Lehigh’s Grammy Stars

By Stephen Wilson February 02, 2023

It’s called music’s biggest night, and one award in the hard-to-obtain quadruple EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony).

The Grammy Awards happen on Feb. 5. Meet a couple Lehigh folks who have been there as winners and talent promoters.

The Winner
Jon Kaplan ’91
Owner,Big Stuff Records
Owner, JFK Mix
Urban studies with minors in British literature and music

Lehigh Days
While a saxophone player in high school, Kaplan became a bass player and performed in several cover bands at Lehigh, jamming each weekend at local bars and fraternity parties. He helped Miles Davis load in his band’s gear for a show at Taylor Gym and enjoyed watching the trumpet genius from a front-row seat.

Post Lehigh
Kaplan knew he wanted to play and was working to form a group, but his parents weren’t on board. So he took his LSAT and held a paralegal job, but he says, “It was all a ruse. It was just what I did until I developed the band.” In 1992, The Hatters joined the world of jam bands, which included groups like Spin Doctors, Blues Traveler, and Dave Matthews Band. The group was signed by Atlantic Records, released a few albums, and toured. But they never reached the acclaim that some other jam bands found then. Kaplan understood that six percent of the success in the marketplace paid for 94% of the costs in developing artists. His side job had him assist in recording high-end clients under the mentorship of award-winning producers Phil Ramone and Neil Dorfsman. By this point, his parents were on board and helped back a loan so Kaplan could buy a digital recording system and start his own studio.

Grammy Awards!
For 25 years, New York City was his home base. Then he moved out to Los Angeles in 2013, where his network grew even wider as well as his opportunity to write music for film and television. As a mixer, Kaplan works to maximize the creative intent of an artist by combining all of the elements, both creatively and technically. “I am the last pair of trusted ears,” he says. Kaplan has been nominated for a Grammy eight times and a voting member for nearly two decades. While the pop market is incredibly competitive, the opportunities in a number of other categories is far more diverse. His nominations have come from work done with soul, reggae, and Christian artists. His win was for Zach Williams’ Album of the Year, Chain Breaker, in 2018. For that year, the usual LA-based ceremony was held instead in New York City. Kaplan didn’t travel but celebrated the news on the beach in Santa Monica.

Today
He is working on a Christmas album for Jimmy Fallon and new work by artists like Indio, Upsahl, and Henry Lau. For the big 2023 Grammy ceremony, he won’t say who earned his votes, but he is impressed by the work of Harry Styles, King Princess, and Kendrick Lamar.

Check Out
Here’s Kaplan’s list for some of the best mixed music:

Pat Benetar, “Love is a Battlefield”
No Doubt, “Hella Good”
Rage Against the Machine, entire eponymous album
Counting Crows, “Long December”
Rolling Stones ,“You Can’t Always Get What You Want”

The Marketer
Jeff Kilgour ’96
Senior vice president, business development
The Syndicate, entertainment marketing agency
Business major with focus in finance

Lehigh Days
While he interned at Smith Barney and Morgan Stanley, each Friday night he was playing drums at the Tally Ho with his band, Fifteen Minute Parking. The group also played rock covers at fraternity parties. He even went yacht rock, softening the sound in order to get gigs at campus cocktail events.

Post Lehigh
When Kilgour graduated, the Wall Street life was before him but he took a detour. “My dad worked on Wall Street and died of a heart attack when he was 42 years old,” he says. “That wasn’t my path.” Instead, he sent his resume to every A&R representative listed in a directory. Paradigm Records replied. He commuted two hours each day for an internship there. Soon he hustled hard enough that he created a job for himself. That area of music soon was spun off into his own talent roster, called the Tijuana Gift Shop. In 2014, Kilgour merged his shop with The Syndicate, an independent entertainment marketing agency.

Grammy Awards!
Kilgour prepares artists for their quick yet monumental moment in the sun: the red carpet. He works on talking points, tips, and timing as an artist arrives and navigates the carpet, stopping to talk to a number of outlets, including Access Hollywood, E!, Rolling Stone, MTV, and the Associated Press. Over the years, Kilgour has had many clients nominated in a variety of categories. In 2022, he was working with Mon Laferte, a multiple-Grammy nominee and winner. Just weeks after the birth of a child, she was at the ceremony, where she shook off the exhaustion from being a new mother and riveted the audience with a performance of her song “La Mujer.”

Today
He is watching the industry shifts. While many performers are gaining popularity in diverse ways, like home studio productions or TikTok fame, many brands are doing it the old-fashioned way. “Labels do still care about artist development and know that it doesn’t happen overnight,” he says. “That probably makes me sound like an old curmudgeon, but labels are still working to listen to and create artists.” Kilgour, who left New York City after two decades and now calls Long Beach, California., home, says that the scene there reminds him of Brooklyn in the 1990s.

Check Out
“There is a reason some artists rise to the top,” he says. Check out a few from this year’s nominees that he says are the real deal.