing. He wants to be playing some trumpet. And not that Jeff never was into his career, because he always was, but Jeff was not a guy who was impressed by stardom. In fact, one of the interviews that really struck me was where he's talking about, you know, here it is called the Jeff Healy band,

and yet I really couldn't care that much about, you know, who we're hanging out with or what stars we're with. And Jeff and, or pardon me, Tom and Joe want to be the rock stars. And, you know, in fairness to Jeff, that probably was very true. I mean, I think we had a lot more drive in let's make it and break it and get there. In the early days, don't get me wrong, Jeff definitely wanted to be in that. But I think toward the end, I would not go as far to say it was a fuck it, but it was certainly he'd had enough and he wanted to get on with his life.

Now, the good news in talking to some of these folks recently is my understanding is he did get on with his life and accomplished a lot of the things he really wanted to do and, you know, good on him. He, I mean, I had forgotten how, like, I knew he was very young when he passed, of course. It wasn't that long ago. When did Jeff pass away? How long ago? A couple of days ago.

Oh, wait. Saturday. But, second March, 11 years ago. 11 years ago. But,

he was 41 years old. Yes. He crammed a lifetime into a short span. 41 years old. Again, at the risk of maybe, you know,

having a little pullback here, but, uh, I believe death, Jeff knew his destiny was not going to be a long run. Uh, we had a track called, uh, uh, one foot in the gravel, uh, one foot in the grave. And I remember talking to him at the time, uh, about that track. And, um, Jeff didn't think he was going the distance, um, per se. And it wasn't until I kind of ran into some of my own issues recently that, you know, I ran into people who dealt with Jeff, you know, with that horrible disease he was dealing with in the end. And here's the remarkable thing.

Jeff was loved by these people, the medical professionals and whatnot. And more importantly, you know, he kept his humor. I mean, Jeff was, you know, I don't care what anyone says. I was there and anyone that doesn't like this, you know, maybe I had a beer, but piss off. Because the reality is I was there day one and I know what I know. Humor was the core of Jeff. And if you weren't on your feet, man, you got chopped pretty quick.

He, you know, he was a gangster and he liked to shake it up and he liked to, you know, mix it up. And he, he, he, he could be a bit of a shit disturber. I mean, he was the band leader and he had a, he had a, he had a brilliance about him that I've not met before since. Now look, you know, all, all the time you hear, you know, this artist was a genius. Jeff was a genius. And certainly, I'll talk to anyone and make this argument or point, no one played a guitar like Jeff Healy. And by the way, let's not forget his voice.

I mean, look at all those stylings that we've just gone through. The man had an incredible voice, and more importantly, he could adapt that. It was cancer that took his sight when he was less than two years old, and it was cancer that eventually took his life, and you alluded to that a moment ago, you alluded to it, but how are you doing? In the book I read, of course, you had your own bout with cancer. How are you feeling? I'm doing great, and the only reason I went in the book, again, Keith being Keith, what

happened was people had heard about it, and all of a sudden, you know, you're on death's door when you're not. And so that was really more to put that in there rather than have other people form the narrative. But it also was a real eye-opener for me. And by the way, I'm not even slightly suggesting I had to deal with what Jeff had to deal with. But what you do realize,

it's a very ugly disease. And, you know, I think having gone through it and still dealing with it, you realize, I don't want to say you realize what Jeff was dealing with, but you certainly have a different outlook looking back at things. And to Jeff's credit, as I say, cancer or no cancer, he's one of the bravest guys I ever knew. What was your relationship like with Jeff at the end? We didn't really have a relationship at the end, but I will say this. Again, Jeff phoned me a few times. And, you know, in writing the book, I'm at peace with the fact that me and Jeff made our peace. Now there are others who would debate that, and again, you know,

everyone's entitled to an opinion. Candidly, part of the reason I wrote the book was I was getting tired of everyone else's opinion at three levels, forgetting Tom, Stephen, but the band's legacy was being kind of remanufactured, for lack of a better terminology. And that was wrong. And the music was getting lost, and some of the music wasn't, and the curation was being misrepresented.

And here's the most important part. Conversations that I would have about great guitarists whether i was in the states or canada or europe or wherever uh you know jeff's name would always come up and i started seeing in the last few years jeff's name was getting lost and that was just unacceptable you have this you know first off we are proud canadians regardless of our history of having to go to the states or whatever uh canadian flags were on all our gear. We used Canadian gear wherever we could. And anyone had asked us, no, we're not American, we're Canadian. And we were proud of that fact. And here's this Canadian icon all of a sudden getting lost to history. And I just wasn't prepared to stand by and let that happen.

Now it can be argued, sure, I'm a founding member and I have a bit of ego in this, but what cannot be argued is the greatness of Jeff Healy. There's been no one like him before, no one like him since. And when I heard Tom Cochran doing a private show, and I was actually thinking of not putting the book out, I was getting cold feet. And Tom out of nowhere at a private show in Halifax, maybe 100 people, starts talking about Jeff Healy and tells these great stories. Gary Scrutton says, Rhodey, at the session.

And when I look around, I see Gary. And I'm like, ah. But Tom doesn't know I'm out there. And he ends it by saying, why the fuck isn't Jeff Healy in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? And that was the closer for me. As soon as I heard that, I was like, this book has to go out. And we went out and hung out after. And Tom gave us our first national tour.

He gave Amanda Marshall her first national tour. I have a lot of time for her. I think she's one of the greatest rockers to come out of Canada. And when Tom said that, that was good enough for me. Again, it's a great book, and I'm glad that you're out there uh flying the flag and uh reminding people that jeff healy kicked ass beyond above and beyond and and and it'll be a national disgrace

if we don't get this guy's recognition and it's that simple and that brings us to the end of our 439th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. But Tom, you're not on Twitter, are you? I couldn't find you on Twitter. No, no. I will be apparently in two weeks. In two weeks' time, you'll find Tom Stephen on Twitter.

Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery. There is a Facebook. What's a Facebook? Just search Tom Stephen. Stephen's PH, by the way. Yeah, Tom Stephen, I think Jeffrey. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Propertyinthesix.com is at Raptor's Devotee.

Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair is at Fast Time WJR. Paytm is at Paytm Canada. And Camp Turnasol is at Camp Turnasol. See you all next week. is kind of rosy and gray. Yeah, the wind is cold, but the snow wants me today. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine.