Born to a Jewish family in Cuca, Argeș County, Romania,[1][2] he was an immigrant to the United States as a baby in 1924 and was brought up in the Bronx, New York.
He served in the US Army Air Force in World War II, before working briefly as a bouncer and as a furrier.
He was primarily a producer of doo wop groups, as well as blues music.
He had a co-writer credit for the song "Foggy Notion" by the Velvet Underground, along with all the members of the band.
Weiss was described as "one of the most colorful characters of the New York independent record business"[5] and as "brash, miserable and explosive by turns... [He] had a bulging contacts book and was both courted and feared in an industry notoriously not for the faint-hearted."