Promoter brought golden ear to TV for ‘Rock Concert’

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

Don Kirsh­ner, a rock promoter and music publisher who helped garner hits for the make-believe groups the Monkees and the Archies and boosted the careers of Billy Joel, Neil Diamond and the Police, has died. He was 76.

Promoter Jack Wishna, a friend and business associate, said Mr. Kirshner, whom Time magazine once dubbed “The Man with the Golden Ear,” was in a hospital in Boca Raton being treated for an infection when he died on Monday.

“Donny Kirshner would take a kid off the street ... and turn him into Neil Diamond, Carole King, James Taylor, on and on,” Wishna said.

The Bronx-born promoter started off in the business as a songwriter, penning “My First Love” for Bobby Darin. But he had more success in tapping songwriting talents like Diamond, King and Neil Sedaka.

Mr. Kirshner’s tunesmiths were tapped in the 1960s to create music for a group manufactured for TV: the Monkees. They became a huge sensation in both the TV and the rock world and had hits including “I’m a Believer,” which Diamond wrote.

Mr. Kirshner also was behind the music that made magic for the Archies, based off the comic strip characters, including the classic “Sugar Sugar.”

His 1973-81 TV series “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert” gave national exposure to musicians including Joel and the Police. The show boosted careers of comics including Billy Crystal, Arsenio Hall and David Letterman.

Paul Shaffer, later Letterman’s musical director, did deadpan imitations of Mr. Kirshner on “Saturday Night Live.” Shaffer and Mr. Kirshner worked together on a short-lived sitcom, “A Year at the Top.”

Pop singer Tony Orlando, whom Mr. Kirshner hired for $50 a week to record demos, said his mentor was like the Thomas Edison of music. “Every dream I ever had as a kid, he was my genie,” Orlando said.

Before he died, Mr. Kirshner was chief creative officer of Rockrena, a company launching this year to find and promote talent online.

AP