Jerry Moss

A&M Records Highlights: Liza Minnelli

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Revisiting A&M Records No. 32
‘Liza Minnelli’ (February ’68)

Despite its self-titling, this is far from the debut of Judy’s daughter. By the time she was about to turn 22 and relaunch her recording career via the auspices of Mr. A & Mr. M, Minnelli had already issued three LPs for Capitol Records, starting with ‘Liza! Liza!’ in ’64, the same year she embarked on her first national theatrical run as Luisa in the touring production of ‘The Fantasticks.’

But the reality remained that after four years of working her young tail off — including landing the lead in ‘Flora the Red Menace,’ her Broadway debut — Liza was still struggling to step out from her mother’s formidable shadow.

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A&M Records Highlights: The Merry-Go-Round

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Revisiting A&M Records No. 24
The Merry-Go-Round: ‘The Merry-Go-Round’ (November ‘67)

Ten installments ago I asserted Lee Michaels was the label’s first true rock star. I stand by that statement, even if it took him four years and five albums to score a genuine chart smash.

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A&M Records Highlights: Family Portrait

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Initially I’d planned for this lengthy look back at A&M Records to be a series of twofers, the better to coincide with #VinylTwosDays, a weekly scene I’m always happy to join. But as I started sorting through titles and structuring future installments, it quickly occurred to me that not everything will pair up so pleasingly.

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A&M Records Highlights: Tijuana Brass

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I know what at least four or five of you are likely muttering to yourselves right now: ‘Man oh man, is she ever gonna stop with these damn Tijuana Brass albums?!? It’ll be Christmas 2024 by the time this #TuesdaysWithJerry series finally gets to the Police!’

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A&M Records Highlights: Lee Michaels

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Contrary to the impression I might have given with the sixth post in this ongoing series surveying past glories of A&M Records — I spend #TuesdaysWithJerry to remember late great mogul Jerry Moss — Joe Cocker was not in fact the first rock act signed to the rapidly rising label.

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A&M Records Highlights: Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass

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Hate sounding like skipping wax when I yet again insist I’m as eager as anyone to hurl my #TuesdaysWithJerry survey of A&M Records firmly into the era of Cat Stevens and Peter Frampton, to say nothing of the Police and Squeeze and scads more who arrived toward the end of that decade.

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A&M Records Highlights: Fairport Convention

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Shooting from the hip here, so feel free to kindly counter this claim in comments, but I suspect there was no more prolific group on either side of the Atlantic in 1969 than Fairport Convention, and only Led Zeppelin achieved more impactful strides within those 12 months.

FC is the subject of this installment of #TuesdaysWithJerry, my journey through A&M Records’s past, in tribute to that label’s late co-founder Jerry Moss. I’ll get to why you’re as likely to find UK editions on Island Records as stateside pressings.

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A&M Records Highlights: Baja Marimba Band

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This wasn’t the pairing I planned to present today for the 10th installment of my #TuesdaysWithJerry series, an ongoing look at the history of A&M Records (cofounded by the late Jerry Moss) that I’ve hitched to ye olde #VinylTwosDays wagon, captained each week by @vinyl_is_life.

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