Moss Remembers Rock Icon Cocker

Owner/breeder and entertainment titan Jerry Moss was reached by phone Tuesday morning and reacted with sorrow to the passing on Monday of legendary rock singer Joe Cocker, 70, who was featured on Moss’s A & M Records mega hit album “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” in 1970.

“It’s just very sad,” said Moss, who along with his wife Ann own superstar retired mare Zenyatta.  “I saw him three years ago and he was doing well. He was one of the greatest artists I’ve ever worked with and I’ve worked with a lot of them. I was actually beside the stage when Joe was performing at Woodstock (1969) and it was one of the biggest thrills of my life.

“He was an amazing talent. There was nobody like him and he will be missed.

“We (Moss and his good friend and business partner Herb Alpert) knew the album was going to be important because the tour was so important. He went out on the road with a menagerie of people including some of the greatest players there were.  People like Leon Russell and Chris Stainton . . . Just amazing people on the road. Roberta Flack joined them at some point. We filmed the tour (Mad Dogs and Englishmen) in two different locations, the Philmore East (in New York City) and the Santa Monica Civic and we did pretty good with it.

“In the meantime, we got the soundtrack and distributed it throughout the world and it really made a very important artist out of Joe. It made him a real interpreter of music. He later came up with ‘You Are So Beautiful’ for us . . . It was great stuff.”

Moss also noted that 2010 Horse of the Year Zenyatta “Is doing very well. We didn’t breed her this year because she had gotten very heavy. She’s lost a lot of that weight, which she needed to do . . . Sometimes that weight can be hard on the legs and she’s such a big girl.  We saw her just a week ago and she’s looking great.

“She’s going to be bred to War Front in the spring and Cozmic One (first foal, a 2-year-old colt by Bernardini trained by John Shirreffs) will run here at Santa Anita in a matter of days.  Victor (Espinoza) worked him the other day and he’s ready.” 

Moss also lamented the passing of Zenyatta’s weanling filly by War Front, who was euthanized following a paddock accident this past fall. “We suffered a great tragedy, but we’ve got Cozmic One and her second foal, Ziconic (by Tapit) is in training in Florida right now and we’re feeling pretty good about the prospects of those two.”