KIRSHNER
American. Owned by publisher / producer Don Kirsher, the man
behind the Brill Building songwriting team as well as the Monkees and the
Archies, the Kirshner label had a longer life in the USA than it did over
here. It appeared in the States c.1969 and kept going until c.1980;
over here it only came on the scene in 1977. Before that time its
products had been licensed to other companies: to RCA until c.1974, and to CBS /
Epic from then until 1977. Under its own name it only entered the
British Singles Charts once, with 'Carry On Wayward Son', by Rock group Kansas
(KIR-4932; 1978), which had been issed the year before on Epic
(EPC-4932). Kirshner's singles, of which there weren't many, had a
KIR prefix, and they shared their numbering with the singles of the other
CBS-group labels. British Kirshner made its exit at the same time as
its American counterpart, when Don Kirshner retired from the music scene.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.