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Jimmy Buffett, the easygoing “Margaritaville” singer/songwriter who transformed his no-worries, beachy lifestyle into a five-decade endless road trip as a performer and entrepreneur, has died at age 76. The news, announced on his website and social media accounts, follows Buffett’s May cancelation of a show in South Carolina to get treatment for an undisclosed illness.
“Jimmy passed away on the night of September 1st surrounded by his family, friends, music and dogs,” the early Saturday morning (Sept. 2) post reads. “He lived his life like a song till the very last breath and will be missed beyond measure by so many.”
Renowned for his wildly enthusiastic audiences — known as “Parrotheads” — Buffett parlayed his cheeky, rum-soaked songs about pirates (“A Pirate Looks at Forty”), boozy beach bums (“It’s 5 O’Clock Somewhere”), captains and sand-caked rogues (“The Captain and the Kid”) into a permanent vacation journey where every port of call was loaded with fruity drinks, colorful summer-themed outfits and precisely no cares in the world.
With a laconic songwriting style that leaned into his guy-you-wanna-have-six-beers-with persona (and vice versa), Buffett penned such memorable lines as “I took off for a weekend last month just to try and recall the whole year,” from 1977’s “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitude” single. The primary thrust of his career could be summed up by the title of his 1992 box set: Boats, Beaches, Bars & Ballads.
In addition to his 13 Billboard Hot 100 charting singles — including seven top 40 hits and one top 10 — as well as 40 entries on the Billboard 200 album chart, Buffett’s no-worries mien belied a killer business instinct that parlayed the popularity of his island-spiked bar band folk rock anthems into a billion-dollar personal fortune. His sprawling ancillary business org chart included a series of Margaritaville and LandShark Bar & Grill restaurants across the U.S., as well as licensing agreements for Margaritaville tequila, shoes, cruises, pre-packaged food items and an Atlantic City casino.
There were also his personal Margaritaville and Mailboard Records imprints, a trio of charitable organizations that funded personal growth through music and manatee rescue, as well as a pair of musicals (1997’s Don’t Stop the Carnival and 2017’s Escape to Margaritaville), his signature LandShark lager beer and three Latitude Margaritaville retirement communities in Daytona Beach, Hilton Head and Watersound, FL.
Born James William Buffett on Christmas Day 1946 in Pascagoula, MS, and raised in Mobile, Alabama, the singer was one of three children born to James Delaney Buffett Jr. and Mary Loraine (Peets), who both worked for the Alabama Drydock and Shipbuilding company. He grew up listening to his grandfather steamship captain J.D. Buffett’s tales of high seas adventure, to whom he paid homage in “Son of a Son of a Sailor.” The latter features the memorable, salt-caked lines, “I’m just a son of a son, son of a son/ Son of a son of a sailor/ The sea’s in my veins, my tradition remains/ I’m just glad I don’t live in a trailer.”
Inspired by the attention a college fraternity brother earned from women for playing guitar, Buffett began his first band and quickly graduated from street busking to playing six nights a week at Bourbon Street clubs in New Orleans and then working as a correspondent for Billboard magazine in Nashville from 1969-1970; he was the reporter who broke the news that legendary bluegrass duo Lester Flat and Earl Scruggs were breaking up in 1969.
He released his debut album, the country-leaning folk collection Down to Earth, in 1970, followed by 1973’s A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean, which featured the fan-favorite novelty song “Why Don’t We Get Drunk (and Screw),” as well as “He Went to Paris” and “Grapefruit Juicy Fruit.” The singer finally hit the top 40 with the No. 30 Hot 100 swaying single “Come Monday” from his third album, Living and Dying in 3/4 Time which contained another live staple, “Pencil Thin Mustache.”
The release of his sixth album, Havana Daydreamin’, in 1976, marked Buffett’s highest Billboard 200 album chart placement to date — at No. 65 — but it was the next year’s Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes that proved to be his best-selling breakthrough album thanks to the “Margaritaville” single. The song features a kind of shorthand for the Buffett way of life (and the origins of his fans’ nickname) courtesy of the sand-packed first verse, “Nibblin’ on sponge cake/ Watchin’ the sun bake/ All of you Parrotheads covered with oil,” which flip-flops into the iconic chorus: “Wastin’ away again in Margaritaville/ Searchin’ for my long lost shaker of salt.” That song, which spent 22 weeks on the singles chart, topped out at No. 8 on the Hot 100 in July 1977, marking Buffett’s highest charting career single.
His hot streak continued on 1978’s Son of a Son of a Sailor, which featured another iconic laid-back hit, “Cheeseburger in Paradise” (No. 32 on the Hot 100), as well as “Livingston Saturday Night” (No. 52) and “Mañana” (No. 84). In all, Buffett released 29 studio albums and 14 live albums over his career, including his final studio collection, 2020’s fan-curated B-sides, Songs You Don’t Know By Heart; at press time Buffett had been teased his 30th studio album, Equal Strain on All Parts, though a release date had not yet been set.
Buffett’s career peak on the Billboard 200 album chart came in 2004 when License to Chill hit No. 1, besting his previous career high on the album tally, 1996’s Banana Wind (No. 4); his 2020 collection, Life on the Flip Side topped out at No. 2. The singer also crossed over onto the country charts with 20 songs, including 2003’s ACM-winning No. 1 Alan Jackson duet “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere,” as well as 2011’s No. 1 hit “Knee Deep” with the Zac Brown Band and 2004’s “Hey Good Lookin’,” a Hank Williams cover that hit No. 8 with some help from Clint Black, Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, Toby Keith and George Strait. In addition, Buffett landed 15 entries on the Adult Contemporary charts — including a No. 1 with Margaritaville in 1977 and 17 entires on the top country albums chart, with eight top 10s and a No. 1 with License to Chill.
While Buffett’s album and single sales later waned, he remained a huge live draw, playing an endless series of tours with his beloved Coral Reefer Band to his legion of colorfully dressed fans, whose devotion rivaled that of the Grateful Dead’s indefatigable “Deadhead” followers. He also launched the Radio Margaritaville channel on SiriusXM and spun off a series of best-selling books, including the short story collection Tales From Margaritaville (1989), his first fiction novel, Where Is Joe Merchant? (1992), the 1998 memoir A Pirate Looks at Fifty and the novels A Salty Piece of Land (2004) and Swine Not? A Novel Pig Tale.
According to the New York Times, he was one of only six writers — along with Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck and William Styron — to top both the Times’ fiction and nonfiction best-seller lists. Buffett also dipped his toes into two children’s books written with his daughter, Savannah Jane, The Jolly Mon (1988) and Trouble Dolls (1991).
Over the years, Buffett also contributed original songs to a number of movies, including Summer Rental, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Urban Cowboy, Jurassic World and FernGully, as well as filming cameos for Repo Man, Hook, Congo and Rancho Deluxe.
Harold Childs, who broke through industry barriers in the ‘70s as a Black man overseeing pop music promotion at A&M Records, died of leukemia in Los Angeles on Sunday, Aug. 27. He was 80 years old. Childs’ death follows that of A&M co-founder Jerry Moss, who died Aug. 16.
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Known for his innate business savvy, vibrant personality and dapper style, Childs spent more than 50 years in a music career that included tenures with RCA Victor, Qwest Records and Warner Bros. Records.
“He was a consummate ‘Record Man,’” Direct Management co-founder Martin Kirkup tells Billboard of Childs, a longtime friend and fellow A&M alumnus. “I was vp of artist development from 1975-85 and worked with Harold for most of that decade. He was passionate about the wide range of music that A&M embraced, with great instincts for the tactics and strategy of breaking records. But what really made him special was his personal warmth, good humor and his endless interest in other people. That’s why people were so devoted to him.”
Ray Harris, founder and chairman emeritus of the Living Legends Foundation, worked with Childs at Warner Bros. where the former served as the label’s senior vp of Black music promotion. Sharing his memories of Childs with Billboard, Harris says, “They say your name and reputation will reach a stranger’s door before you do. It was such with Harold Childs. When I entered the music business in the ‘70s, Harold was one of the people I would constantly hear about. He worked at one of the hottest independent labels [A&M] as vp of promotion in charge of the pop department as well as other genres of music.
“That was unique,” adds Harris, “because Harold was an African American male navigating through a pop world normally carved out for our white counterparts. There was very few African Americans moving in that world during that period. Childs not only moved in it, he was a dominant part of that company’s success. I got to know Harold and found him to be classy, fashion-forward, professional and a nice guy. Sleep well my friend, you’ve made your mark.”
Born May 8, 1943 in Philadelphia, Childs was a student at the city’s Dobbins High School when he began working in the stock room at Marnel Record Distributors. He later segued to RCA Victor as regional promotion manager where he worked with artists such as Peter Nero and Henry Mancini. Then in 1969 he joined A&M as national sales and promotion director for its CTI (Creed Taylor International) imprint, based in New York.
Relocating to Los Angeles in 1971, Childs retained his same role for A&M solely after CTI became independent. During his subsequent appointments as vp of promotion in 1974 and senior vp of promotion and sales in 1978, Childs played an integral role in A&M’s evolution as one of the industry’s leading independent labels in the ‘70s and ‘80s. He and his team broke projects from the Carpenters, Cat Stevens, Captain & Tennille, Peter Frampton, Supertramp, the Brothers Johnson, Styx, Joe Jackson, the Police, the Human League and George Harrison’s A&M-distributed Dark Horse label.
Leaving A&M in 1984, Childs joined PolyGram as senior vp and then served as president of Quincy Jones’ Qwest Records at the latter’s request. During a later stint at Warner Bros. Records, Childs headed the label’s jazz promotion department, working with a roster that included Al Jarreau, David Sanborn and George Benson, who began his career at CTI.
Ed Eckstein, former president of Mercury Records, described being mentored by Childs as “a godsend and a blessing to say the least. I got to see firsthand — during my years working with Quincy Jones — [Childs’] unique field general, fearless-leader style of leadership; the level of respect he received from his troops and associates, coupled with the results he accrued, was awe inspiring. Harold was smart, incisive, sharp, demanding, funny, fair and the Essence of Sartorial Splendor at all times.”
Childs’ resumé includes serving as senior consultant for Soundboard Marketing. The Los Angeles-based company has collaborated with brands such as Paul Mitchell Salons as well as Timothy B. Schmidt of the Eagles, Ray Parker Jr. and producer Patrick Leonard. Childs was also a consultant for Japanese-based Alpha Records, working as its U.S. liaison in a sales and promotion capacity. The Living Legends Foundation presented Childs with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000.
Donations in memory of Harold Childs may be made to The United Negro College Fund.
Bernie Marsden, the original guitarist for Whitesnake and co-writer behind some of the band’s biggest hits, died on Thursday (Aug. 24). He was 72 years old. Marsden’s family shared the news via a statement posted to the rocker’s Instagram page, along with a photo of Marsden smiling at the camera. “On behalf of his family, […]
Bob Feldman, the influential songwriter and producer behind some of the biggest hits of the 1960s, has died. He was 83 years old. A cause of death has yet to be revealed.
The news was announced in a statement from his close friend, musical collaborator and business partner Richard Gottehrer.
“It’s with great sadness that I announce the passing of Bob Feldman, my friend and legendary songwriting partner, in Grand Canyon Music and FGG Productions – Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Myself,” Gottehrer wrote in a statement sent to Billboard. “As a team we go back to the 1960’s and the Brill Building days where we wrote and/or produced classics like ‘My Boyfriend’s Back,’ ‘I Want Candy,’ ‘Hang on Sloopy’ and ‘Sorrow,’ which was eventually recorded and became an everlasting hit by David Bowie. We were even an ‘Australian’ band that called ourselves The Strangeloves.
“We were young and inexperienced but learned how to produce by making demos of our songs; this led each of us to ongoing active careers in music after we went our separate ways,” his statement continued. “We remained friends and to this day 60 years later are still partners in those same companies we started back then.”
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Feldman and his neighbor Jerry Goldstein would frequently write songs together before meeting Gottehrer in 1962. The trio formed FGG Productions and wrote several hits together, including The Angels’ No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hit “My Boyfriend’s Back” and The McCoys’ “Sorrow,” which was later popularized by The Merseys and Bowie. The group also produced The McCoys’ Hot 100 No. 1 “Hang on Sloopy” — which endures as an unofficial theme song at Ohio State University sports events — all while making it big in their own group, The Strangeloves. As a band, they scored Hot 100 top 40 hits with “I Want Candy” (No. 11), “Cara-Lin” (No. 39) and “Night Time” (No. 30). Bow Wow Wow famously covered “Candy” in 1982, taking it back to the Hot 100 (it reached No. 62 that July).
Feldman was also a published author, releasing his own book of verse, lyrics and memoirs in 2019 titled Simply Put! Thoughts and Feelings from the Heart.
Gottehrer concluded his statement by writing, “The memories of the times we shared; the songs we wrote and the adventures that filled our lives remain. Sooner or later we’ll all pass but the music will live on. Rest in peace Bob….we’ll meet again.”
Feldman is survived by his two daughters, Kyle and Mahri. He is also the biological father of actor Corey Feldman, who emancipated himself from Bob and his mom Sheila as a teenager.
Ray Hildebrand, the “Paul” in ‘60s pop duo Paul & Paula, died Friday (Aug. 18) in Kansas City, Missouri, at the age of 82.
Hildebrand passed away “peacefully,” and was surrounded by his family, according to a statement from his publicist.
Born December 21, 1940, in Joshua, Texas, Hildebrand met his singing partner Jill Jackson (Paula) while attending Howard Payne College (now called Howard Payne University) in Brownwood the Lone Star State.
Though never romantically involved, Paul & Paula landed a string of songs on Billboard’s charts, including “Young Lovers,” “First Quarrel,” “First Day Back at School,” and “Something Old, Something New,” and their best-known hit, the multi-million-seller from 1963 “Hey Paula,” which Hildebrand penned. The single logged three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
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Mercury Records chief Shelby Singleton signed the pair, and reissued “Hey Paula” on its Phillips subsidiary. It was also Singleton who renamed the pair as Paul & Paula, apparently concerned that an act named Ray and Jill singing about “hey, hey Paula” and “hey, hey Paul” was a bridge too far.
Paul & Paula released two albums and a Christmas-themed set, before disbanding in 1965, Hildebrand keen to complete his college education and pursue a different musical direction.
The pair would remain friends, and occasionally reunited for special gigs.
A devout Christian, Hildebrand’s post- Paul & Paula solo recordings were largely a reflection of his faith. “Say I Do” is said to be a trailblazing record of the contemporary Christian genre. Later, he would team up with Paul Land, performing Christian music under the name of Land & Hildebrand.
Hildebrand traveled the country sharing his music and faith, and worked with The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, reps say.
The late singer and songwriter is preceded in death by his wife, Judy Hendricks, and survived by his daughter, Heidi Sterling, and son Mike Hildebrand, both of Kansas City.
Broadway actor/singer Chris Peluso, star of beloved musicals such as Mamma Mia! and Elton John’s Lestat has died at 40. Playbill reported that Peluso’s family confirmed that he died on Tuesday (Aug. 15), a year after he took a break from theater work to seek treatment for schizoaffective disorder; Billboard was unable to independently confirm Peluso’s death at press time.
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The actor’s alma mater, the University of Michigan, posted a tribute on the school’s musical theater department Instagram that read, “The Michigan Musical Theatre family is heartbroken as we announce the passing of our dear family member/alum, the loving, charismatic, and divinely gifted Chris Peluso… Our hearts go out to his family.”
Peluso first gained attention on Broadway as an understudy in the 2004 Tony-winning revival of Assassins and as understudy for the roles of Louis and Nicolas in Lestat. He went on to join the ensemble for the original touring company of Wicked in 2005 and take on the role of Fiyero in a 2009 national tour, as well as Sky in Mamma Mia!, Marius in Les Miserables and Tony in West Side Story.
The versatile actor also also appeared in a number of musicals in London’s West End, including playing Gaylord Ravenal in a revival of Show Boat in 2016 and Sir Percival Glyde in The Woman in White in 2017, as well as appearing in Miss Saigon and Death Takes a Holiday.
The versatile actor/singer also took on three lead parts in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical in 2014, understudying for the roles of Gerry Goffin, Don Kirshner and Barry Mann.
Peluso is survived by his wife, Jessica Gomes — who he married in 2018 — and two young children. A GoFundMe was started in Sept. on Peluso’s behalf, seeking contributions to help the actor pursue treatment for the serious mental health disorder, which reportedly caused him to experience “debilitating paranoia” that kept him from performing in recent years.
The Mayo Clinic defines schizoaffective disorder as a mental health “marked by a combination of schizophrenia symptoms, such as hallucinations or delusions, and mood disorder symptoms, such as depression or mania.”
The funding page noted that Peluso lacked health insurance in the U.S. and had left his wife and children to seek treatment at an inpatient mental health rehab center in Tennessee.
A Nov. update to the funding drive, which raised more than $25,000, contained a note from Peluso, who said he had completed treatment and was “stable and doing well.” At the time, he wrote, “The new medication I’m on works well to keep my symptoms in check and has minimal side effects. I’m able to hold down a job again and even began taping some auditions. It’s going to be a life long process of going to therapy and working with doctors but I’m so much better than I was before treatment. It really means the world to me to have such incredible support from you all. None of this progress would have been possible without you.”
Check out rehearsal footage of Peluso in Show Boat and see the UM tribute below.
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If you or someone you know needs mental health help, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.
Jerry Moss once spent a day in Athens, Greece, screaming at the heads of the world’s top electronics companies during a Billboard music-industry convention. It was 1981. Sony’s Norio Ohga and Philips’ Jan Timmer were trying to persuade record executives to switch from their beloved LP to this new, high-tech “compact disc,” and Moss, co-founder of storied indie A&M Records, which would break Janet Jackson, Sting, Soundgarden and Blues Traveler, led the opposition.
Moss, who died Thursday at 88, believed CDs “would kill the industry because the perfect digital master would invite and facilitate piracy,” according to John Nathan‘s 1999 book, Sony.
As I was researching this subject for my own book, Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age, I had to verify this claim. Nathan described a mob of outraged record execs chanting, like soccer hooligans, a “slogan that sounded like a Madison Avenue nightmare”: “The truth is in the grooves!”
This was the generous and magnanimous sales expert who was endlessly patient with his artists, willing to lose money on an album to advance a long-term career, whom Sting would describe as an “elder brother, a wise head, a man’s man and a mensch”?
I was sure Moss would be too embarrassed to rehash this history, because, eventually, the CD helped him and his partner, trumpeter Herb Alpert, become super rich, selling A&M to PolyGram for $500 million in 1989. (That’s $1.23 billion in today’s dollars.) But the exec who co-founded A&M with Alpert in a garage in 1962, after selling the master for Alpert’s Tijuana Brass instrumental “Tell It to the Birds” for $750, quickly agreed to a phone interview – and a wonkier follow-up later.
“I made a bit of a small statement at the meeting,” understated Moss, who at the time of our interview was running his post-A&M label, Almo Sounds, which had signed Gillian Welch as well as Garbage and Imogen Heap. “I liked the hardware and the whole ease of the CD, and I generally applauded the idea that Sony and Philips were getting together on this one piece of machinery.
“But,” he added, “I thought they could have done something to stop piracy.”
On Second Thought…
What finally turned Moss around was the economics of the CD. The price of vinyl records was stuck at $8.98 — and after Tom Petty threatened to affix a huge “$8.98!” sticker on his 1981 album, Hard Promises, his own label, MCA, and the rest of the industry were blocked from raising prices. The CD allowed A&M to “charge a multiple for this thing,” Moss said. Also, retail stores were charging labels for advertising — a “mighty blow,” Moss called it. After disco crashed in 1979, LP sales plunged. “Retailing and selling became very pinched,” he added.
“The retailers wanted more and artists and producers wanted more for what they were doing. The record companies were getting squeezed further and further,” Moss went on. “And here comes the CD.”
The shiny, futuristic format was in high demand, and retailers were willing to buy it from labels for $10 wholesale, far higher than the LP, then sell it to customers for $16.
“So A&M, after just a tiny bit of study, decided this was going to be our future,” Moss said.
Like the bigger labels, A&M had to find plants to manufacture the CD, quickly making a deal with a German company. And the CD, to which Moss had been so screamingly opposed in 1981, made A&M profitable beyond anything Alpert and Moss had once imagined: “The company was a different company from 1979 to 1989, certainly.”
A Bittersweet Sale
Alongside Alpert and the late Gil Friesen, then the day-to-day operations exec who referred to himself as the ampersand in A&M, Moss decided they had no choice but to sell the company they loved. Music stars in the late ’80s and early ’90s were demanding multimillion-dollar advances, and, as an indie, A&M couldn’t compete with bigger labels for the up-front guarantees. The trio stayed on for a couple of years after the sale, but PolyGram had a mandatory retirement age of 61. In 1991, Moss found himself with a new boss, Alain Levy, who became PolyGram’s worldwide president and CEO, and, Moss recalled, “wasn’t laughing at my jokes.”
(In 1998, PolyGram was sold to Seagram, which merged it with Universal Music Group, today the world’s biggest label.)
“I don’t regret selling, because I felt we had nothing but to do that. There was no alternative. We would have had to have gotten a lot smaller, and gotten our investment in different, other ways,” Moss told me. “I can’t say I’m sorry I sold A&M. I will say I’m sorry I had to leave.”
Tributes are flowing for Michael Parkinson, the legendary British chat show host who died Wednesday (Aug. 16) at the age of 88.
Parky, as he was affectionately known in his homeland, championed countless musicians across his career on TV, during which time his talk show was a “must-see” staple on British TV.
The broadcaster’s seemingly endless conveyor belt of top celebrities ensured high ratings and, over time, included almost every big name in the music scene, from members of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, to Elton John, Tina Turner, David Bowie, George Michael and Robbie Williams.
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With his predilection for adult-leaning, often jazz-oriented performers, Parkinson’s program gave a platform for the likes of Jamie Cullum, Katie Melua and Michael Bublé, among many others.
Starting out as a print journalist, Parkinson became a producer at the commercial British TV channel Granada in the late 1960s. He became the archetypal chat show presenter via a weekly program for BBC1 which began in 1971 and ran on Saturday nights for 361 editions until 1982. His “Parkinson” show continued from 1998 until his retirement in December 2007, with a star-studded finale which included such guests as David Beckham, Michael Caine, David Attenborough, Judi Dench, Billy Connolly and Cullum.
Parkinson was saluted on numerous occasions for his work. In 1998, he became a Gold Badge recipient – an award that pays tribute to people judged to have made a special and lasting contribution to the U.K.’s entertainment industry.
In 2000, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to broadcasting. And in 2005, Parkinson was honored with the Music Industry Trusts’ Award, otherwise known as the “person of the year,” presented annually to an individual who has made a distinctive and lasting contribution to the U.K. music industry. On the night, Parkinson was declared as “the musicians’ champion.”
In 2008, he was Knighted for services to broadcasting.
A proud Yorkshireman and lifelong cricket fan, the broadcaster passes a decade after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which he batted with radiotherapy.
Many of those celebrities who appeared on Parkinson’s popular show have paid tribute to the broadcasting legend.
“Michael Parkinson was a TV legend who was one of the greats,” writes Elton John on Instagram. “I loved his company and his incredible knowledge of cricket and Barnsley Football Club. A real icon who brought out the very best in his guests. Condolences and love to Mary and his family.”
Parkinson “was irreplaceable,” recounts veteran actor Michael Caine, “he was charming, always wanted to have a good laugh. He brought the best of everyone he met. Always looked forward to be interviewed by him.”
Michael Parkinson was irreplaceable, he was charming, always wanted to have a good laugh. He brought the best of everyone he met.Always looked forward to be interviewed by him.— Michael Caine (@themichaelcaine) August 17, 2023
Adds retired England soccer great David Beckham: ‘I was so lucky to not just be interviewed by Michael but to be able to spend precious time talking about football and family our 2 passions plus the GoldenBalls moment.”
The NFSA marks the passing of the veteran British broadcaster Michael Parkinson. Parky interviewed a number of famous Australians, including @kylieminogue, as shown in this 2002 clip, in which he discusses her career and elicits some candid reflections. #MichaelParkinson pic.twitter.com/6mONJwnARs— NFSA National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (@NFSAonline) August 18, 2023
Writes actor Stephen Fry, “Having grown up watching him interview greats, my first appearance was impossibly thrilling for me. The genius of Parky was that unlike most people (and most of his guests, me included) he was always 100% himself. On camera and off.”
Gary Young, the original drummer of ’90s indie rockers Pavement, has died at age 70. “Gary Young passed on today,” Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus posted Thursday (Aug. 17) on X (formerly Twitter). “Gary’s pavement drums were ‘one take and hit record’…. Nailed it so well. rip.” Matador Records, which released Pavement’s beloved 1992 debut album […]
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 age 88.
Moss, inducted with Alpert into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, died Wednesday (Aug. 16) at his home in Bel Air, California, according to a statement released by his family.
“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 Albert’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 first 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.
The Mosses’ Giacomo, named for the son of A&M artist Sting, won the Kentucky Derby in 2005. Zenyatta, 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. A hit single by Sting gave Moss the name for another profitable horse, Set Them Free.
Moss’ survivors include his second wife, Tina Morse, and three children.
Born in New York City and an English major at Brooklyn College, Moss had wanted to work in show business since waiting tables in his 20s and noticing that the entertainment industry patrons seemed to be having so much fun. After a six-month Army stint, he found work as a promoter for Coed Records and eventually moved to Los Angeles, where he met and befriended Alpert, a trumpeter, songwriter and entrepreneur.
With an investment of $100 each, they formed Carnival Records and had a local hit with “Tell It to the Birds,” an Alpert ballad released under the name of his son, Dore Alpert. After learning that another company was called Carnival, Alpert and Moss used the initials of their last names and renamed their business A&M, working out an office in Alpert’s garage and designing the distinctive logo with the trumpet across the bottom.
“We had a desk, piano, piano stool, a couch, coffee table and two phone lines. And that for the two of us worked out very well, because we could go over the songs on the piano and make phone calls to the distributors,” Moss later told Billboard. “We also had an answering service at the time. I’d do all my own billing.”
For several years they specialized in “easy listening” acts such as Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Brazilian artist Sergio Mendes and the folk-rock trio the Sandpipers. After attending the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, rock’s first major festival, Moss began adding rock performers, including Cocker, Procol Harum and Free.
One of their biggest triumphs was Frampton Comes Alive! a live double album from 1976 that sold more than 6 million copies in its first year and transformed Frampton from mid-level performer to superstar.
“Peter was a huge live star in markets like Detroit and San Francisco, so we made a suggestion that he make a live record,” Moss told Rolling Stone in 2002. “What he was doing onstage wasn’t like the records — it was outrageously better. I remember being at the mix of Frampton Comes Alive! at Electric Lady studios, and I was so blown away I asked to make it a double album.”
A&M continued to expand their catalog through the 1970s and ’80s, taking on The Police, Squeeze, Joe Jackson and other British New Wave artists, R&B musicians Janet Jackson and Barry White and country rockers 38 Special and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils.
By the late ’80s, Alpert and Moss were operating out of a Hollywood lot where Charlie Chaplin once made movies, but they struggled to keep up with ever-higher recording contracts and sold A&M to Polygram for an estimated $500 million. They remained at the label, but clashed with Polygram’s management and left in 1993, one of their last signings a singer-musician from Kennett, Missouri: Sheryl Crow. (Alpert and Moss later sued Polygram for violating their contract’s integrity clause and reached a $200 million settlement.)
For a few years, Alpert and Moss ran Almo Records, where performers included Garbage, Imogen Heap and Gillian Welch.
“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.”