Music exec Don Kirshner is dead at 77. He made several contributions to Pop music, primary being one of the founders of the Brill Building. The Brill Building was an office where professional songwriters turned out material for various singers including artists who recorded for Phil Spector and the Motown label and later songs recorded by the Monkees. Staff writers at the Brill Building included Neil Diamond, Burt Bacharach, Neil Sedaka and the songwriting teams Boyce/ Hart, Weil/ Mann and Gerry Goffin & Carole King. Most of the Brill Building staff writers also had major success recording their own material.

In 1967 Don Kirshner compiled a second Monkees album, More of the Monkees without the knowledge of the Monkees which led to a falling out and the Monkees wanting more artistic control. Don considered the Monkees fools for wanting to record and choose their own material which began veering into Psych Pop and Country Rock and had he stayed in control the Monkees may have wound up recording Sugar Sugar.

It might have actually been to the Monkees' benefit to record Sugar Sugar. The song is considered a great guilty pleasure song to many musicians. Wilson Pickett recorded a version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrZluYnMJUY and Lou Reed once said he wished he had written it and that the Velvet Underground had put a version on their Loaded album.

Don cut his losses and licensed the images of Archie comics for a new animated series and manufactured band the Archies to great success. Don preferred this project because "Cartoons don't fight back."

In the 70's Don singed Kansas to his record label and launched the series Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. Among the artists who appeared on the show were Black Sabbath, the Ramones and the New York Dolls.

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