4. Herb Alpert — $870 Million
Alpert is a jazz musician and music executive at A&M Records, a record label that he and Jerry Moss founded (“A” is Alpert, and “M” is for Moss). A&M was later sold to PolyGram. Alpert acquired five No. 1 albums and 28 albums total on the Billboard chart, nine Grammy Awards, fourteen albums that went platinum, and fifteen gold albums.
Alpert sold 72 million records worldwide and is the only recording artist to hit No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 pop chart as both a vocalist (“This Guy’s in Love with You” from 1968) and instrumentalist (“Rise” from 1979). He also formed his own bands and wrote songs for artists like Sam Cooke.