Moss, inducted with Alpert into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2006, died Wednesday 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.
"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. Moss made one of his last public appearances in January when he was honored with a tribute concert at the Mark Taper Forum in downtown Los Angeles. Among the performers were Frampton, Amy Grant and Dionne Warwick, who wasn't an A&M artist but had been close to Moss from the time he helped promote her music in the early 1960s. While Moss didn't speak at the ceremony, many others praised him.
"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."
"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.