Shawn Lane - one of the great unrecognized talents in the music world

[Sam]

If you asked me who the most influential person in my life was, I'd have to say Shawn Lane (1963-2003), a guitarist, musician and polymath from Memphis Tenesse. As well as having  the most mindblowing technique he had a beautiful sense of melody and phrasing, and as well as playing fast could play beautiful slow music as well. He had an insane piano technique, without ever having lessons and largely teaching himself, able to play demanding works by Liszt and Chopin by ear. He knew everything about eveything, reading up to a 100 books a week and with his phographic memory able to memorise everything effortlessly, and so could extemporise on astrophysics, evolutionary biology, anthropology, classical music, all other forms of music.

He was an expert on films, and had seen pretty much every film ever made, able to talk extsensively on all the classics and say the lines along with the actors after only see a film once. He once sat down at a piano and played three parts of a Bach fugue whilst singing the fourth. He could write his address with one hand and his phone number with the other, at the same time. He knew everything about butterflies, too. He had 400 Charlie Parker records and could sing the head of every Parker tune on record. He modelled his guitar playing on Art Tatum and Conlon Nancarrow.

In the last few years of his life he became obsessed with South Indian Classical music (Carnatic music) and in an amazingly short period of time (considering Indian classical musicians train for 20 years or more) assimilated the style, phrasing his guitar based on the sound of Indian vocalist and taking the inspiration of the approach to the instrument from U. Srinivas (a celebrated Carnatic musician who plays an electric mandolin and mimics the ornamentation of Indian vocalist using slides and glissandi).

Unfortunately there is a sad touch to his story. He was beset by health problems, suffering from arthiritis in his knees which required lots of steroids which made him gain a lot of weight. He was unable to walk easily and as such could not exercise and so couldn't lose weight. He also had psoarisis all over his body and chain smoked, meaning at the age of 40, he died from complications after lung surgery. He lived in relative obscurity, known only to a hardcore of guitarists, and never had any money.

Despite his sad life, his approach to art and life in general was truly inspirational. If I could ever get to a small fraction of his knowledge or ability I would be happy. He was a genius in the true sense of the word, who brightened up the life of everyone he came into contact with. A warm, gentle, shy and humble spirit. RIP Shawn.

The evidence:

The slow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZzQCP2EWx8

The fast:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVVyi-DuwMQ

The composition:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/4uztad

At the age of 23, having only played piano for 5 years, and having taught himself he could do THIS on piano:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McvuvO37JAs

(out of tune piano though, eek)

And most importantly, the Indian influence:

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-2176170446421645510&q=shawn+lane+joris&total=1&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

And to top it off, probably the most beautiful bit of improvised playing I've ever heard from 2.40  - 6.50 in this clip (the whole thing's good, but that bit in particular is incredible):

http://www.sendspace.com/file/g2hrlq