James “Moby” Carney, once a popular country radio host for Atlanta country station Kicks 101.5 (now New Country) in the 1990s, has passed away after being hospitalized with stage 4 stomach cancer.

The 69-year-old Roswell resident had been bedridden for several weeks and moved to a rehab facility in Marietta this week, according to his friend and fellow former radio host Steve Mitchell.

Moby’s heyday in Atlanta in the 1990s at Kicks included five years in syndication. He was a big personality who knew his rural audience well.

Moby spent time at rock station Z93 and then returned to his country roots with his own syndicated radio operation. Moby in the Morning aired on small town radio stations across America including WNGC in Athens, Georgia. For years, his favorite catchphrase to say on air was “Yeah baby!”

Moby, who is in both the Country Radio Hall of Fame and Georgia Radio Hall of Fame, retired in 2016.

In an interview in 2016 with the AJC, he said his philosophy on the radio airwaves was to be provocative, be real, be himself. He was a larger-than-life figure and he wanted people to react strongly to him, be it devotion or hatred.

“Why am I hanging up the headphones, other than, ‘Because of my wife told me to?’,” Moby texted at the time of his retirement. “It’s just come to be time where sleeping past 3:30 a.m. seems like a good idea. As Jerry Garcia said, ‘What a strange trip it’s been’.”