Busby sets new beat for Motown; president Jheryl Busby composes visionary business plan for music company.

Jheryl Busby interrupts his lunch at the Columbia Bar & Grill for an important phone call from a 26 year old. For the next 10 minutes, Busby is on the line with Michael Bivins, manager of the teen singing group, Boyz II Men. He counsels Bivins, then cajoles him but avoids getting totally exasperated. Busby started his own music career hanging posters in South Central record stores and has learned patience.

At 43, Busby is president and chief executive officer of Motown Record Co. L.P., the Hollywood-based company best known for its Detroit roots in the 1960s. Privately held Motown has sustained several hits and misses since company founder Berry Gordy Jr. sold out in 1988.

The company is poised for expansion, with a new business plan Busby devised this spring.

During Busby's 20-year-plus record career, he has worked at some of the more mercurial labels in the industry, such as A&M, Casablanca and MCA Records. Working as a promotions man and talent discoverer in the 1970s and 1980s, he now is among the industry's most respected executives.

His difficult mission now is to recapture the momentum Motown had going during Gordy's heyday, then layer on new dimensions in a rapidly changing and technologically driven industry.

Motown's annual sales have grown slightly the last two years and are around $55 million. But Busby is eager to take annual sales to $100 million within the next five years.

Busby's phone conversation with Boyz II Men's Bivins was preceded by a blowup a few days earlier. If Motown is to grow, it must keep young groups under contract and maximize sales and air play of their compact discs and music videos.

Busby is trying to bolster Boyz II Men's reach -- making them stars internationally. The group's first album, "Cooleyhighharmony," sold more than 3 million copies domestically. That success gave the group a degree of clout and its members are trying to flex their fledgling muscles.

Busby says, "I love Michael (Bivins) like a son. In a business that lacks good managers, he is one of the rare good ones. We are working on something very important for their careers, but they are in the middle of renegotiating their deal with us.

"Right now they are saying, 'Let's not do anything.' He is giving me a signal that they want to put their career on hold, but I'm saying, 'Let's get as much as we can right now.'"

The group was trying to back out of a planned European tour until a new contract was hammered out. Busby was urging them to make the tour.

Leveraging Motown's catalog of fabled singers -- which include Stevie Wonder, the Temptations, Diana Ross and Lionel Richie -- is another crucial piece of Motown's business. The catalog business had slipped, but Busby says he has "cleaned up the vaults" and is now marketing the best Motown has to offer.

Busby is anxious to move after enduring four torturous years when Motown's progress was stymied by its relationship with MCA Records. When Gordy sold out for $61 million, MCA Inc. ended up with 18-percent ownership of the company and a 25-year distribution deal.

MCA was supposed to manufacture Motown's compact discs, as well as promote and distribute them. The plan backfired when MCA allegedly didn't deliver those services, prompting Busby (who owns 10 percent of Motown) and Boston Ventures, a 68-percent owner of Motown to sue MCA in 1991.

The lawsuit was settled in mid-April, freeing Motown of its MCA connection totally. Boston Ventures acquired MCA's 18 percent and has now given Busby the mandate to maximize Motown's name. Busby says Boston Ventures is an enlightened owner and considers one of its directors, Martha Crowninshield, his mentor.

Motown has not been in the licensing or music publishing arenas, both obvious expansion opportunities that Busby is actively pursuing. He is formulating plans to license the Motown logo for a variety of products and services that could include a Motown version of the popular Hard Rock Cafe or a themed entertainment center.

Putting the Motown name on apparel or on entertainment hardware such as disc players are possibilities. Other areas of expansion that Busby is targeting include home video, children's education and movie/television production. For example, Motown had a financial participation in the recent Jackson Five television mini-series.

"Our biggest asset is the Motown name," Busby says. "It is much like Disney. Wherever you go in the world, people associate our name with Diana Ross or Smokey Robinson. I want to keep that logo clean. I was afraid to risk our logo by getting into the street business (rap music), so we created an independent business to play with that (street) business." The Mad Sounds label debuted earlier this year and is based at Motown's headquarters.

Busby has led Motown since Gordy bailed out in 1988 and has sought to push the company in new musical directions. New record labels have been sired under his aegis, including Apollo Theater Records, Sound of New York Records and the company's first international venture, London-based Funki Dred Records. The company has moved into jazz with the MoJazz label, and Busby is looking to push into the gospel and country music fields.

Among the acts signed under his direction are: The Boys, Johnny Gill, Gerald Alston, The Good Girls, Milira and Another Bad Creation. Earlier this year, actor/comedian Eddie Murphy cut his first album with Motown, called "Love's Alright." Busby says these "front-line" acts should produce around $30 million in revenues this year, with the past hits in the catalog kicking in another $30 million.

Earlier in his career, during a four-year stint as president of MCA's Black Music Division, Busby signed and developed such hit-makers as Jody Watley, The Jets, Bobby Brown, Gladys Knight, Patti LaBelle and Klymaxx.

Busby has learned the financial end of the business, although it was not part of his education or early part of his career. He now lives in a large Hancock Park home, but grew up poor in South Central Los Angeles and attended Fremont High. His father was an Oklahoma farmer who moved his family west and became an upholsterer.

"When my father's vendors didn't pay on time, we kids felt it," he remembers. "Now I tell my comptroller to pay the vendors on time and argue over the bills afterward."

A Long Beach State College dropout, Busby began his music business education working at Stax Records. "Being at the point of purchase in a poor neighborhood, I would go behind the counter and donate my time. I wanted to understand what it takes for a poor person to spend his hard-earned money on an emotion called music."

Busby is the bridge in Motown's history, linking the high-flying Gordy era to the buttoned-down MBAs who now are transforming the music industry. Monthly, Busby consults with Gordy. But daily, he is passing the baton to the next generation of Motown leaders.

Busby has hand-picked this group from the top colleges, and Steve McKeever, 31, a Harvard Law School graduate, has been tabbed by Busby as Motown's heir apparent and next CEO. McKeever was responsible for pushing the company into jazz.

Busby says, "I am defining the CEO's role as I go, and I realize each company has its own character. I have a vision for what Motown is, and I see myself as a visionary who is developing the team for chapters three, four, five.

"I see this as an important phase to insure that our children's children will see that an African-American male (Gordy) had an idea in Detroit in the 1960s, and it lasted."

Snapshot

Jheryl Busby

Native of: South Central Los Angeles Resident of: Hancock Park Age: 43 Education: Fremont High School, two years at California State University, Long Beach