Jerry Moss, co-founder of A&M Records and Rock Hall of Fame member, dies at 88

Moss, a music industry giant who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, died Wednesday at his home in Bel Air, California, according to a statement released by his family

Jerry Moss, a music industry giant 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 & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, died 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 The Associated Press.

“They truly don’t make them like him anymore and we will miss conversations with him about everything under the sun,” the statement reads in part, “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!” They were home to the Carpenters and Cat Stevens,Janet Jackson and Soundgarden,Joe Cocker and Suzanne Vega, the Go-Gos and Sheryl Crow.

Among the label's singles: Alpert's “A Taste of Honey,” the Captain and Tennille's “Love Will Keep Us Together,” Frampton's “Show Me the Way” and “Every Breath You Take,” by the Police.

“Every once in a while a record would come through us and Herbie would look at me and say, ‘What did we do to deserve this, that this amazing thing is going to come out on our label?’” Moss told Artist House Music, an archive and resource center, in 2007.

His music connections also led to a lucrative horse racing business that he owned with his second wife, Ann Holbrook. In 1962, record manufacturer Nate Duroff lent Alpert and Moss $35,000 so they could print 350,000 copies of Alpert's instrumental "The Lonely Bull," the label's first major hit. A decade later, Duroff convinced Moss to invest in horses.