The Musical Businessman: GODDARD LIEBERSON

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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.

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."