Elwood Edwards, Voice of AOL’s “You’ve Got Mail” Message, Dead at 74
America has said goodbye to one of its most memorable voices.
Elwood Edwards, who recorded the famous “you’ve got mail” notification for AOL has died after a long illness, according to NBC affiliate WKYC, where he worked as a “jack-of-all-trades” until his retirement in 2014. He was 74.
“Every time someone would come to visit at WKYC, he’d introduce himself and they’d recognize him,” Frank Macek, senior broadcast director at WKYC, told CNN. “There was such an association between his voice and AOL for such a long period of time that he became an instant celebrity as a result.”
So, how did Edwards originally land the gig? He has his wife to thank for seizing an opportunity.
“It all started when my wife Karen, who worked for Quantum Computer Services, overheard [CEO] Steve Case talking about adding a voice to the then-upcoming AOL software in 1989,” Edwards said in a 2012 video shared to AOL’s YouTube channel. “So, she volunteered my voice and, on a cassette deck in my living room, I recorded the phrases that you’ve come to know.”
In addition to the email notification, he recorded the phrases, “welcome,” “files done” and “goodbye” and was given a one-time payment of $200. Though he once told CNBC that he had a “good relationship with AOL,” he also clarified that he has never received any residual payments.
In the 35 years since recording the instantly-recognizable phrases, Edwards has been amazed by the popularity of his freelance gig, which even led to a 2015 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
“I had no idea it would become what it did—I don’t think anybody did,” Edwards said in a 2019 interview on the Silent Giants with Corey Cambridge podcast. “Suddenly, AOL took off… I remember standing in line at CompUSA and seeing [stacks of AOL CDs] and thinking, ‘My voice is on every one of those, and nobody has a clue.’”
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