At the age of seven he received a wireless microphone as a birthday gift and began entertaining the neighbors on AM radio with songs played from a wind-up Victrola. (That very same Victrola is now in the WATD lobby). Later, after a number of somewhat undistinguished school years, Edward and some friends built a larger and more powerful transmitter and began entertaining the entire town of Natick (and parts of Framingham) with rock and roll music. The FCC was, however, not entertained, and promptly shut down the station.

After high school, Edward went to Amherst College and immediately became a fixture at the college FM station. He skirted the academic life except for the writing courses and was thought by many to be majoring in broadcasting (a course not offered at Amherst), women, and parties.

Eventually Edward entered the real world and found it lacking. He took a job as an editor, lived with his parents, and worked part time as a disk jockey in Rhode Island. Unfortunately, he was not in the top 10% or even the top 80% of disk jockeys. To obtain an announcing position from which he would not be fired, Edward quickly realized he would have to own his own station.

While working at a series of writing, teaching, and sales jobs which lasted until 1970, Edward taught himself radio engineering and became reasonably good at finding places and frequencies for new radio stations.

In 1970, Edward quit the corporate world, which was folding up behind him anyway, and became a consultant and finally, an owner of, radio broadcast stations. He married Carol Ebert in 1973 who shaped him up in many ways and won the elder Perry's gratitude for finally getting Edward out of their house.