Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, who died Wednesday (Aug. 16) at his home in Los Angeles, launched A&M Records out of Alpert’s garage in 1962 with the intent of making it a friendly home for artists.
The label — which the pair sold to PolyGram for $500 million in 1989 — went on to carry that ideology to wild success, working with such artists as Sting, Janet Jackson, Cat Stevens, Peter Frampton, Amy Grant and Alpert and his own hitmaking band, The Tijuana Brass.
A story from A&M’s early history reflects Alpert and Moss’s artist-first attitude, even when it potentially could harm the label’s bottom…
