Canadian rocker Jeff Healey dies of cancer

OTTAWA (AFP) - Canadian blind rocker Jeff Healey, who uniquely played his guitar flat on his lap, has died of cancer on the eve of his latest album release, his publicist said in a statement.

Healey, 41, died in a Toronto hospital of a rare cancer, retino blastoma, that he had fought since birth and which claimed his eyesight at the age of one.

"Visually, Jeff was an intriguing player to watch, because he played guitar -- by any conventional standard -- all wrong, with it flat across his lap," his publicist Richard Flohil told broadcaster CTV on Sunday.

"But he was a remarkable, a virtuoso player."

The Jeff Healey Band's 1988 Grammy-nominated album "See the Light," which included the hit "Angel Eyes," sold more than one million copies in the United States. READ MORE
 

BBC: Hells Angels sought to kill Jagger

LONDON - Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger escaped an assassination plot hatched in 1969 by the Hells Angels, a new British Broadcasting Corp. documentary has claimed.

A program to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Monday says the rock star was the target of the plot following a purported dispute with the motorcycle gang over concert security.

Jagger had vowed not to use Hells Angel members as bouncers following the death in December 1969 of an 18-year-old fan at a notorious free performance at Altamont Speedway in Northern California.

In return, gang members hatched a plan to kill Jagger at his holiday home in Long Island, New York, the BBC claimed.

"The Hells Angels were so angered by Jagger's treatment of them that they decided to kill him," Tom Mangold, the presenter of the program, was quoted as telling Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper. READ MORE

Singer of British Invasion Band Dies

Los Angeles (E! Online) - There weren't many bands that rivaled Beatlemania in 1964. The Dave Clark Five was one of them.

Mike Smith, the lead singer of the hard-driving British Invasion group, died Thursday in a hospital near London, less than two weeks before he and his bandmates' scheduled induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Smith was 64, and had been in compromised health since 2003 when he suffered a spinal cord injury that paralyzed him below the ribcage. He was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday with a chest infection.

"He was extremely excited and honored to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame," his agent Margo Lewis said in a statement, "and I am glad that he will be remembered as a Hall of Famer, because he was in so many ways."

The Dave Clark Five's hits included "Bits and Pieces," and "Glad All Over," which knocked the Beatles' "I Want to Hold Your Hand" from its No. 1 perch on the British charts in 1964.  READ MORE