Background
Lieberson, Goddard was born on April 5, 1911 in Hanley, Staffordshire, England. Son of Davis and Rachel (Lewis) Lieberson.
composer critic business executive
Lieberson, Goddard was born on April 5, 1911 in Hanley, Staffordshire, England. Son of Davis and Rachel (Lewis) Lieberson.
Student of University Washington, Eastman School Music. Honorary doctorate, Temple University, 1957, Cleveland Institute Music, 1965, Lincoln College, Illinois. Doctor of Hebrew Literature, U. Rochester.
He became president of the Recording Industry Association of America in 1964. They had two sons: Peter Lieberson, a composer, and Jonathan Lieberson. Before becoming president of the company, Lieberson was responsible for Columbia"s introduction of the long-playing record.
The LP was particularly well-suited to Columbia"s long-established classical repertoire, as recorded by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Artur Rodziński, Dmitri Mitropoulos, and Leonard Bernstein.
He was promoted to president of Columbia Records from 1956 to 1971 and again from 1973 to 1975. In 1966, in a reorganization, Columbia Records became subsidiary to the newly formed Columbia Broadcasting System/Columbia Group.
In 1967, Lieberson promoted Clive Davis to president of Columbia Records. He died of cancer in New York City on May 29, 1977, aged 66.
His greatest legacy, however, was probably the original cast recordings he produced.
Columbia was not the first to offer such recordings. Musicraft"s 1938 recording of The Cradle Will Rock was the first (not Decca"s 1943 recording of Oklahoma! as is often erroneously stated). Lieberson"s recordings at Columbia, however, were influential.
In addition to documenting the musical performances of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Lieberson also produced notable studio cast recordings of musicals of the 1930s and 1940s, such as Pal Joey and The Boys from Syracuse, for which cast albums had not been made.
Though other labels had issued Broadway shows on LP (Decca issued “Guys and Dolls” in 1950) Lieberson’s extensive coverage of Broadway mainstreamed and popularized original cast recordings. In fact, Lieberson provided the $375,000 needed to produce the stage production of “My Fair Lady”, considered to be among the greatest shows ever, in exchange for the rights to release on Columbia the original cast recording.
The investment paid off both on stage and at the record store. The original cast recording (in mono only), starring Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison, topped the Billboard 200 charts for 15 weeks between 1956, 1957, 1958 and 1959.
A stereo recording produced in England with Andrews and Harrison was issued in 1959.
Member Civil War Round Table, Record Industry Association American (past president, chairman, recipient 7 gold record awards), Country Music Association (Vice-President).
Married Vera Zorina; children: Peter, Jonathan Sears.