Jon Tiven

Jon Tiven
Jon Tiven - Live in Concert
Background information
Born	(1955-01-03) January 3, 1955 (age 62) New Haven, Connecticut, United States

Jon Tiven (born January 3, 1955, New Haven, Connecticut, United States) is an American composer, guitarist, record producer, and music journalist. He has produced albums by Wilson Pickett, Frank Black and Don Covay as well as a series of tribute albums paying tribute to the songwriting of Don Covay, Arthur Alexander, Otis Blackwell, Curtis Mayfield, and Van Morrison.

He was a founder of the bands The Yankees and The Jon Tiven Group. Tiven began his career as a music journalist in the late 1960s, writing for Rolling Stone, Fusion, Melody Maker, and a host of other magazines. Initially an alto saxophonist, he taught himself to play a variety of instruments and became fairly adept at guitar, enough to write songs and accompany himself. After a brief flirtation with higher education at Yale University and Sarah Lawrence College (1972–74), he dropped out to pursue his musical career. In 1975 Tiven went to work for Chess Records in New York, but quickly saw that working inside a record company was not his calling, and travelled to Memphis to produce Alex Chilton's first solo album, Bach's Bottom.

Upon returning to New York, Tiven licensed the Chilton masters as well as other Memphis recordings he had made to Ork Records, the first New Wave/punk rock label. He soon split to produce for Big Sound Records, where he produced records by Van Duren and his own band The Yankees, but losing faith in those running the label he became totally independent. In addition to playing on sessions for artists such as Major Lance ("I've Got A Right To Cry") and The Rolling Stones ("Jivin Sister Fanny"), Tiven honed his craft as a member of The Jim Carroll Band, as a guitarist/organist and also co-writing with Carroll the title song of the second album (Dry Dreams). Befriended by John Belushi, he formed The Tom Davis Experience featuring Al Franken with the two comedians, and had a featured acting role as well as writing five songs for their film One More Saturday Night (Columbia Pictures, 1986) produced by Dan Aykroyd.