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Shawn Lane
photograph by: Carl Johan Grimmark
Born	March 21, 1963
Died	September 26, 2003
Genre(s)	Rock
Affiliation(s)	Black Oak Arkansas
Years active	1977 - 2003
Official site	Shawnlane.com

Shawn Lane (March 21, 1963 – September 26, 2003) was an American guitarist and composer. As a young guitarist Lane showed a lot of promise.^{[citation needed]} He quickly became a noted player in underground guitar circles and joined Black Oak Arkansas when he was just fourteen years old.

He is best known for his solo album Powers of Ten and his long stint with former John McLaughlin bassist Jonas Hellborg.

Contents 1 Career 2 Death 3 Discography 4 References 5 External links

Shawn Lane was born in Memphis, Tennessee. At the age of eight he accompanied his sisters on the piano, but did not play guitar seriously until he was ten. Lane progressed very rapidly on the guitar, and he found it to be his natural instrument. At thirteen, he began to practice heavily, developing his technical abilities. Word began to spread around Memphis about a talented young guitar player, and at fourteen he auditioned for the lead guitar spot in Black Oak Arkansas. Black Oak Arkansas had been a popular country rock band but at the time when Lane joined the band's popularity was declining. At age fifteen Lane saw Allan Holdsworth perform at a UK concert and was inspired to develop his own method of playing guitar. Shawn toured with Black Oak Arkansas for the next four years. As the original band members dropped out, Lane began recruiting players from his high school days and began to play a style closer to fusion than the country rock style the band was known for.

At eighteen Shawn Lane was married and burnt out from touring with Black Oak Arkansas so he decided to take a break and learn more about music. Over the next eight years he studied music and composing on his own and mainly worked on playing piano. Much of the material on Powers of Ten was written on his piano as Lane considered it his main writing instrument.^{[citation needed]} He began to create demo tapes which garnered interest from Warner Brothers Music and Lane was offered a recording contract. Except for one cover song, Lane wrote all the material and played all the instruments on his debut album. Lane's first album did well and earned several magazine awards.^{[citation needed]} During the production of the album Lane continued to play live shows and did session work. He also performed on the Mark Varney Project's Centrifugal Funk album along with Brett Garsed and Frank Gambale.

Lane released two more solo albums following his debut. A live version of Powers of Ten titled Powers of Ten Live! and The Tritone Fascination. When Lane met Jonas Hellborg a musical relationship was formed. They both enjoyed classical, rock, Pakistani, and Indian music. Lane and Hellborg played with drummer Jeff Sipe in a jam band commonly referred to as HLS. Sipe was already well known in the jam band scene, and helped the trio get exposure all over the world.^{[citation needed]} Later, Lane and Hellborg formed an East-West fusion band with Indian musicians V. Selvaganesh and Umamahesh. Lane's last concert performance was played at Smilefest in North Carolina with Hellborh and Jim Britt.

Lane had psoriasis his whole life and also suffered from psoriatic arthritis from the age of about 13. This did not impair his playing but caused difficulty walking, and required treatment with steroids which affected Shawn's weight. He also smoked constantly. On September 26, 2003 Shawn died in a hospital in Memphis, shortly after being told that he would have to remain on medical oxygen the rest of his life. He is interred in the Memorial Park Cemetery, Memphis.

Solo:

• 1992 West Side Boogie (Promo Single)
• 1992 Powers of Ten
• 1999 The Tri-Tone Fascination
• 2001 Powers of Ten: Live!

With Jonas Hellborg:

• 1996 Temporal Analogues of Paradise
• 1997 Time is the Enemy
• 1999 Zenhouse
• 2000 Good People in Times of Evil
• 2002 Personae

• ShawnLane.com