Shin Joong-hyun

In 1957, when he was 19 years old, Shin made his debut at a U.S. military base in South Korea, one of the few places where South Korean musicians could find regular work at the time. Shin had been inspired by the American rock, jazz and, later, psychedelic rock he heard on the American Forces Korea Network radio station.[6] Using the stage name Jackie Shin, he gained immense popularity performing on bases, and was performing up to 40 shows per month at one point.[5] Shin later said that the U.S. military bases were where Korean rock was born.[7]

Shin released his first album, Hiki Shin Guitar Melody, in 1958. The album included original songs in a variety of styles, covers of traditional Korean music, and covers of the hit American instrumental songs "Honky Tonk" and "Green Onions."[7] Today, the album is highly valued by record collectors, and a copy of the original vinyl record was worth an estimated 10 million KRW in 2016.[8]

In 1964, Shin's rock band Add4 released its first album, The Woman in the Rain.[9] Add4 is considered to be South Korea's first rock band.[5]

However, Shin did not achieve mainstream success in South Korea until 1968, when he produced the album My Dear for the singing duo The Pearl Sisters.[10] The album, which included the hit songs "My Dear" and "A Cup of Coffee," was a huge success and went on to sell more than 1 million copies.[11] For the next several years, Shin wrote songs and produced hit records for young musicians including Kim Chu-ja, with whom he made the album Before It's Too Late. Many of these recordings featured Shin's trademark psychedelic soul sound.[12]

In 1972, the office of South Korean president Park Chung Hee asked Shin to write a song in praise of the president. Shin refused and instead wrote a 10-minute long song about the beauty of South Korea, called "Beautiful Rivers and Mountains," which he recorded with his band at the time, Shin Joong Hyun & The Men.[13] After the release of the song, police confiscated Shin's guitars and cut his long hair, which was banned at the time by the South Korean government.[5] However, in 1974, his new band, Shin Joong Hyun & Yup Juns released their self-titled first album, which sold over 1 million copies and included the hit song, "Beautiful Woman."[14]

In 1975, Shin was arrested for possession of marijuana after giving away a plant to a friend of the president's son,[15] even though marijuana was not yet illegal at the time of his arrest. He was subsequently imprisoned and tortured. He was later imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital.[5] After his release, Shin was banned from performing in South Korea, until after the assassination of Park Chung Hee in 1979. Regarding the assassination, Shin said, "God took Park and opted to save me."[15] However, in the meantime, the public's taste in music had changed, according to Shin. "It was all, 'Let's work hard,' and 'Let's be happy' kind of stuff. It was completely physical, with no spirit, no mentality, no humanity," he later said.[7] Because he could not perform, he turned to producing and song-writing, among other occupations.

During the 1980s, Shin ran a music club in Itaewon, a Seoul neighborhood popular with foreign visitors and U.S. military personnel. He opened Woodstock, another music club, in southeast Seoul in 1986 and ran it and taught there for the next two decades.[7] In the 1990s, Shin's music experienced a renaissance of popularity in South Korea.[6] Cho Kwon Woo, Shin Hyo Bom and Bom Yarom Kaul Kyou recorded new versions of his songs, as did his son, Shin Daechul.[15]

Shin announced his retirement in 2006. His "farewell" concert aired over the course of 10 nights in December of that year on South Korean television station EBS.[16] However, Shin returned to the stage in 2008 for his first concert in the United States at the Korean Music Festival at the Hollywood Bowl.[6]

In 2010, he became the first Asian musician and the sixth in the world to be the recipient of a Fender Custom Shop Tribute Series guitar, joining Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Eddie Van Halen, Yngwie Malmsteen, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Shin had used Fender guitars for much of his career.[17] The following year, in 2011, Seattle-based Light in the Attic Records released the first U.S. pressings of Shin's music.[18] He was honored by Berklee College of Music with an honorary Doctor of Music Award in 2017.[19]