Search Details

Word: lieberson (lookup in dictionary) (lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first (reverse)


Usage:

Since 1967, when he stepped aside for his protégé Davis, Lieberson had been toiling in the highest echelons of CBS, Columbia's parent organization, as a senior vice president. Now back in his old territory, he was somewhat appalled. If the record business had finally nosed past the movies as the biggest entertainment medium in the U.S., it had also begun to tilt dangerously out of control. "I came back," says Lieberson, "because I didn't want to see something I'd been building for 25 years go down the drain...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Music: New Day at Black Rock | 12/31/1973 | See Source »

What did worry Lieberson right at the start was the shortage of vinyl now beginning to hit the industry hard. Vinyl, known in the trade as PVC (polyvinyl chloride), is the chemical byproduct of crude oil from which records are made. As a result of oil shortages, Columbia has been forced to suspend its $1.98 Harmony pop label; it also trimmed its November output by postponing several releases until 1974. In general, the industry will probably have to opt for greater selectivity in its releases-or, as Lieberson puts it, "an end to buckshotting-throwing everything against the wall...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Music: New Day at Black Rock | 12/31/1973 | See Source »

High Bidding. Lieberson was also concerned that the record world seemed to be "drinking that fatal glass of beer" that many movie studios had taken-a switch in emphasis from artistic control to mere entrepreneurism. Like other large record companies, Columbia under Davis had moved more and more into the distributorship of smaller labels (Stax, Philadelphia International, Monument), more and more into high bidding for established stars (Neil Diamond and Laura Nyro for multimillion dollar deals) and less into its own experimentation and development of talent...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Music: New Day at Black Rock | 12/31/1973 | See Source »

...Lieberson's response has been a subtle reassertion of the record company's authority and artistic conscience, largely through the tone, personality and authority of his own presence. "I don't doubt that there were times when record companies exploited artists," he says, "but it had come to the point where the artists were exploiting the record companies." The first to get the word was Bob Dylan. One of the label's superstars for more than a decade, Dylan came up for contract renewal last month and found that he could no longer write...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Music: New Day at Black Rock | 12/31/1973 | See Source »

...Lieberson's first moves after taking over was to give a push to an already conceived twelve-LP package devoted entirely to black composers from the 18th century to the present. Further, Columbia's February release will feature new American music by Leon Kirchner, George Crumb and Morton Subotnick. Lieberson has also given the green light to record everything ever written by Charles Ives...

Author: /time Magazine | Title: Music: New Day at Black Rock | 12/31/1973 | See Source »

Previous | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | Next