Music mogul Jerry Moss, co-founder of A&M Records, dies at 88

Jerry Moss, a music industry mogul who co-founded A&M Records with Herb Alpert and rose from a Los Angeles garage to the heights of success with hits by Alpert, the Police, the Carpenters and hundreds of other performers, has died at 88.
Moss, inducted with Alpert into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, died on Wednesday at his home in Bel Air, California, according to a statement released by his family. He died of natural causes, his widow, Tina, told Associated Press.

“They truly don’t make them like him any more and we will miss conversations with him about everything under the sun,” said the statement. “The twinkle in his eyes as he approached every moment ready for the next adventure.”

For more than 25 years, Alpert and Moss presided over one of the industry’s most successful independent labels, releasing such blockbuster albums as Alpert’s Whipped Cream & Other Delights, Carole King’s Tapestry and Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive! Their label was home to the Carpenters and Cat Stevens, Janet Jackson and Soundgarden, Joe Cocker and Suzanne Vega, the Go-Go’s and Sheryl Crow.

Moss made one of his last public appearances in January when he was honoured with a tribute concert at the Mark Taper Forum in downtown Los Angeles. Among the performers were Frampton, Amy Grant and Dionne Warwick, who was not an A&M artist but had been close to Moss from the time he helped promote her music in the early 1960s. While Moss did not speak at the ceremony, many others praised him.

“Herb was the artist and Jerry had the vision. It just changed the face of the record industry,” singer Rita Coolidge said on the event’s red carpet. “Certainly A&M made such a difference and it’s where everybody wanted to be.”
Moss’s surviving family include his second wife, Tina Morse, and three children……………….

Music mogul Jerry Moss, co-founder of A&M Records, dies at 88 | Music industry | The Guardian