Jerry Moss, co-founder of A&M Records, dead at 88

Music industry legend Jerry Moss, who co-founded A&M Records in a Los Angeles garage and grew it 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 statement.

“They truly don’t make them like him anymore and we will miss conversations with him about everything under the sun,” the statement reads.

“The twinkle in his eyes as he approached every moment ready for the next adventure.”

Moss started 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 of the industry’s most successful independent labels.

From the 1960s through the ’80s, A&M Records released countless smash hit albums such as 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 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.

Both Moss and Alpert were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 for their contributions to the industry.

Moss, who was born in New York City, was most recently honored with a tribute concert at the Mark Taper Forum in downtown Los Angeles in January.

“Herb was the artist and Jerry had the vision. It just changed the face of the record industry,” singer Rita Coolidge said at the event. “Certainly A&M made such a difference and it’s where everybody wanted to be.”

In the late ’80s, Moss and Alpert sold A&M to Polygram for an estimated $500 million.

One of the last musicians they signed before leaving the company in 1993 was a singer from Kennett, Missouri — Sheryl Crow.

“We wanted people to be happy,” Moss told the New York Times in 2010. “You can’t force people to do a certain kind of music. They make their best music when they are doing what they want to do, not what we want them to do.”

In the 2000s, Moss found success in another, completely different industry — horse racing — 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.