Jerry Moss obit

Jerry Moss Dies: A&M Records Co-Founder Was 88

 

He is not on the list.

Jerry Moss, the Grammy winner and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer who co-founded A&M Records with Herb Alpert more than 60 years ago and helped build it into one of the most successful independent record labels in history, died today in Los Angeles. He was 88.

His family shared the news in a statement to the Associated Press.

Named for its co-founders, the artist-focused A&M Records was launched in 1962 and has boasted such hitmaking and influential acts as The Police, Quincy Jones, The Carpenters, Carole King, Styx, Janet Jackson, Peter Frampton, The Go-Go’s, Supertramp, Rita Coolidge, Joe Cocker, Sheryl Crow, Bryan Adams, Humble Pie, The Tubes, Oingo Boingo, Cat Stevens/Yusuf, Nazareth and, of course, Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. Billy Preston had a pair of No. 1 singles for the label with “Will It Go Around in Circles” and “Nothing From Nothing” in the mid-1970s.

“Jerry Moss was the consummate music man whose love of all genres of the art form was unabashed,” Jones said in a statement today. “That was why when I decided to get off the soundstage and back into the recording studio in 1969, I knew there was only one record label for me to go to that would give me the creative freedom that I was seeking, and that record label was A&M with Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss. In my almost 70 years in the music business, I can say without a doubt that my time at A&M was one of the most artistically and professionally fulfilling times of my life and I attribute that in large part to the environment that Jerry created on that hallowed ground that was A&M Records. His spirit will live on forever through the great records that he helped bring to the world.”

The label’s story was told in Mr. A & Mr. M: The Story of A&M Records, a two-part documentary that aired on Epix in 2021.

Moss and Alpert’s Carnival Records issued a couple of singles before its founder renamed it A&M Records. The rechristened label’s first major success was The Tijuana Brass’ “The Lonely Bull,” a Top 10 instrumental that featured Alpert memorable trumpet hook. As Herb Alpert’s Tijuana Brass, the group scored another national hit in 1965 with “A Taste of Honey,” for which Moss shared a Record of the Year Grammy.

The song was culled from the album Whipped Cream and Other Delights, which spent eight weeks atop the Billboard 200. The group’s 1962 debut disc, The Lonely Bull, had made the Top 10, as did its 1965 follow-up, South of the Border. Alpert and The Brass would continue to score smash albums through the 1960s, with three — What Now My Love (1966), Sounds Like (1967) and compilation The Best of the Brass — hitting No. 1. S.R.O. peaked at No. 2 in late 1966.

With A&M Records firmly established, its renown for artist relations helped pad its roster in the 1960s with Cocker, Stevens and such other acts as Free — whose enduring Top 10 smash “All Right Now” hit in 1970 — Fairport Convention, “Whiter Shade of Pale” group Procol Harum and the Frampton-led Humble Pie.

During the 1970s, A&M had massive hits from the likes of Styx — who had three consecutive triple-platinum albums late in the decade — Supertramp and most notably Frampton Comes Alive, the 1975 double live set that helped launch the era of the mega-album. It spent 10 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 and has sold more than 8 million units in the U.S. alone. Albert had a comeback No. 1 with “Rise” in 1979.

For the first part of that decade, A&M distributed Ode Records, home of stoner comedy act Cheech & Chong and released The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack.

The 1980s brought more success for A&M Records, with eight Top 10 singles by Jackson alone, including chart-toppers “When I Think of You” and “Miss You Much.” She would score three more No. 1 singles for the label in the ’90s. Another chart-topper was A&M/Virgin’s Human League, whose “Don’t You Want Me” and “Human” were No. 1 in 1982 and 1986, respectively.

Former Police chief Sting continued to record for A&M after his trio split in the mid-’80s. He had a slew of platinum albums for the label from 1986-99 and teamed with fellow longtime A&M act Adams as Rod Stewart in 1993 for the chart-topping smash “All I Do,” from the soundtrack to The Three Muskateers. Two years earlier, Adams had one of the decade’s biggest hit singles, “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You,” from the Robin Hood movie. He also topped the pop charts with “Heaven” in 1986 and “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman” in 1995, along with scored consistent FM hits such as “Cuts Like a Knife,” “Run to You,” “Somebody” and the Tina Turner duet “It’s Only Love.”

The A&M hits kept comin’, and the label was absorbed by PolyGram in the late-’80s.

A&M was merged with Geffen and Interscope in 1999 to become Geffen A&M Interscope Records.

In 1994, Moss and Alpert launched Almo Sounds, a boutique label — and another portmanteau — that found success with such acts as Garbage, Gillian Welch, Imogen Heap and others.

Jerome Moss was born on May 8, 1935, in New York City and launched his career as a promoter of The Crests’ 1958 doo-wop classic “Sixteen Candles.” He went on to collect five career Grammy nominations, along with the win for “A Taste of Honey,” and was inducted along with Alpert into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Sting in 2006.

After all of his success in the music industry, in 2020, he and his wife Tina donated $25 million to The Music Center in Los Angeles to support free and low-cost programming. It was the single largest donation ever made to the center and led to the creation of Jerry Moss Plaza.

“Jerry was an incredible inspiration for artists and had a keen ability to help them explore and hone their craft,” The Music Center said in a statement Wednesday. “Jerry was dedicated to giving back to the community by supporting arts experiences that resonate in the hearts and minds of all Angelenos and meaningfully impact their lives. His artistic influence and business savvy, along with the opportunities he provided for numerous extraordinarily talented artists, changed the course of music forever. That was his gift to us all.”

Moss is survived by his wife, Tina.