THANKS, MR. LIEBERSON, FOR ORIGINAL CAST LPS

FUNNY HOW ONE BIT OF SLEUTHING leads to another: In learning about Vera Zorina, one of the guests at Duffy’s Tavern, I found that her second husband was Goddard Lieberson. Ah, I said, he’s the guy who invented LPs. 

Well, not only is Lieberson one of those responsible for long-playing vinyl records, but also for original cast albums of Broadway shows. Along the way, he knew and worked with the likes of Richard Rodgers, Mitch Miller, Noël Coward, W. Somerset Maugham, and John Gielgud. Here are Goddard Lieberson tidbits gleaned from a variety of sources.

British-born, U.S.-bred.  Lieberson was born in Hanley, Staffordshire, England; his father, a manufacturer of rubber shoe heels. The family moved to the U.S. when Goddard was a child. 

Wikipedia recounts that Lieberson “studied classical piano and composition at the Eastman School of Music in the 1930s and after graduating he wrote classical concert reviews under the pseudonym ‘Johann Sebastian.’ ” 

It was during his Eastman days that Lieberson established “a lifelong friend of musician, recording artist, TV personality and Columbia A&R manager/producer Mitch Miller.”

CBS for (Almost) Four Decades. Lieberson began working for the CBS group in 1938; he became president of Columbia Records from 1956 to 1971, and again from 1973 to 1975. Lieberson was also president of the Recording Industry Association of America in 1964.

Wikipedia notes, “Lieberson was noted for his personal elegance, taste and style, and was renowned as a wit, bon vivant and international traveller.” He also had a long-standing love of classical music.

Vinyl Versus Shellac. Columbia and RCA Victor had been researching “long-playing” 10- and 12-in. vinyl records playing at 33 1/3 rpm, in contrast to the traditional 78-rpm shellac discs. Improved sound quality was one goal; more than the traditional 5-minute play time was another.

A Family Tale. My maternal grandfather gigged as a small-band drummer in addition to his regular job as miner. Early in World War II, my grandmother donated his treasured collection of early jazz records, Bix Beiderbecke, Sidney Bechet, and the like, to a wartime shellac drive. Agg!

LPs Versus 45s. Wikipedia notes, “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. Hitherto, a classical album had consisted of scads of 78s sold in a single hefty array. 

By contrast, RCA Victor promoted its 7-in. 45-rpm singles in what evolved into a “War of the Speeds.” Ads of the time, as heard today on SiriusXM “Radio Classics,” hyped the advantage of using the sweet spot of the groove, rather than the inner and outer windings of a 12-in. disc. 

Battle Settled, But Retro Continues. As noted by Wikipedia, “The battle ended because each format found a separate marketing niche (LP for classical music recordings, 45 for the pop ‘singles’ market) and most new record players were capable of playing both types.” Indeed, today both formats are having a retro attraction. 

Original Casts. Wikipedia notes that Lieberson’s “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 [see SimanaitisSays for more on this musical drama] was the first (not Decca‘s 1943 recording of Oklahoma! as is often erroneously stated). Lieberson’s recordings at Columbia, however, were influential.”

My Fair Lady. Wikipedia adds, “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.

Good for Lieberman! Wikipedia recounts, “Both on stage and at the record store the investment paid off handsomely. The original cast recording (in mono only), starring Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison, topped the Billboard 200 charts for 15 weeks 1956—1959. A stereo recording produced in England with Andrews and Harrison was issued in 1959.” ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2023