He was also behind the company’s “Welcome,” “File’s done” and “Goodbye” messages.
Elwood Edwards, an announcer who voiced the ubiquitous AOL email alert “You’ve got mail” at a time when many Americans were just beginning to learn how to navigate the internet, died on Tuesday at his home in New Bern, N.C. He was 74.
His daughter Sallie Edwards confirmed his death and said the cause was complications from a stroke.
In the 1990s, as computers began to crop up in home offices and families were getting used to the clanking dial-up tones, AOL became synonymous with nascent internet technology. Narrating the leap into the new frontier was Mr. Edwards, whose soothing voice notes were heard in cubicles, corner offices and living rooms throughout the country.
His “Welcome” would greet users in the new online landscape and let them know that a message awaited at a time when spam mail was rare, and dings, buzzes and push notifications had not yet become entrenched in daily life.
“It started off as a test just to see if it would catch on,” Mr. Edwards said in an interview with Great Big Story, a documentary company, in 2016. “At one point they said my voice was heard more than 35 million times a day.”
Elwood Hughes Edwards Jr. was born on Nov. 6, 1949, in Glen Burnie, Md., to Elwood Hughes Edwards Sr., who was in the Army, and Julia (Wheeler) Edwards. The family moved to Beaufort, N.C., and then to New Bern, N.C., where Mr. Edwards attended high school and began what would be a long career in broadcasting, starting in AM radio.