One year ago, Congress defunded public media. Now that we're 100% community funded, please become a sustaining member or increase your existing membership today.
This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
Lighters Held High: Music Biz Legend Don Kirshner Dies
Don Kirshner, a commanding musical authority, groundbreaking rock n' roll publisher and visionary television producer died yesterday of heart failure in Boca Raton, Florida. He was 76 years old. The multi-industry mogul launched songwriting talent in the 1960s, made the Monkees the Monkees, and gave a non lip-synced, live-music stage to many pre-legends of the 1970s on his late-night TV series "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert."
Bronx-born Kirshner reportedly "met Robert Cassotto at a candy shop in Washington Heights and the two wrote songs together, including Cassotto's first single, My First Love, which he recorded under the name Bobby Darin, reports NPR.
With publisher Al Nevins, Kirshner co-founded Aldon Music in 1958. Darin's "Splish Splash" went Top 10 that year and Aldon scored top songwriting teams Carole King/Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil, and Neil Sedaka/Howard Greenfield, notes NPR. Kirshner launched Dimension Records, sold Aldon to Screen Gems/Columbia and then became president in 1964. There, Kirshner began conceiving of a musical television hybrid. Enter: the Monkees and The Archies.
Kirshner later became the executive producer for ABC-TV's "In Concert" series in the early 1970s -- featuring The Allman Brothers Band, Alice Cooper, Curtis Mayfield and similar caliber performers -- before launching his own syndicated concert show in 1973 bringing in the likes of the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Ramones, Sly & the Family Stone, Black Sabbath, ABBA, Sparks, Devo, Kansas, Lynyrd Skynyrd and, "countless others over its nine-year run," notes the L.A. Times.
Kirshner remained active in the music industry until the end of this life through music publishing and with a company called Rockrena but expressed disappointment that he was not inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of its many nonperformer honorees. "I don't want to sound like sour grapes," he said in 2004, notes the L.A. Times, "but I believe I should have been one of the first three or first five inducted. Seriously. I mean, they've got people in there that I trained, and I'm not in? It bothers me, on principle."
One year ago, Congress voted to defund public media, eliminating a critical $1.7 million from our budget every year going forward. But they couldn’t silence us, and we’re not going anywhere. LAist is now 100% community funded and that means we’re taking our future into our own hands and turning to you to keep local reporting strong.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our nonprofit newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our communities. We are free to follow facts wherever they lead and to hold power to account without fear or favor. Our only loyalty is to our readers and listeners and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen Southern California’s communities.
If this story helped you, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief
