Shawn Lane died last week. He was one of my biggest musical heroes.
Unless you’re a particularly voracious fan of guitarists or non-mainstream music, you probably won’t have heard of him. Shawn was, first and foremost, a hugely talented guitarist, but he also excelled at piano and drums. He had a tireless interest in music, whether classical, jazz, rock or the Carnatic music of southern India, and this informed his rich compositional style, as did his vast knowledge of film, literature and other art forms.
The guitar magazines and message boards always tended to focus on his technical ability, but more importantly, Shawn seemed to have developed the physical aspect of playing guitar to such a point where it ceased to be an issue, eliminating the barrier between inspiration and musical expression. Listening to the (largely improvised) albums he recorded with Jonas Hellborg, I always get the feeling I’m hearing music direct from someone’s brain, unaffected by physical limitations.
I never got to see Shawn play live. To my knowledge, he only played in Britain a couple of times, in March 2001. I didn’t even know about it until long afterwards, thanks to the skewed values of this country’s music media. Oh well. I could easily have seen Shawn and Jonas on one of their many European jaunts, but you always assume there’s going to be a ‘next time’, don’t you?
He’ll be missed.