Vincent Liebler

American recording engineer (6 October 1904, Brooklyn, New York — 26 October 1989), one of the founding members and Fellow (1954) of the Audio Engineering Society. Vincent Liebler served as Director of Recording & Technical Operations at Columbia Records, Inc. for over forty years. He recorded Robert Johnson's groundbreaking 1936–37 sessions in Texas, one of the "holy grails" of early delta blues, uncredited until recent reissues in the mid-2000s. Vin Liebler was also part of the group that created a 33⅓ RPM "long-playing" record format, working with Bill Savory, Bill Bachman and Goldmark's assistant René Snepvangers. Liebler grew up in Brooklyn, assisting his father at the family's piano and organ workshop. Later the business transformed into a "general" music store, with instruments, phonographs and gramophone discs in stock, sparking Vin's interest in recording technology. In the early 1920s, he purchased an amateur 50-watt radio transmitter. Liebler graduated from Pratt Institute in 1926 with an electrical engineering degree. In 1928, Vincent began working at Brunswick Radio Corporation, the second-largest record company in the US, responsible for equipment maintenance and studio operations and traveling around Europe and the Caribbean on field recording assignments. In 1930, Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. purchased Brunswick, and Vincent Liebler got reassigned as a film sound engineer. In 1932, he again transferred to Brunswick's "sister" label, American Record Corporation. Liebler got promoted in 1935 to Chief Engineer of the combined American-Brunswick-Columbia Record Company. In 1936 and '37, Liebler traveled to San Antonio and Dallas to conduct on-site recording sessions with the legendary blues musician Robert Leroy Johnson (1911—1938). The resulting song collection was released on twenty 78 RPM shellac 10" singles by Vocalion label. (Almost 25 years later, Columbia resurfaced Johnson's songbook on two LP compilations, the '61 King Of The Delta Blues Singers followed by Vol. II in 1970, which profoundly impacted countless musicians and bands, from Bob Dylan and Cream to The Doors and The Rolling Stones.) In 1939, Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc. purchased the American-Brunswick-Columbia conglomerate. Liebler became Director of Recording operations for Columbia Records, Inc., overseeing the design and construction of the recording laboratories and facilities in New York, Chicago and Hollywood. He was responsible for the general design and construction of the modernized Columbia Recording Studios and recording facilities in 1960, serving as a project coordinator for both East & West Studios. In 1942, Vin Liebler, alongside Wesley Rose and G.E. Stewart of NBC's Recording Division, was one of the very first members of the "Sapphire Group," which began regularly meeting in New York. They tried to establish open communication and professional exchange within a highly secretive recording industry, where major labels and studios fiercely competed against each other with proprietary, patented technology. Subsequently, the meetings evolved into the Audio Engineering Society.