David ‘Ace’ Cannon, former co-host of famed longtime Charlotte radio show, dies at 56
David “Ace” Cannon — who spent more than a quarter-century as one-half of one of Charlotte’s most popular morning-radio duos, “Ace & TJ,” before a sudden and surprising departure from their show last fall — died Tuesday, according to multiple reports. He was 56.
His sister, Piper Wilson of their hometown of Pineville, La., shared the news via her Facebook page on Tuesday evening.
Shortly thereafter, Hits 96.1, the home FM station for “The Ace & TJ Show” from 2012 to 2021, posted on social media: “The iHeartMedia Charlotte family is devastated to learn of the passing of David ‘Ace’ Cannon. For years, he was an important part of so many people’s lives, providing companionship and laughter to his many listeners and colleagues.
“Our thoughts are with Ace’s loved ones during this incredibly difficult time.”
Neither of the posts stated a cause of death.
’This is a person we love’
The news of the radio personality’s passing comes 4-1/2 months after fans of the syndicated show he co-hosted with Ritchie “TJ” Beams were blindsided by the news that Cannon was exiting the partnership.
The duo’s manager, Adam Goodman, told the Observer in September, shortly after the announcement was made: “(Our) hope for Ace is that somewhere down all of this is a great other side for him. There’s nothing positive we wouldn’t hope for for him. This is a person we love.”
Cannon did not respond to attempts by The Charlotte Observer to reach him at the time, but he released an Instagram video two weeks later — at the beginning of October — in which he provided context.
“I’m taking this time to work on myself and create a better space for myself and my future,” Cannon said in the since-deleted post, revealing that he was separated from his wife, Amanda, and that they were moving towards a divorce. The couple had been married since January 2021 and share a son, Dax, born in June 2023.
“I just ask that you please be kind to all my family members and provide us the space that we need to adjust to this ever-changing situation,” he continued, adding: “I never really took the time to heal myself while working through difficult situations to pass.”
Cannon himself was no stranger to tragedy.
In July 2020, his daughter Payton died less than four weeks after celebrating her 21st birthday when she crashed into a tree while driving late at night in the Lake Norman area.
How they made names for themselves
Cannon and Beams birthed “Ace & TJ” in 1993, when — as the only two single guys on staff — the Louisiana natives were paired up for the first time on a Top 40 station in Alexandria, near their respective hometowns of Pineville and Winnfield.
They moved from nights to mornings, then on to Baton Rouge, then to stations in Huntsville and Birmingham in Alabama, before being hired to do Kiss 95.1’s morning show in Charlotte in 1998.
To that point, they had been trading heavily on doing characters; but they felt as if they’d need a new bag of tricks in these parts, since John Boy & Billy already had a corner on that market.
So Cannon and Beams started focusing on humorous banter and observational comedy, but also on concocting some of the wackiest bits the city’s ever heard, from low-budget/lowbrow contests to high-end/high-risk stunts — like the time they had a staffer attempt to land an airplane despite no previous pilot experience.
“When he went to land it,” Ace told the Observer in a 2017 interview, “he pitched it up at the last minute and the instructor had to reach over and slap the stick forward. They slammed down on the ground and ran off into the grass at this little airport. ...
“That would have been early 2000s. There are so many legal things now that are in the way of doing any of that kind of stuff.”
Helping sick kids
But it wasn’t all hijinks.
Over the years — which spanned two separate stints at Kiss, time at “Channel 96.1” WHQC, a brief partnership with 95.7 “The Ride” and then, finally, a swan song at “K104.7” WKQC — the duo also spearheaded multiple philanthropic efforts.
The most significant and successful was its “Ace & TJ’s Grin Kids” charity, which took children who are disabled or terminally ill on all-expenses-paid trips to Disney World.
”When we started (Grin Kids) we didn’t know about filing government paperwork,” Cannon told the Observer in 2017. “We were just taking money and putting it in the account and going, ‘Let’s go! We’ve got enough to (take a kid) to Disney World!’
“But somebody suggested we needed to get an attorney to look over this and he said, ‘Alright, forget that you did it that way. Because the government won’t take it as just, Oh, it was an innocent thing. They’re gonna look at it like you were not a 501(c)(3) and not legal.’ “
And once they got it all figured out, Cannon also spent more than a decade moonlighting as lead singer of a band called Charity Case, which was formed to raise money for Grin Kids.
In his video message last October, Cannon conceded that his future was uncertain: “I don’t know when or if I’ll be a part of your life again the way I was for the past 26 years.”
But he added that “what’s important in this moment is to say ‘thank you.’ Thousands of you reached out to let me know that you were thinking of me and my family and you were praying for me and my family, and that means more to me than you could ever imagine.”
After that since-deleted Instagram post, Cannon largely kept a very low profile. The only public Facebook post since his September departure was a link to a listing for the townhouse in Mooresville that he’d been sharing with his wife Amanda along with a simple message: “Anybody want to buy a great place?”
In addition to his wife, their son, and his sister Piper, Cannon is survived by his first wife, Shonnette Cannon, and their 22-year-old son Cade.
This story was originally published February 5, 2025 at 12:12 AM.
