shaneowens

At the young age of five, Shane Owens' parents gave him a set of drums, and at age six he started singing in the church choir. The choir had members of all ages, but the youngsters powerful voice drew most of the attention, especially on his favorite hymns, like I'll Fly Away.

While Owens was still quite young, his father, who was also a singer, and his mother separated. Owens and his older twin sister, who were born exactly one minute apart, stayed with his mother, who never missed the Saturday night broadcast of The Grand Ole Opry out of Nashville.

Country music was always playing in the Owens household. Artists like Don Williams, Keith Whitley and Ricky Skaggs were often heard, while George Jones and Vern Gosdin became particularly influential in Owens' work.

During high school, sports and other school activities took up most of his time, but after graduation in 1990, Owens found a guitar teacher, the highly acclaimed Shelly Commander, and put his focus back on music. Commander immediately recognized Owens' talent and put him to work playing in Commander's band on the weekends. The band line-up changed three of four times, but Owens always remained a member.

He won the Jimmy Dean Country Showdown State Competition in Alabama two years in a row in 1995 and 1996 and made it as far as the national semi-finals. He first went out on his own in 1996, when he and his backup band played the Civic Center in Ozark, Alabama with Conferderate Rail Road. Not long after, Owens married. He and Lisa are now the proud parents of two boys, ages three and eight and he still calls Alabama his home.

Owens, now 35, never stopped performing. He has shared the stage with many of Country's top artists, including Hank Williams Jr., Lori Morgan, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Kenny Chesney, Pam Tillis, Ronnie Milsap, Billy Dean, Keith Urban, Exile and dozens of others, while touring all over the South. The tracks on Owens' Rust Records CD are the best he has done thus far. He wrote seven of the 13 tunes himself, while the remaining tracks were written by his various music industry friends.