Famous American singer, guitarist Timothy Todd Shea enthralled Peshawarites

F.P. Report

PESHAWAR: Famous American singer, guitarist Timothy Todd Shea along with the winners of the National Youth Carnival (NYC) singing competitors and Pashto singer and Rabab master Shahid Malang enthralled the sitting spectators during the Musical Night concert organized by Directorate of Youth Khyber Pakhtunkhwa here at Nishtar Hall on New Year’s night.

Timothy Todd Shea is doing for running a worldwide charity under the name of Comprehensive Disaster Response Services (CDRS) that is providing quick, efficient and compassionate medical and humanitarian relief and disaster recovery operations to the people living in the disaster affected areas of Pakistan, with concentration of efforts on Mother & Child Health and assistance to special patients.

Todd Shea’s music career was started soon after 9/11 and he devoted his life only for charity and services to the humanity. A former crack addict, Shea became addicted to a new kind of high – disaster relief. In the past 10 years, he has found himself at ground zero of the world’s worst natural disasters – the Asian tsunami in 2004, Hurricane Katrina and the Kashmir earthquake in 2005, the earthquake in Haiti and the Pakistan floods in 2010, and the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011.

Shea has also become an unlikely ambassador for Pakistan-U.S. relations. Before 9/11, he had never met a Muslim and knew nothing about Pakistan or Islam. “I was totally ignorant, didn’t know about the hatred out there. My life was about drugs and music,” Shea says. “It’s hard to care if you just don’t know,” he added.

Living and works in Chikar, a mountainside village in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and is the founder and executive director of Comprehensive Disaster Response Services (CDRS), which provides primary healthcare to 200,000 Kashmiris, as well as other Pakistanis affected by disaster, who would otherwise have limited access to healthcare. CDRS employs more than 80 people across its nine medical centers, and has treated nearly 500,000 patients since 2006.

“Before going to Pakistan, I remembered people would tell me you’re nuts for going over there; you’re going into the belly of the beast,” Shea says. “The people I met in Pakistan were good, decent human beings, who happened to be Muslim,” he adds, “If every American could spend one week in Pakistan, they would never have a problem with Pakistan,” he remarked.

“I’m using music to promote understanding,” he said, adding, “I have assembled American and Pakistani musicians in an initiative called Sonic Peacemakers to offer a different perspective and to share what is universal.”

Bulky Shea, 45, is 5-foot-11-inches, has a beard and red hair, and looks more like a lumberjack than a healthcare manager or cultural ambassador, also sung Dil Dil Pakistan besides mingling with the sitting spectators. He along with Shahid Malang compelled the sitting spectators on their toes and received thundering applauses on their performance on Guitar and Rabab, a combination of famous Pashto instrument.

“I love to visit Peshawar, the people of Peshawar and whole of Pakistan are so sweet, near and dear to me,” Shea said. Shea is in constant motion, ready to meet anyone who can help him procure medicines, raise funds or promote understanding, his guitar and a plastic shopping bag of essentials in tow. Shea was born in Howard County, Maryland in 1966.

Besides Mr. Shea and Shahid Malang, the winners of National Youth Carnival recently held in the City, have live performances. “The aim and objective of the event was to provide international platform for the youth who got position in the National Youth Carnival singing competitions to come and show their skills,” Director General Youth Asfandiyar Khan Khattak told media.

“We have already chalked out a plan to have more and more activities for the youth and inviting Todd Shea is aimed at to give our youth a chance to performance side-by-side with internationally famed singer,” he added. The Musical night was largely attended by people from different walk of life including a good numbers of families.