Aldon Music

Aldon Music was a New York-based music publishing company, founded by Don Kirshner and Al Nevins in 1958. Aldon is regarded as having played a significant role in shaping the so-called "Brill Building Sound" in the late 1950s and 1960s.

Nevins was a music industry veteran with "money, reputation, experience and connections". He had been a member of a popular instrumental trio The Three Suns for over twenty years and was also the co-writer of their 1944 hit "Twilight Time", which sold over three million copies. At the time Aldon was founded, Nevins had recently been forced to leave the group due to heart trouble.

Kirshner, who was many years younger than Nevins, had recently achieved some success in partnership with singer-songwriter Bobby Darin, although they did not work together for long. Seeking to break into publishing, Kirshner approached two major songwriting teams, Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman and then Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller before convincing Nevins to become his partner.

Aldon enjoyed enormous success in the late 1950s and early 1960s with scores of hits written by its contract songwriters, who included the renowned duo teams of Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield and Carole King and Gerry Goffin.

Aldon established Kirshner as a major music publisher and was the springboard for even greater success. Aldon Music also owned a record company, Dimension Records. Kirshner and Nevins sold the company to Screen Gems for a substantial sum in 1963, leading to subsequent successes with The Monkees and The Archies.

References

Emerson, Ken
"Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era"
(Viking Penguin, 2005)
ISBN 0-670-03456-8