Don Kirshner

'I'm a Believer': A Playlist for the Late, Great Don Kirshner

If you think Don Kirshner was just some guy who Paul Shaffer impersonated -- brilliantly, I might add -- on Saturday Night Live, you would be very wrong. Kirshner -- sometimes known as the Man With The Golden Ears -- was a central figure in the Brill Building era that brought the world lots of the most sublime popular music of the 20th century written by the legendary likes of Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, to name just a few.

"They were the gods," Neil Diamond once told me of those Brill Building greats, and Don Kirshner was the man who signed the gods, or as Neil once called Kirshner, "The Mayor of the Brill Building. " ( Readmore... )

Don Kirshner: 1934-2011

If you grew up in the ‘70s, before the advent of MTV, rock music on television was a rarity.

We got “The Midnight Special” on NBC after “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” on Friday nights. We got the musical acts on “Saturday Night Live.” There was the occasional oddball booking on a variety show or Tom Snyder’s “Tomorrow.”

And we got “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.” ( Readmore... )

Don Kirshner, Rock Producer and Promoter, Dies at 76

Don Kirshner, who guided the course of Brill Building and bubblegum pop in the 1950s and ’60s as a music publisher and promoter, and later served as an Ed Sullivan for 1970s artists like Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, Kiss and the Ramones with his weekly program “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert” on television, died on Monday in Boca Raton, Fla. He was 76. The cause was heart failure. ( Readmore... )

Don Kirshner, Songwriter and Monkees Musical Director, Dead at 76

Don Kirshner, the businessman and songwriter who helped create the Monkees and launch the careers of several iconic performers, died Monday in Florida. According to a press release, the 76-year-old passed away from heart failure.

Known as "The Man With the Golden Ear," Kirshner was born in 1934 in New York City. He entered the music business in the late '50s as a manager for singer Connie Francis, but soon transitioned into providing what he saw as the industry's most pressing need: connecting performers with songwriters. ( Readmore... )

Courtesy : The Huffington Post , Trib Today , The New York Times & Spinner