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Jeff Healey: Have Guitar, Will Sit

Ted Drozdowski, Musician, March 1989

JEFF HEALEY is the most unorthodox guitarist since Stanley Jordan. He plays seated, most of the time, with his guitar flat on his lap. As his right hand picks and strums, his left scrabbles like an angry arachnid across his Strat's strings. All five fingers form bar chords and hammer, and his thumb and three consecutive fingers spell out nimble leads. He bends steel wire like putty, pushing or pulling with equal ease. And when the mood hits, he locks his thumb behind his axe's neck and tugs with two fingers to neatly lift his notes two whole steps.

Total word count of piece: 3159

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