Atlanta, GA,
05
August
2014
|
10:50 AM
America/New_York

Songwriters Collaborate with Shepherd Center Military Patients to Write a Song about Their War Experience

More than 200 Shepherd Center patients and their families attended the second annual “Songs for Shepherd” concert featuring music performed by Georgia and Tennessee songwriters. The event featured a song the performers co-wrote with Shepherd Center military patients.

The July 2014 event, which was sponsored by Choate Construction, also included dinner catered by Low Country BBQ and served by 30 volunteers from Choate. Shepherd Center music therapist Thomas Miller hosted the concert.

Georgia songwriters John Allison, James Casto and Carole Ford performed their music along with Nashville songwriter JP Williams, who writes for Garth Brooks’ publishing company, Major Bob Music. The songwriters came and spent the day at Shepherd Center, jamming with patients and SHARE Military Initiative clients participating in music therapy with Thomas. SHARE is a comprehensive rehabilitation program for military service personnel who sustained brain injuries and/or PTSD in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The group actually wrote a song with the SHARE clients. (Click on the link above at left to hear the song.) One of the clients came in to the “writing appointment” with poetry of his war experience, and the group crafted a song around it and performed it at the concert that evening.

“It was a beautiful song, and the show was uplifting and inspirational for the patients,” says Shauna Collins, a Nashville-based development manager for the Shepherd Center Foundation.

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About Shepherd Center

Shepherd Center provides world-class clinical care, research, and family support for people experiencing the most complex conditions, including spinal cord and brain injuries, multi-trauma, traumatic amputations, stroke, multiple sclerosis, and pain. An elite center recognized as both Spinal Cord Injury and Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems, Shepherd Center is ranked by U.S. News as one of the nation’s top hospitals for rehabilitation. Shepherd Center treats thousands of patients annually with unmatched expertise and unwavering compassion to help them begin again.