The Musical Businessman: GODDARD LIEBERSON

MUSICIANS make the best businessmen. I’d much rather be represented in a business deal by Stravinsky than any lawyer you could name.” So says Goddard Lieberson, 47, the handsome, debonair president of Columbia Records. Lieberson ought to know. He is a musician (piano), composer (more than 100 pieces), novelist (Three for Bedroom C) and top-notch businessman. He has made Columbia the biggest seller of long-playing record albums (which now account for more than 70% of all records sold) and doubled its sales (now more than $50 million) since he took over as president.

In few other businesses is public taste so fickle, the worker so temperamental, the unexpected so common. Lieberson’s gift is that he thrives on all three. “This business is like running a gambling house,” he says. “You’ve got to cover yourself in all directions.”

To cover himself, Lieberson pushed Columbia’s lead in LP recordings, put out the recording of South Pacific that was a milestone in the popularity of recorded musicals. He expanded the recording frontier to include such non-musical offerings as the I Can Hear It Now series (more than 500,000 albums sold), founded the Columbia LP Record Club, the nation’s first and now its biggest (more than 1,000,000 members) record club. When the stage production of My Fair Lady was searching for a backer, Lieberson persuaded Columbia Broadcasting System, owner of Columbia Records, to put up $250,000, not only struck gold on the show but began minting it when Columbia’s Fair Lady album became the industry’s biggest all-time LP hit (2,500,000 copies). Yet he does not hesitate to record what he considers worthy productions, e.g., Waiting for Godot, that are aimed at small audiences and are potential money losers.

Lieberson often personally supervises the making of records, listens to every Columbia release. Elegantly dressed, usually in a grey suit and a custom-made tie, he gets equally enthusiastic over such diverse works as The Chick, a raucous new recording that spoofs rock ‘n’ roll and pop records, and Ages of Man, Sir John Gielgud’s new readings from Shakespeare. Listening to Johnny Desmond’s recording of Bye Bye Barbara, a song about a jilted boy, he joked: “A little masochism goes a long way.” He has no patience with the selling semantics of his trade, once cracked: “All this business of ffrr and FDS is just slogans, like ‘It Floats,’ for Ivory soap. Do you know what it is? I don’t.”

Since he believes that musicians develop sharp business brains through constant bargaining with orchestra leaders, managers, recording companies, etc., Lieberson has put musicians in charge of his chief divisions. He hired Mitch Miller to run the popular-record division “despite the whoopdedoo because he was an oboe player and wore a beard.” He gets along famously with artists (“I like creative people”), has lured many of them to Columbia, partly because, as Richard Rodgers says, “Goddard and his people make you feel a little more appreciated.” Lieberson has a good ear for trends—though he can sometimes prove hard of hearing. He thought rock ‘n’ roll was an undesirable and fleeting fad, refused to record the tunes till Columbia had lost millions of sales. As a result, RCA led Columbia last year in total sales because of its lead in 45-r.p.m. popular “singles.”

Born in Staffordshire, England, the son of the owner of England’s first rubber-heel factory, Lieberson started his career by studying classical music after the family moved to the U.S., went to the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. He composed everything from a symphony to pieces for a string quartet before deciding that a composer—at least of his caliber—”could not make a living in the U.S.” He took a $50-a-week job with Columbia just a few months after CBS bought it. Later, as Director of Masterworks, Lieberson almost single-handed built up Columbia’s skimpy catalogue of classical works to compete with first-place RCA Victor. He was made executive vice president in 1949, president in 1956, now earns a salary of $70,000 a year, plus benefits that bring it to about $100,000.

Married in 1946 to Dancer Vera Zorina (his second), Lieberson likes to be a friend of the famous, is an untiring name-dropper. He was delighted when Rosemary Clooney substituted his name for Franklin Roosevelt’s in her recording of How About You?, came up with: “And Goddard Lieberson’s looks give me a thrill.” Now Lieberson is guiding Columbia into stereophonic sound, this year is planning 200 stereo albums. He is convinced that stereo is a logical refinement of LP rather than another technological revolution, that what is put on records is still more important than how it is put on. Says he: “We are willing to put out the records on spaghetti if that’s what the technology calls for.”