Jeff Healey: Heal My Soul (Warners)

Blind blues guitarist Healey – who died in 2008 – would have been 50 this year and these previously unreleased songs confirm he was in a class of his own (Mark Knopfler, George Harrison, Benmont Tench and many hardcore black blues musicians happily played alongside him).

A Canadian, he had jazz and the sound of old 78rpm records in his soul, but couldn't be confined to any genre.

This collection -- which includes a scorching and simmering version of Richard Thompson's I Misunderstood -- delivers searing, straight-ahead post-Hendrix playing so if you had him pegged as a bluesman here in places he is a convincing, incendiary rocker.

Not too late to discover him.

For more on Jeff Healey including an archive interview see here.