He wrote his most famous song, "Beautiful Rivers and Mountains," in protest of the military dictatorship of Park Chung Hee in 1972.

[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.

[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.

During the 1980s, Shin ran a music club in Itaewon, a Seoul neighborhood popular with foreign visitors and U.S. military personnel.

His "farewell" concert aired over the course of 10 nights in December of that year on South Korean television station EBS.

[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.

[19] Shin was married to Myeong Jeong-gang, the first South Korean female drummer and a member of Blue Ribbons, until she died on March 23, 2018.

The president of the college said that Shin "helped build the foundation upon which the global success of South Korean popular music rests.