LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) — Jerome “Jerry” Moss, the legendary music industry icon who co-founded A&M Records with Herb Alpert and played a significant role in the careers of artists such as Cat Stevens, Joe Cocker, and The Carpenters, has died. He was 88.
According to a statement released by his family, Moss died “peacefully” at his home in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
“They truly don’t make them like him anymore and we will miss conversations with him about everything under the sun, the twinkle in his eyes as he approached every moment ready for the next adventure,” the statement, in part, said.
After graduating from Brooklyn College with a degree in English, and a stint in the U.S. Army, Moss got his start promoting for Coed Records before he relocated to Los Angeles in 1960.
In 1962, he partnered with Herb Alpert to launch Carnival Records, releasing two albums before the duo was forced to change the independent labels’ name to A&M Records after discovering another label had already claimed the Carnival moniker.
The label expanded its catalog through the next three decades, providing a platform for some of the biggest hits of the era, including Carole King’s “Tapestry,” and Peter Frampton’s “Frampton Comes Alive!”
Other artists who recorded for the label include The Police, Joe Jackson, Janet Jackson, Styx, and Supertramp, among numerous others.
In 1977, A&M famously signed British punk legends The Sex Pistols after the band was dropped by EMI. Despite the headlines generated by the signing, A&M dropped the Sex Pistols just six days later amid reports of unruly parties at the label’s headquarters.
In 1989, Albert and Moss sold A&M to Polygram in a deal worth a reported $500 million. The two industry legends continued to manage the label until 1993 when they parted ways amid discord with Polygram’s management.
Alpert and Moss subsequently took Polygram to court for violating their contract’s integrity clause and eventually settled for a reported $200 million.
Alpert and Moss ran Almo Sound in the 1990s, platforming artists such as Garbage, Manbreak, and Gillian Welch.
Along with his storied history in the label industry, Moss also operated a horse racing business and was appointed to the California Horse Racing Board in 2004. The following year, his horse Giacomo, named after Sting’s son, won the prestigious Kentucky Derby. Zenyatta, named in honor of the Police album “Zenyatta Mondatta,” was runner-up for Horse of the Year in 2008 and 2009, and won the following year.
Additionally, Moss was an avid art collector, with works from Picasso, Basquiat, Delvaux, Jawlensky, Lager, De Lempicka, Magritte, Warhol and many others.
Moss, Herb Alpert and Herb’s cousin Steve Alpert were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 as non-performers.
“I’m saddened by the news of A&M Records co-founder Jerry Moss passing away,” says CelebrityAccess senior writer Larry LeBlanc. “I knew him for over four decades, largely because of being a music trade journalist for Record World (1970-1982), and Billboard (1991-2007) I covered A&M’s activities in Canada. As well, I spent considerable time on A&M’s fabled Hollywood lot on the corner of Sunset and LaBrea Avenues in Hollywood which Charlie Chaplin had purchased in late 1917.
“Jerry was a music industry giant, one of the most imposing personalities of his generation. Almost every time he was in Toronto over the years, I’d meet up with him, and we’d talk music industry history. Even in later years, we stayed in touch and we talked by phone as recently as three years ago. Talking about horse racing. Jerry Moss was a class act all the way. A Rolls Royce.”
