Tom Stephen - Best Seat in the House: My Life in the Jeff Healey Band

TOM STEPHEN
with KEITH ELLIOT GREENBERG

Somewhere between Foxboro and Boston, the bus began to rock from side to side.

I was an hour or so into a rum-induced sleep, head aching as the glare from the overhead lights pushed against my eyelids. For the Jeff Healey Band, it was just another night, rolling down the highway. But something about the feel of the tour bus, shaking and shifting lanes on that icy patch of I-95, told me that, even in the twisted world of rock n roll, this wasnt normal.

Falling out of my bunk, I looked down toward the front of the vehicle. Wed had problems with our drivers before. Once, in the middle of a blizzard, I caught one guy doing lines of coke on the steering wheel. I understood his thought process; after hanging out with rock stars, he believed that he could get just as screwed up, even if it meant killing the whole band and himself. Now I saw his replacement sitting over on the wrong side of the bus.

What the hell is he doing there? I wondered, still partially asleep. Are we still in England?

Through the fog, I heard the drivers voice speaking in a soothing Texas drawl: Thats good. Just hold her steady. Youre doing great. Really good, Jeff.

Jeff?

Jeff Healey was the centerpiece of our band, the best blues guitarist in the world, a man who could match and sometimes outclass Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Clapton by sitting down, opening the case of his Jackson doubleneck on his lap, and stretching his big fingers over the strings.

He also happened to be blind.

Strangely, at that moment, I wasnt too worried about Jeffs disability my bigger concern was whether hed been drinking or not. Either way, it was my job to put out the fire. Not only was I the Jeff Healey Bands drummer. I was the comanager. When shit happened and a blind guy driving a 20-ton bus would definitely qualify as shit happening the grown-ups expected me to fix the problem.

Even if, in some instances, Tom Stephen was the reason for the problem in the first place.

In this case, I quickly concluded, there was nothing I could do; I was along for the ride. When Jeff was at the wheel, both literally and figuratively, he yielded it to no one. From the moment hed lost his vision and his eyes to retinoblastoma, a rare cancer that starts in the light-detecting cells of the retina, he feared nothing. Every discouraging diagnosis was taken as a challenge. At one point, I knew someone must have told him that he couldnt drive the tour bus.

It was the wrong thing to say.

Because of my unique position in the band, Jeff was in the habit of defying me like a rebellious teenager. Whatever went wrong with the record company, the tour schedule, even the airlines always seemed to be my fault. But we looked at our band as a family and, when others came after us, no one was more loyal than Jeff.

Before we cracked the United States, we toured our native Canada from sea to sea, waking up to snowdrifts that came in through the windows and walls. But with each frigid stop, our reputation grew. During a long stretch in Vancouver, we settled in at a hotel attached to a nightclub complex that featured strippers during the day and rock n roll after dark. The manager was a lovely, petite Chinese woman who treated both the talent and the customers with grace and courtesy.

We all felt protective of her, particularly Jeff.

One night, we were jamming onstage, eying a group of soldiers boozing it up pretty good. They were getting loud and becoming a nuisance. But wed had plenty of nights like that ourselves, and werent in a position to judge. Then one of the assholes crossed the line, grabbing the manager and tearing off the arm of her coat.

That was enough for me. I jumped over the bass drum and flew into the crowd. These guys must have seen me coming, because they grabbed me, pushed me up against a beer keg and started putting a pretty good whomping on me.

Suddenly, I heard Jeffs voice, a few feet away. Tom? he yelled. Tom, where are you?

One of the soldiers had his hands around my neck. Im here, I wheezed. Right here.

Jeff took a moment to gauge where all the players were standing. Then he lifted his cane and whacked my attacker.

Boom. Boom. Out go the lights. The soldiers bros looked at him, then looked at Jeff twitching slightly, still waving his cane. The crowd went silent pregnant pause then broke into laughter and applause.

Holy fuck, somebody said.

The army had been taken out by a blind guy.

Jeff was able to get away with this because he honestly didnt think of himself as handicapped. And sometimes the fans werent sure, either. He was big and handsome and jumped around all over the stage like a maniac. He wore a pair of artificial eyes and was very particular about the color. At one gig, a girl told him that he had beautiful eyes. After that, he had friends bring him to the guy who hand-painted his eyes in Toronto to ensure the shade remained consistent. The strategy worked. The girls all thought he was cute. And our music hit hard, so the rocker guys dug him, too.

Steve Lukather, a session musician whos performed on more than fifteen hundred albums, was hanging out with the band after a show when Jeff decided to play a practical joke on him.

Luke, come here, Jeff began, calling Steve by his nickname. I think I have something in my eye.

When Steve bent down to check, Jeff began scratching his glass eye with his fingernail. It traumatized me, says Lukather, whos best known for his work with the band Toto. I tripped out. He was something else as a man and a musician.

I was touring with Edgar Winter who had his sight issues himself and Id try to get to Jeff by banging on his hotel room door and running away. One time, he came out in his underwear and yelled, Fuck you, Lukather. I can smell you.

Wed be jamming with the biggest names in the world, and Jeff always managed to grab the spotlight. And I mean the biggest names in the world. I remember drumming behind Jeff, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Ron Wood. It was a kickass jam with exchanges of blistering solos. Jeff was in his zone, blowing everybodys mind. The other musicians gathered around Jeffs chair, watching him blast away. And as they came closer, I began counting because I knew what was coming.

Three, two, one...

Kaboom! Jeff exploded out of his chair, practically knocking the other guitarists over. It was if hed gone bowling for rock stars and hit a perfect strike.

His technique was original to him, remembers Slash of Guns N Roses, especially at that time. Playing the guitar flat on your lap with two hands on the fretboard was something no one had seen at that time. He was a true phenomenon.

The first time we landed in L.A., the most beautiful women wed ever seen were throwing themselves at Jeff. One was brilliant and came from a storied family in the music business. The bass player, Joe Rockman, and I were completely jealous. We shouldnt have been. Jeff wanted nothing to do with her.

Since Jeff was so tactile, he liked a certain type of woman one who, to put it delicately, he could reach around and feel. The wider the better. If you were some bony model or actress, you were out. If you were nice and round, you stood a pretty good chance.