Word: lieberson
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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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...
...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...
...collection of President Eisenhower's speeches, from D-day to his announcement of seeking a second term, already has sold 5,500 copies at $3.98. Book publisher Doubleday started its Dolphin division pressing records by sophisticated theater, nightclub and television stars. Last week Columbia Presi dent Goddard Lieberson, who induced CBS Chairman William S. Paley to back Fair Lady, took the company's headiest step yet. He issued a recording of the complete dialogue from the surrealistic play, Waiting for Godot, starring Comedian Bert Lahr...
Producer of these two recordings was Columbia's new President Goddard Lieberson (TIME, Oct. u, 1954). Sitting behind the control-room glass in cotton jersey and slacks, he rolled in his chair, clutched his brow, his breast, his colleagues' arms, while demanding one take after another. His problem with Fella was simplified by the fact that the nearly continual music supplied almost all the required atmosphere, from the rowdy, Italianate folk-type songs to the entr'acte hit, Standing on the Corner, to the show's one deeply felt song, Warm All Over. Even so, there...
Despite the fact that the record business seems to have recorded everything of major interest, past and present, Lieberson sees a bright future. Next week, with The Confederacy under his arm, he is off on a tour of the South, the U.S.'s weakest classical-record market. Says he: "I don't think the potential for selling records has even been touched...