Pašo Šabanović from Zenica is a vital seventy year old man who is engaged in music for almost five decades. The last few years Pašo has been living in Sarajevo and his skillful guitar playing, almost every day, brings a smile to the faces of passerby in the most visited street in Sarajevo, Ferhadija. Pašo is not a beggar who wants to earn by playing the guitar, but he is a humanist and a great man whose goal is to make a better day of every passerby.
Author: Tarik Jažić
At the end of the 60’s, this extremely interesting man has formed one of the first rock bands in Zenica called “Peridia”. He says, his parents prevented him to continue making music because they thought that it was “gypsy” job, but he never gave up on his hidden hobby and during retirement he decided to come back to his first love – music.
Even he had many offers to perform in the famous Sarajevo cafes and in that way to entertain people, Pašo refused those offers because he believes that music is for the every man, not only for the special one. It should not make distinctions between rich and poor, his music is made for everyone! There is also an anecdote that first day in Ferhadija he was approached by an older couple with the question of whether he needs donation. Pašo smiled to them and said that he does not beg, he only wants to make a better day of each passerby in that street.
He never separates from his small and modest musical equipment. His black backpack is big enough to put in it an amplifier that he has received like a gift, a little folding chair, an old CD player that attaches to the amplifier and several of his CDs. On his Fender guitar Pašo makes a beautiful songs every day. He is also the songwriter and he made a music for many local singers. During the war, he wrote several patriotic songs. The most famous was “My Bosnia”, which was written by the desire to convey a message to all the peoples who lived during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to do not go from their homes and to stay and live together in harmony with the others.
(Source: glasnaroda)
