Apart from singing and composing, Shahidi was also an exceptional player of the oud, an 11-stringed form of Persian lute. He had collaborated with renowned masters of Iranian music such as Jalil Shahnaz, Faramarz Payvar, Ali Asghar Bahari, Hossein Tehrani, Rahmatollah Badiei, Hassan Nahid and Mohammad Ismaili and was a master of performing traditional regional songs. The famous ballad "Zendegi" with the verse of "An negah-e garm-e to" is by this artist.

He started his career in radio with the program called "Artesh" (Army) in 1957 and later found his way to the famous program "Golha" (Flowers). Shahidi was arrested after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and was sentenced to four months in prison by the Revolutionary Court of Isfahan on charges of "being a spy for Savak," the secret police of Iran during the Pahlavi dynasty. He was permanently barred from musical activities afterwards.

Shahidi, like many other Iranian artists, left Iran after his imprisonment and went to the United States. But he returned to Iran after a few years and continued to live in Iran in an unwanted and forced isolation.

In the past two decades, some music circles in Iran have paid attention to him, and even some of his works were aired on the radio after a long ban. This resulted in harsh reactions from some government-affiliated media, including the Kayhan and Jomhouri-e Eslami newspapers. They warned against the presence of Shahidi in music. His silence and isolation continued until the end of his life.

Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Iran's late, famed and preeminent singer, talked about Shahidi at the 11th anniversary of House of Music: "He is a great singer and I have kissed his hand many times. I have much respect for him and I feel inadequate to be the one to give him an award. Forgive me, maestro.”

Houshang Ebtehaj also said of him: "Shahidi has always been my ideal image of an artist. I could always rely on him as an artist, on his artistic ethics and on his human ethics."

Shahidi was born in 1922 in Meymeh, Isfahan province. He began with music in the early 1940s. He learned singing, dulcimer and oud with Ismail Mehrtash. His famous compositions include "Yar-e bivafa" and "Ay Soozeh." Shahidi covered pieces by Aref Qazvini, such as "Gerye ra be masti bahane kardam" and "Gerye kon."