Restrictions to Access

Use of audio or moving image materials may require production of listening or viewing copies.

Restrictions to Use

No usage restrictions.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the Edward Weiss AKA "Charlie Brown" Collection #70149, Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Received from Sue Weiss in March 2023 (Acc. 20230322.1).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: This summary description was created in July 2023 to provide information about unprocessed materials in Wilson Special Collections Library.

Encoded by: Dawne Howard Lucas, July 2023

Updated by: Davia Webb, Dawne Lucas, and Laura Smith, August 2023

Since August 2017, we have added ethnic and racial identities for individuals and families represented in collections. To determine identity, we rely on self-identification; other information supplied to the repository by collection creators or sources; public records, press accounts, and secondary sources; and contextual information in the collection materials. Omissions of ethnic and racial identities in finding aids created or updated after August 2017 are an indication of insufficient information to make an educated guess or an individual's preference for identity information to be excluded from description. When we have misidentified, please let us know at wilsonlibrary@unc.edu.

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Carolina beach music.
• Radio broadcasting--North Carolina.
• Radio personalities--North Carolina.
• Radio programs--North Carolina.
• Radio stations--North Carolina.
• WKIX (Radio station : Raleigh, N.C.)
• Weiss, Ed, 1941-2022.

Edward Weiss (1941-2022), known on the air as Charlie Brown, was a disc jockey and host of the syndicated beach music program On the Beach with Charlie Brown heard on nearly 40 stations, mostly in the Carolinas, Virginia, and Georgia. Weiss, originally from Brooklyn, N.Y., was born into a white Jewish family with Romanian and Russian roots. As a teenager, he worked as a DJ on various stations playing songs for teens. In 1961, while working at a radio station in Norfolk, Va., he was told "Eddie Weiss" would no longer be his on-air name instead he would be "Charlie Brown," the name chosen from a hit Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller song recorded by The Coasters. Weiss graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1963 and worked at a station in Charlotte, N.C. He helped popularize the emerging music of Motown and the Beatles in the South, playing their music during less restrictive late-night hours. From 1964 until 1970, Brown was evening host on Top 40 WKIX in Raleigh, N.C. After leaving his on-air job, he worked in sales and later served as WKIX general manager. He also helped to produce the first beach music records with Atlantic Records' Jerry Wexler. Later as a partner in Beach Beat Records, he was one of the first to sell beach music records advertised on television. In 1996, Weiss was the first DJ inducted into the Carolina Beach Music Hall of Fame.

Contains the personal files of personal files of Edward Weiss AKA "Charlie Brown", including song playlists, newspaper clippings, promotional materials, photographic prints, and open reel tapes. One of the tapes includes interviews Brown conducted backstage with touring musicians in the late 1950s, including Clyde McPhatter, Bo Diddley, The Platters, The Crests, Frankie Lymon, Carl Perkins, Duane Eddie, Dion DiMucci (of Dion and The Belmonts), Ahmad Jamal, Dakota Staton, and Keely Smith. There is also a rare interview with Buddy Holly.

• Image folders (PF-70149/1-4)
• Audio Open Reels (FT-13051, FT-70149/1-2)
• Compact Disc (CD-70149/1)
• Museum Item (MU-70149/1)
• Other items have been or will be cataloged in the University Library's Online Public Access Catalog