L.A. Music Center Salute to A&M Records’ Jerry Moss Rescheduled With Peter Frampton, Amy Grant, Dionne Warwick Joining Lineup (EXCLUSIVE)

Chris Willman
·4 min read
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A salute to A&M Records co-founder Jerry Moss that had been scheduled to take place at Los Angeles’ Music Center last winter, only to be postponed because of a pandemic resurgence, has at last been rescheduled for next month, now with an entirely different but equally star-studded lineup of live headliners.

The event billed as “Live at The Music Center: Concert Celebrating Jerry Moss, Co-Founder of A&M Records” is now slated to take place just over a month from now, on Jan. 14, 2023, at the Mark Taper Forum. The five artists who’ll be performing live for the 90-minute concert are Peter Frampton, Amy Grant, Dionne Warwick, former Bad Company and Free frontman Paul Rodgers, and Joe Sumner.

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Several other figures who are part of the A&M legacy will make non-performing appearances at the show, including A&M co-founder Herb Alpert (seen above, left, with Moss), Misty Copeland and one of the label’s flagship artists, Burt Bacharach. Among those who will be part of the program to fete Moss in pre-recorded appearances are Sheryl Crow, Yusuf/Cat Stevens and Sting (Sumner’s father).

When the tribute to the music mogul was originally scheduled to take place over two nights on Feb. 11-12 of this year, it sported an entirely different lineup of five performers, then consisting of Alpert, Sting, Bacharach, Sergio Mendes and Merry Clayton.

While many of the original ticketholders held on to their tickets after the February postponement, additional tickets for this new date have been put on sale at musiccenter.org/moss starting
at $43. VIP tickets are also on sale for a package that includes a pre-concert reception and/or a dinner following the show, which has an early start time of 7 p.m. Tickets for the VIP experience can be obtained by emailing specialevents@musiccenter.org.

Proceeds from the concert will go to programs making free or low-cost programming available to Los Angeles-area residents who may not normally have access to the arts.

“My first awareness of A&M Records was seeing the iconic logo on the inside of a Carole King record,” said Amy Grant, who will come to the benefit hot on the heels of being celebrated at the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C. Although originally signed to the Myrrh gospel label, it was being co-signed to Moss’ label that led to her biggest pop smashes in the late 1980s and ’90s. “A&M Records was known by all to be the ‘artists’ label’ and it was a dream come true when they signed me. In getting to know Jerry Moss over the years, I was amazed by the breadth of his interests. Whether it was music, horse racing or trekking through Africa, excellence defined everything in which he invested his talents and passions.”

Said Frampton, “Jerry Moss has always been a music lover first. If it weren’t for him, Humble Pie (his original group) and my own solo career might never have happened. Jerry has been a champion of mine my entire life and I treasure our friendship.” His “Frampton Comes Alive” live album was one of the biggest releases in A&M’s history.

Moss and his wife Tina Moss have long supported the Music Center’s varied partnerships and initiatives, including a $25 million donation in 2020. At the time the large outdoor area joining the Mark Taper and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on the Music Center campus was named Jerry Moss Plaza.

Rachel S. Moore, president-CEO of the Music Center, called Moss “one of the most iconic and pioneering figures in the recording industry. … This one-of-a-kind concert, which was slated for earlier this year, only to be upended by the pandemic, is worth the wait. This incredible celebration for Jerry will be the toast of the town.”

Moss and Alpert co-founded A&M Records in 1962, and ran it for more than 25 years before selling it in 1989 to Polygram. Though their famous Hollywood lot was sold off little about the legacy was carried on by current owner Universal Music Group, the imprint survives, in a fashion, in the Interscope Geffen A&M label group. Alpert and Moss went on to form Almo Sounds, and Moss is chairman of both Almo Sounds and the publishing company Rondor Music. He and Alpert were inducted together into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. Late last year, they were the subject of a documentary, “Mr. A and Mr. M.”

tribute concert music center mark taper
Jerry Moss and Herb Alpert of A&M Records

The tribute concert is being produced by the Music Center in conjunction with Nouveau Productions and executive producer/co-founder Robert Pullen.

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