A&M Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group that operates under the mantle of its Interscope-Geffen-A&M division.

A&M Records was formed in 1962 by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss. Their first choice for a name was Carnival Records, under which they released two singles before discovering another label had taken the Carnival name first. The company was subsequently renamed A&M, after Alpert's and Moss's initials. From 1966 to 1999, the company's headquarters were on the grounds of the historic Charlie Chaplin Studios at 1416 North La Brea Avenue, near Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, A&M had such acts as Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, Baja Marimba Band, Burt Bacharach, Sérgio Mendes & Brasil ’66, We Five, The Carpenters, Chris Montez, Elkie Brooks, Lee Michaels, The Captain and Tennille, Quincy Jones, Stealers Wheel, Marc Benno, Liza Minnelli, Rita Coolidge, Wes Montgomery, Paul Desmond, Cat Stevens, Bobby Tench, Hummingbird, Toni Basil, and Paul Williams. Folk artists Joan Baez, Phil Ochs and Gene Clark also recorded for the label during the 1970s. Billy Preston joined the label in 1971, followed by Andre Popp and Herb Ohta in 1973.

Jerome S. "Jerry" Moss (born May 8, 1935) is an American recording executive, best known for being the co-founder of A&M Records, along with trumpeter and bandleader Herb Alpert.

After graduating with a degree in English from Brooklyn College and a stint in the Army, Moss began his music career by promoting "16 Candles," a hit for The Crests on Coed Records. In 1960 he moved to California where he teamed up with Alpert, forming Carnival Records in 1962 and running the company from an office in Alpert's garage. Discovering that the name was already taken, they dubbed their new-found company A&M Records.

After the A&M label was purchased by PolyGram, the two men went on to form Almo Sounds in 1994, a new record label which continues to operate.

Moss and Herb Alpert were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006 as nonperformers.

Jerry Moss and his wife, Ann, are also longtime horse breeders and owners who received the largest ever first-place purse from the Kentucky Derby in 2005 after the victory of the first horse he had ever entered in that race, Giacomo.

Burt F. Bacharach ( /ˈbækəræk/ BAK-ə-rak; born May 12, 1928) is an American pianist, composer and music producer. He is known for his popular hit songs and compositions from the mid-1950s through the 1980s, with lyrics written by Hal David. Many of their hits were produced specifically for, and performed by, Dionne Warwick. Following on with the initial success of this collaboration, Bacharach went on to produce hits with Dusty Springfield, Bobbie Gentry, Jackie DeShannon and others.

As of 2006^[update], Bacharach had written 70 Top 40 hits in the U.S., and 52 Top 40 hits in the UK.

Burt Bacharach was born in Kansas City, Missouri, but grew up in the Forest Hills section of New York City, graduating from Forest Hills High School in 1946. He is the son of Irma (née Freeman) and Bert Bacharach, a well-known syndicated newspaper columnist, and is of German-Jewish descent. Bacharach studied music at McGill University, under Helmut Blume, at the Mannes School of Music, and at the Music Academy of the West in Montecito, California. His composition teachers included Darius Milhaud, Henry Cowell, and Bohuslav Martinů. Following service in the Army, Bacharach worked as a pianist, both as a solo player and as an accompanist for singers such as Vic Damone, Polly Bergen, Steve Lawrence, the Ames Brothers and Paula Stewart (who became his first wife). For some years he was musical arranger for Marlene Dietrich as well as touring with her.

Herbert "Herb" Alpert (born March 31, 1935) is an American musician most associated with the group variously known as Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass, or TJB. He is also a recording industry executive — he is the "A" of A&M Records (a recording label he and business partner Jerry Moss founded and eventually sold to Polygram). The multi-talented Alpert has also created abstract expressionist paintings and sculpture over two decades, which are on occasion publicly exhibited; and he and his wife are substantial US philanthropists through the operation of the Herb Alpert Foundation.

Alpert's musical accomplishments include five number one hits, 28 albums on the Billboard charts, eight Grammy Awards, fourteen Platinum albums and fifteen Gold albums. As of 1996, Alpert had sold 72 million albums worldwide. Alpert is the only recording artist to hit #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 pop chart as both an instrumentalist ("Rise", 1979) and vocalist (" This Guy's in Love With You", 1968).

We Five was a 1960s folk rock musical group based in San Francisco, California. Their best-known hit was their 1965 remake of Ian and Sylvia's "You Were on My Mind," which reached #1 on the Cashbox chart, #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. The original group split after recording their second album in 1967, but a re-formed band produced three more albums between 1968 and 1977.

Michael Stewart formed We Five after graduating from Pomona Catholic High School and attending Mt. San Antonio College. He was the brother of John Stewart of the Kingston Trio and came from Claremont, California. When Michael was a student at the University of San Francisco in 1964, he formed We Five as a quartet, although it soon added another member. The group played adult rock 'n roll, pop jazz, Broadway show tunes, and Disney tunes. Stewart did all the arrangements, which ranged from These Are My Favorite Things, in a style which reflected Bach, to Very Merrily Un-birthday. He put in several additional hours working on arrangements after the five band members worked together for five or six hours each day.