Don Kirshner

Early life

Don Kirshner was born to a Jewish family in The Bronx, New York, the son of Gilbert Kirshner, a tailor, and Belle Jaffe. He graduated from George Washington High School in Manhattan, and went on to study at Upsala College in East Orange, New Jersey. After graduation he went to work for Vanderbilt Music, a small music publishing company owned by former Tin Pan Alley lyricist Al Lewis. Kirshner brought Lewis together with Sylvester Bradford, a blind African-American songwriter. Lewis and Bradford wrote Tears on My Pillow, which was a big hit for Little Anthony and the Imperials in 1958.

Aldon Music

Kirshner achieved his first major success in the late 1950s and early 1960s as co-owner of the influential New York-based publishing company Aldon Music with partner Al Nevins, which had under contract at various times several of the most important songwriters of the so-called "Brill Building" school, including Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Neil Sedaka, Neil Diamond, Paul Simon, Phil Spector, Howard Greenfield, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil and Jack Keller.

As a producer-promoter, Kirshner was instrumental in launching the careers of singers and songwriters, including Bobby Darin, with whom he collaborated on a number of advertising jingles and pop "ditties" - their first was called Bubblegum Pop. He was also responsible for finding Neil Diamond, Carole King, and Sarah Dash of Labelle, as well as discovering the occasional rock act, such as Kansas.

Don Kirshner's record labels

Kirshner had three record labels. The first was Chairman Records, a subsidiary of London Records. Although he was responsible for scores of hits in the 1960s, he was only to have one on the Chairman label – 1963's "Martian Hop" by The Ran-Dells – which reached number 16 nationally. Kirshner later had two other record labels: Calendar Records, which had early hits by the Archies, and later morphed into the Kirshner label, which had later hits by the Archies and Kansas. Calendar/Kirshner recordings were first distributed by RCA Records, then CBS Records. Kirshner was also involved in Dimension Records.

The Monkees

In the early 1960s, Kirshner was a successful music publisher as head of his own company, Aldon Music, which later was sold to Screen Gems-Columbia Music. With Al Nevins, Kirshner brought performers such as Bobby Darin together with songwriters and musicians. He'd later became president of COLGEMS, a subsidiary of the COLPIX label, in 1966.

Kirshner was hired by the producers of the Monkees to provide hit-worthy songs to accompany the television program, within a demanding schedule. Kirshner quickly corralled songwriting talent from his Brill Building stable of writers and musicians to create catchy, engaging tracks which the band could pretend to perform on the show. This move was not because of any lack of the Monkees' talent but was required in order to keep up with the demanding schedule to churn out ready-to-go recordings to give each week's episode its own song. While Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork were already experienced musicians – and Davy Jones was an established musical performer – as a working band, they had little experience; and Micky Dolenz was completely new to drums. Each Monkee was retained for vocal duties but they did not actually play instruments on the records.

The formula worked phenomenally well – the singles "Last Train to Clarksville", written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, and "I'm a Believer" and the first two Monkees albums were produced and released in time to catch the initial wave of the television program's popularity. The lead guitar on "Last Train To Clarksville", "Valleri" and the Monkees theme was written and played by Louie Shelton. After a year, the Monkees wanted a chance to play their own instruments on the records. They also wanted additional oversight into which songs would be released as singles. Further, when word belatedly came out that the band had not played on the first season's songs, a controversy arose, and the public expressed a desire to hear the television stars perform their own music.

The matter reached a breaking point over a disagreement regarding the Neil Diamond-penned "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You" in early 1967. The song's release by Kirshner as a single without Columbia Pictures' consent, led to his dismissal. The planned B-side was replaced with "The Girl I Knew Somewhere", a song written by Nesmith and performed by the Monkees. They also performed on the next year's recordings, which were featured in the show's second season.

Kirshner's later venture was the Archies, an animated series where there were only the studio musicians to be managed.

Kirshner served as a music consultant or music supervisor for almost two dozen TV series between 1966 and 1977, such as Bewitched.

Producer

From 1970 to 1979, Kirshner served as producer or executive producer for a number of made for TV movies, TV specials, and TV series.

Don Kirshner's Rock Concert

In the fall of 1972, Kirshner was asked by ABC Television to serve as executive producer and "creative consultant" for their new "In Concert" series, which aired every other week in the 11:30 p.m. slot normally showing The Dick Cavett Show. The following September, Kirshner left "In Concert" to produce and host his own syndicated weekly rock-concert program called Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. With its long-form live performances, as compared to rehearsed, often lip-synced performances that were the staple of earlier television shows like Shindig!, it was a new direction for pop music presentation. The last show aired in 1981, the year that MTV was launched.

The program presented many of the most successful rock bands of the era, but what was consistent week-to-week was Kirshner's deliberately "flat" delivery as the program host. In its final season, Rock Concert was mostly hosted by Kirshner's son and daughter, whose delivery was the same as their father's. Kirshner's "wooden" presentation style was later lampooned on Saturday Night Live by Paul Shaffer, most notably in Shaffer's introduction of the Blues Brothers during the duo's television debut. Shaffer and Kirshner worked together on the short-lived situation comedy, A Year at the Top, which Kirshner co-produced with Norman Lear, and in which Shaffer starred.

In the Blue Öyster Cult song "The Marshall Plan", from the album Cultösaurus Erectus, Don Kirshner's voice is sampled to introduce the fictitious Johnny: "This is Don Kirshner. And tonight on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, a new phenomenon in the music world – with six million albums to his credit in just two short years, my good friend, here's Johnny!"

Later career

Kirshner received the 2007 Songwriters Hall of Fame Abe Olman Publishing Award. He was a creative consultant for Rockrena, a company founded by Jack Wishna, and launched in 2011 to promote new music talent online. He died of heart failure in a Boca Raton, Florida hospital on January 17, 2011, at age 76, survived by his wife of 50 years, Sheila; his son, Ricky; daughter, Daryn Lewis; and five grandchildren.

On April 14, 2012, Don Kirshner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.