{"id":2368834,"date":"2026-04-11T20:26:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T20:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2368834"},"modified":"2026-04-11T20:26:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T20:26:15","slug":"band-of-oz-beach-music-singer-from-concord-nc-dies-in-wreck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/band-of-oz-beach-music-singer-from-concord-nc-dies-in-wreck\/","title":{"rendered":"Band of Oz beach music singer from Concord NC dies in wreck"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Doug Winstead<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Band of Oz<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

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Howard Douglas Winstead Jr.<\/a>, a singer, trumpeter and member of the Carolina Beach Music Hall of Fame<\/a>, died in a crash early Saturday in Dunn, the awards group that runs the Hall of Fame confirmed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The 67-year-old Concord resident was a member of the Band of Oz<\/a>, founded in 1967<\/a> in Grifton<\/a>, near Greenville, N.C. \u2014 originally as the Avengers, according to the band\u2019s website.<\/p>\n

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He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2021 and was a songwriter of the year nominee<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The wreck on I-95<\/h2>\n

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Winstead was driving a 2019 Chrysler Pacifica minivan on Interstate 95 North when he failed to reduce his speed and hit the rear of a 2025 Peterbilt tanker truck, according to a North Carolina State Highway Patrol statement.<\/p>\n

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The truck had slowed \u201cdue to traffic ahead,\u201d according the statement by a Highway Patrol spokesman.<\/p>\n

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The crash happened around 2:15 a.m. near Pope Road in Harnett County, the spokesman said. Winstead died at the scene.<\/p>\n

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The highway reopened just before 6 a.m., and the crash is still being investigated, according to the State Highway Patrol.<\/p>\n

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Beloved beach music performer<\/h2>\n

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\"The
The Band Of Oz performs as line dancers entertain the crowd at the Old Courthouse in Concord in July 2004. Marty Price Charlotte Observer file photo<\/span> <\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

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Keith Houston, a founding member of the Band of Oz, said he was too upset to talk about his friend Saturday. It wasn\u2019t clear Saturday if the band will still perform at Sunday\u2019s Halifax Resolves Day<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Winstead\u2019s death drew an outpouring of sympathy online.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOur Beach Waves crew was devastated<\/a> to learn of Doug Winstead\u2019s tragic passing this morning,\u201d Beach Waves Radio said on Facebook. \u201cDoug always brought the smiles in his unique brand of entertaining generations of Beach Music fans over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe are deeply saddened<\/a> by the loss of our friend, Doug Winstead,\u201d the Catalinas said on Facebook. \u201cOur prayers are with Deanna Winstead, The Band Of Oz, and the entire beach music community, and all the lives that he touched for many years.<\/p>\n

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\u201cGone way too soon,\u201d the famous beach music band said. \u201cLove you Doug! RIP dear friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Band
Band of Oz performs at Music off Main in May of 2012. Rob Smith Town of Garner<\/span> <\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

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\n \"Profile
\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n
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Joe Marusak<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Charlotte Observer<\/span><\/p>\n

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Joe Marusak has been a reporter for The Charlotte Observer since 1989 covering the people, municipalities and major news events of the region, and was a news bureau editor for the paper. He currently reports on breaking news.<\/span>
\n Support my work with a digital subscription<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.newsobserver.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doug Winstead Courtesy of Band of Oz Howard Douglas Winstead Jr., a singer, trumpeter and member of the Carolina Beach Music Hall of Fame, died in a crash early Saturday in Dunn, the awards group that runs the Hall of Fame confirmed. The 67-year-old Concord resident was a member of the Band of Oz, founded […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2368835,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2368834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Band-of-Oz-beach-music-singer-from-Concord-NC-dies.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2368834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2368834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2368834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2368836,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2368834\/revisions\/2368836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2368835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2368834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2368834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2368834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}