Music industry legend Jerry Moss, who co-founded A&M Records in a Los Angeles garage and grew it right into a successful label signing the Police, Carpenters, Janet Jackson and other big stars, died at age 88 Wednesday.
Moss died of natural causes in his Bel Air, California, home, his family said in a press release.
“They really don’t make them like him anymore and we are going to miss conversations with him about the whole lot under the sun,” the statement reads.
“The twinkle in his eyes as he approached every moment ready for the following adventure.”
Moss began A&M Records in Los Angeles with musician Herb Alpert and together, they transformed the record label from a two-person business out of a garage to one in all the industry’s most successful independent labels.
From the Sixties through the ’80s, A&M Records released countless smash hit albums equivalent to Alpert’s “Whipped Cream & Other Delights” and Carole King’s “Tapestry.”
They recorded the music of the Police, the Carpenters, Cat Stevens, Janet Jackson, Joe Crocker, the Go-Gos, Peter Frampton and Sheryl Crow.
“Every infrequently a record would come through us and Herbie would take a look at me and say, ‘What did we do to deserve this, that this amazing thing goes to return out on our label?’” Moss told Artist House Music, an archive and resource center, in 2007.
Each Moss and Alpert were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 for his or her contributions to the industry.
Moss, who was born in Latest York City, was most recently honored with a tribute concert on the Mark Taper Forum in downtown Los Angeles in January.
“Herb was the artist and Jerry had the vision. It just modified the face of the record industry,” singer Rita Coolidge said on the event. “Actually A&M made such a difference and it’s where everybody desired to be.”
Within the late ’80s, Moss and Alpert sold A&M to Polygram for an estimated $500 million.
One in every of the last musicians they signed before leaving the corporate in 1993 was a singer from Kennett, Missouri — Sheryl Crow.
“We wanted people to be blissful,” Moss told the Latest York Times in 2010. “You’ll be able to’t force people to do a certain sort of music. They make their best music once they are doing what they need to do, not what we wish them to do.”
Within the 2000s, Moss found success in one other, completely different industry — horse racing — along with his horse Giacomo winning the 2005 Kentucky Derby.
The horse was named after the son of A&M artist Sting.
Moss leaves behind his wife Tina Morse and three children.
