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.