Hawaii Calls

In George S. Kanahele's "Hawaiian Music and Musicians" I came across information about the "Hawaii Calls" radio show. As it's been mentioned here before in discussions of music and the information didn't seem to be anywhere Google could find it I summarized and transcribed for your enlightenment. The text below is taken from the book, except parenthesis. (If you're not familiar with "Hawaii Calls"...It was a weekly Hawaiian music radio show broadcast live from Hawaii, that's detailed below. The show is most known to the likes of us for the numerous albums it put out which can be found at junk shops, etc. The albums usually feature a mix of various "Hawaii Calls" regulars. Albums that are most easily found generally have that mid-century Hawaiian sound, sort of slicked up traditional. It's excellent music for the Tiki bar or backyard luau. The albums are worth picking up if your find them, or check out what's available on CD at hawaiicalls.com)

Webley Edwards got the idea for ("Hawaii Calls") while meeting in San Francisco with a group of radio executives in 1935. They had been listening to a broadcast of a group of musicians...playing what was purported to be Hawaiian music. Edwards remarked that the music was "Jazzed up" and not truly island music. When one of the group asked if Edwards could send them some genuine Hawaiian music, direct from the islands, he agreed and was offered a two-week trial period and the use of the groups' local 20 sation network.

Edwards returned to Honolulu (and) on the afternoon of Saturday July 3, 1935, under the banyan tree in the courtyard of the Moana Hotel, the first "Hawaii Calls" program was beamed to the West Coast via shortwave.

No commercials were associated with the program, Edwards had to seek financial support from other sources. Since "Hawaii Calls" was promoting Hawaii as a tourist destination, Edwards went to the Territorial Legislature for support...A bill was introduced in 1936 providing $30,000 annually for the program. When the subsidy was terminated in 1972 it (was) $115,000.

For Edwards, the object was to present live Hawaiian music performed by island musicians in an island setting. To achieve a sense of spontaneity, as he once put it, "We rehearsed to sound unrehearsed." He insisted that a certain percentage of English language or hapa haole songs be sung on the program.

A problem Edwards encountered early on was finding enough songs to sing. His solution- a search for new music- led ultimately to his amassing the world's largest collection of Hawaiian music. In 1937...He had 100 songs...In 1965 he had more than 3000. Several hit songs made their debuts on the program, among them "Lovely Hula Hands","Beyond the Reef", and "Sweet Leilani".

Edwards...Described the purpose of "Hawaii Calls":"to give an accurate, faithful, and authentic presentation of the music of the islands." (But) Edwards and the whole "Hawaii Calls" program were criticized for not being authentic enough. Among the severest critics was (traditional Hawaiian music composer) Charles E. King who accused Edwards...Of "murdering" Hawaiian music. He protested the "pepping up" of songs that were meant to be sung in their original slower tempos. In later years "Hawaii Calls" music was often described as too slow and old fashioned.

The last years of "Hawaii Calls" were traumatic. Webley Edwards suffered a crippling heart attack in 1972. He had hoped to (continue producing the show) but already 70 years of age and unable to speak he relinquished all ties with the program. (Later that year) the Hawaii Visitors Bureau disclosed that it was ending its financial support of "Hawaii Calls". (Attempst to find other support for the show and to launch a "Hawii Calls" TV show failed). On August 16, 1975, program number 2083 was broadcast from the Cinerama Reef Hotel in Waikiki. It was the last.

At its peak in 1952 "Hawaii Calls" was broadcast on 750 stations (around the world). When the last program was given, only 9 stations plus the (Hawaiian) KCCN aired the broadcast. (Webley Edwards died in 1975.)

(The sounds of the surf heard at the beginning of "Hawaii Calls"...And on some of the "Hawaii Calls" records...originated when people wrote the show after its first broadcasts claiming they could hear the waves at Waikiki.) What they actually heard was the alternating characteristics of shortwave radio. So a microphone was placed near the water to pick up the real ocean waves, which were then blended with the soft melody of David Kelii's steel guitar.

[ Edited by: woofmutt on 2002-07-04 14:01 ]

[ Edited by: woofmutt on 2002-07-06 03:36 ]

Aloha Woofmutt:

Just a note that Hawaii Calls was started up again for several years and recorded and broadcast from the Hawaiian Hilton as late as 1999. Someone out there likely knows if it is still running on some airwaves.

I have no knowledge on this topic, other than I have one of the albums. It is "Webley Edwards presents "Hawaii Calls" with Al Kealoha Perry". It is on Capitol records. The cover art is very cool (which is why I bought it) with two girls holding many leis with Diamond Head in the background. If anyone wants more info about the album, you can email me at [email protected].

Erich

I have an album, also on Capitol, called "Let's Sing With Hawaii Calls". A sing along album with lyrics in the gatefold sleeve. Has a bunch of old American tourists on the front, which is quite funny.

I'm a big fan of "Webley Edward's Hawaii Calls". I have 8 HC albums and I'm always looking for more. Excellent essay Woofmutt.
Al

[ Edited by: Alnshely 2007-08-02 05:13 ]

You can hear a bunch of the broadcasts at http://www.hawaiian-music.com/radio/intro.html

They play thru Realplayer. Very nice.

Kentiki

Woofmutt,
Thanks for sharing that sweet write-up on the history of Hawaii Calls. I was fortunate enough to attend a taping of the show with my parents in the Banyan Tree Courtyard of the Moana hotel in 1969-70. I can remember my Dad explaining how he and his parents would listen to the sound of the waves on Waikiki Beach on their radio in Chicago in the 1940's. Webley Edwards gets my enthusiastic vote for membership in the tiki hall of fame.

Good Lord, if I could ONLY find one of those albums (in good shape) at my local junk stores!!!
I have been looking!
Thanks for sharing the cover art - very cool!
:sheckymug:

Shoot me an email at [email protected]

I've had the album a while now. I'm sure we can work something out.

Erich

Does anyone know the release year for the "Exotic Instrumentals" LP from Webley???

There were at least 5 volumes of the "Favorite Instrumentals of the Islands" from Web Edwards, and the "Exotic" one with the tiki was #4. With just a skinny thread of evidence to support this, I'm guessing that one was released around 62.

-Randy

Thanks Woofmutt.....here's a few more......

[ Edited by: bongofury on 2004-08-06 21:12 ]

Hawaii Calls is one of my favorite records. It just has a great spirit to it. It has the vintage Hawaii vibe.

Thanks Aquarj! Its hard to nail down because they didn't print the coyright year or anything back then on records. You were lucky if they said in the liner notes what year the recording was done. BONGOFURY- Nice collections!!!!!!!!!!

While visiting the In-Laws I stopped by their local music store. They had a section in the lps for Hawaiian Music. Only 3 lps they had were all Hawaii Calls that I did not have. Not sure how many were done, but I have 19 different lps.....

In my neck of the woods it seems like every Hawaiian record you find is a Hawaii Calls LP - it must have been real popular here in Maryland! I've actually gotten to the point where I don't pick them up anymore - how many different versions of "Pearly Shells" and "Hawaiian Wedding Song" does one man need?

must be ~ i picked up an almost mint hawaii calls greatest hits this past sunday in timonium... maryland represent :)

On 2004-08-11 13:08, johntiki wrote:
how many different versions of "Pearly Shells" and "Hawaiian Wedding Song" does one man need?

You can't be serious. I must have dozens and dozens.

On 2004-09-15 12:17, Kailuageoff wrote:

On 2004-08-11 13:08, johntiki wrote:
how many different versions of "Pearly Shells" and "Hawaiian Wedding Song" does one man need?

You can't be serious. I must have dozens and dozens.

Precisely...I draw the line at about 20!

20 is a nice round number. So is 200.

Website

[ Edited by: filslash 2008-09-13 12:16 ]

There is an old LP called "Hawaii Calls Show" It is a complete broadcast from open to closing. Very nice.

Thought I'd bump this up .

http://www.hularecords.com/radio/

Arthur Lyman does two tunes live near the end of the show !

[ Edited by: sushiman 2007-07-28 17:48 ]

I love the Hawaii Calls LPs, and no, they aren't broadcasting anymore. Everyone who was "anyone" performed with them in terms of Hawaiian music and some wonderful stars were launched there..if you don't have any of Haunani Kahalewai's LPs, you need to acquire some! I'm at work, so I can't give an exact count, but something like 20 Hawaii Calls LPs were issued.
As far as the instrumental series, I think this is the order:
They are all called "Favorite Instrumentals of The Islands, vol. whatever"
Vol. 1 - no subtitle
vol. 2 - Hawaiian Shores
vol. 3 - Hawaiian Strings
vol. 4 - Exotic Instrumentals (the tiki one)
vol. 5 - Romantic Instrumentals of The islands (with organ)
vol. 6 - Soft Hawaiian Guitars (I think...) (this one was more contemporary sounding).
they are all beautiful. Of course, I hope everyone has they're two ventures into exoticism.."Exotic Instrumentals" and "Fire Goddess."
Cheers

Here is a list of all (I think) of the Hawaii Calls LPs that were released. This list does NOT include the solo albums by artists like Alfred Apaka and Haunani though.

http://digitiki.com/hawaiicalls.htm

Thanks for posting the list Mark!!

Your website looks great too BTW. Great info on the Milt Raskin downloads too! :)

Cheers and Mahalo,
Jeff

There is a Hawaiian Internet radio station that re-broadcasts episodes every Saturday at 4PM PST. I'm listening to it right now as I type this.
http://www.alohajoe.com/hicalls.htm
The other website mentioned, hularecords.com , only re-broadcasts episodes once a month. But the advantage to them is that you can listen whenever you like. Finally, I found this link to a broadcast from December 29, 1949:
http://www.angelfire.com/ky2/cumberlandgapbc/491229HawaiiCalls.mp3
You'll notice that this one is an mp3, meaning you can actually download it and burn it to CD if you desire.
There is also another Hawaii Calls record not previously mentioned called something like "Webley Edwards presents Hawaii: Our Fiftieth State" or something like that. It features a gate-fold cover and a ten page booklet. It also features a track by Arthur Lyman, a truncated version of the Hawaii Calls radio show, and lots of dialog and SFX clips which I used to incorporate into my sets when I was a deejay. Well worth seeking out.

This is beautiful! Thanks so much for posting...

[ Edited by: OnyaBirri 2007-12-01 22:09 ]

For those with broadband --

http://www.yoyoisland.com/tiki-tube.htm

Scroll down to find an embedded YouTube vid of Martin Denny on "Hawaii Calls".

(Apologies for not including a "Viewing Guide" on Tiki-Tube yet -- if you have display / interactivity problems, try our FAQ link at the bottom of the page, and I'll get onto correcting the oversite here next week.)

A great show; someday they'll all be available to downstream, I'm sure...

Cheers and Best Aloha,
SOK

"Don't let it be forgot,
That once there was a Spot,
Where Blowfish all wore sunglasses,
and Tiki-times were hot..."

[ Edited by: Son-of-Kelbo 2007-12-01 22:30 ]

Trader Rick,
Yes, the LP is kinda like an audio visit to Hawaii, the first track are the sounds of the ship arriving and people yelling "aloha". The record is quite nice actually. The Arthur Lyman track is "Sim Sim" which is featured on one of his records.

Just got my Winter 2018 copy of Nostalgia Digest, which includes an article on Hawaii Calls. The article is also on the Digest’s website, and posted below for posterity.

http://www.nostalgiadigest.com/current%20issue.htm

HAWAII CALLING
By Christopher Lynch

What comes to mind when one thinks of Hawaii’s place in popular culture? It might be the long-running television series Hawaii Five-O, with Jack Lord’s Steve McGarrett wrapping up an arrest by commanding associate Dan Williams (James MacArthur) to “Book ‘em, Danno.” It might be Elvis Presley’s 1961 movie Blue Hawaii, or perhaps his 1973 concert special, Aloha from Hawaii. It might be George Clooney’s 2011 movie The Descendants, about a family in possession of 25,000 acres of Kauai land.

But during the Golden Age of radio — when any land across an ocean might as well have been on the moon — many people were introduced to Hawaii through a program known as Hawaii Calls. The show debuted on July 3, 1935 and was hosted by its founder, Webley Edwards.

Edwards was blessed with a tenor speaking voice that was as clear as a bell, and which broke through the static. His show could be described as a Hawaiian version of the Grand Ole Opry, which had started broadcasting from Nashville a decade earlier.

In fact, Edwards’ inspiration for Hawaii Calls came not from lounging on the sandy beaches of Waikiki, but while listening to a program of Hawaiian music on KFRC/San Francisco. The Oregon-born Edwards — who had first come to Hawaii in 1928 for the purpose of selling cars — thought that this program was “terrible” and felt that he could do better. He could, and did.

That first broadcast of Hawaii Calls set the template of the broadcast for several decades. The program would feature Hawaiian musicians who would beat drums and strum ukuleles, an instrument then unfamiliar to Americans. And although ten songs were scheduled per weekly broadcast, only three of them would actually be Hawaiian.

The first Hawaii Calls programs were broadcast outdoors on Saturdays in front of a live audience at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, a famous pink hotel on Waikiki Beach. Eventually, the show moved to the nearby Moana Hotel. Hawaii Calls also featured innovative remote broadcasts, travelling to other islands and once even broadcasting from aboard ship.

Those first shows were broadcast via shortwave to the United States, Canada, and Australia. Ironically, due to a technical quirk of shortwave broadcasting, many listeners around the world thought they heard the pounding of the ocean surf in the background. Radio historian John Dunning wrote that “the shortwave transmission had a pulsing quality, which added to the waves and enhanced the exotic favor.” Edwards sent a soundman to the beach with a microphone to record the actual sound of the waves.

By 1941, Edwards had become general manager of Honolulu station KGMB — and in a strange turn of events, he was on hand to broadcast both the beginning and the end of World War II in the Pacific.

At 8:04 am on December 7, 1941, KGMB was broadcasting organ music from the First Baptist Church of Waikiki, the station’s regularly scheduled Sunday programming. The music was interrupted by Edwards, who read a statement asking military personnel to return to their bases. At 8:40 am, Edwards broke into the broadcast again. “The Island is under attack! I repeat, the island is under attack! This is the real McCoy!”

The broadcast continued: “Attention. This is no exercise. The Japanese are attacking Pearl Harbor!… All Army, Navy and Marine personnel to report to duty.” Edwards’ announcements played an important role in alerting the military personnel on Oahu.

During a crisis, a radio announcer may grab the nearest record within reach, to stall for time while waiting for the latest news bulletins. At one point after one of the very serious Pearl Harbor announcements, a bulletin was followed by a recording of “Three Little Fishes,” which had one of the least serious lyrics ever written.

Needless to say, it is easy to see how listeners might have thought this Sunday morning broadcast was a joke, or an ill-conceived knock-off of Orson Welles’ classic 1938 production of “The War of the Worlds.” A member of the Board of Directors for KGMB called the radio station to inquire if these bulletins were some sort of farce. Edwards yelled back, “Hell, no, this is the real McCoy!”

With the United States at war, CBS recruited Edwards to cover the action in the Pacific. During that time, Edwards produced several scoops, including the first interview with Paul W. Tibbets, the pilot who led the flight responsible for dropping the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Edwards interviewed Tibbets on the island of Guam, where the pilot admitted that his B-29 aircraft had been named after his mother, Enola Gay.

Hawaiians heard Edwards’ voice on December 7, 1941; millions of listeners heard him on September 1, 1945, when he stood on the USS Missouri and announced “World War II is about to come to its official closing.” Moments later, General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz arrived with American and Japanese dignitaries for the official surrender of Japan.

With the war over, life got back to normal, and Edwards resumed broadcasting Hawaii Calls on KGMB. Now the show was heard on the Mutual network and on more than 750 stations around the world, from New Zealand to Norway. (By the 1950s, the show was also heard on the worldwide facilities of the Armed Forces Radio Service.)

Needless to say, Hawaii Calls was a powerful advertisement for Hawaiian tourism. With ongoing advancements in aviation, travel to Hawaii became a very real possibility for many Americans. By the 1950s, aircraft like the Boeing Stratocruiser were flying from Los Angeles to Hawaii in about 9-1/2 hours — actually quite fast for the pre-jet era. Certainly it was much quicker than traveling to the Hawaiian Islands by boat.

And like sugar and pineapples, tourism was becoming a large revenue stream for Hawaiian businesses. The relaxing music and tropical island scenes that Edwards painted with his words on Hawaii Calls whetted the appetites of countless folks in northern climes who were well-acquainted with dark and bleak winters.

The Hawaii Calls program from January 14, 1963 demonstrates how Edwards’ words and descriptions of Hawaii made countless listeners want to book a flight to the islands. The broadcast began with sounds of pounding ocean surf, which gradually faded, behind female voices chanting in the Hawaiian language.

Edwards announced boldly, “This is a call from Hawaii!” and a chorus began to sing in a rich harmony. Then, as Hawaiian guitars strummed softly in the background, Edwards pronounced, “This is Hawaii, the land of rainbows and flowers, the eight islands of the rich green mountains that rise up from the blue Pacific Ocean. We are on the island of Oahu now, right on the famous beach at Waikiki, on the colorful terraces of a reef hotel, with beautiful Hawaiian girls, and handsome Hawaiian men and delightful hula dancers. And all around us are visiting Mainliners who happily join us in our welcome to the islands of Hawaii and our Greeting to the world, ‘Aloha’ as Hawaii Calls!”

The audience enthusiastically shouted “Aloha,” and then — proud of their collective effort — clapped loudly. The Hawaiian guitars began to strum again. It’s enough to make listeners jealous that they aren’t there for this party. (The show’s popularity inspired Capitol Records to produce a series of Hawaiian music collections based on Hawaii Calls, purportedly produced by Edwards.)

On a personal note, this author’s mother was among those “Mainliners” who enjoyed seeing a Hawaii Calls program in the flesh during a 1955 visit to the Moana Hotel prior to visiting Australia with her family. As Edwards described, they sat in the hotel’s courtyard, at a table with a pale pink tablecloth under a large Banyan tree.

Ironically, the role Hawaii Calls played in introducing tourists to Hawaiian music and culture would also be its Achilles’ heel. In the show’s 37-year history, it had only one sponsor, the Hawaiian Tourist Bureau. However, unlike other programs from radio’s Golden Age with a solid sponsor (such as Ovaltine or Jell-O), the budget of a state agency like the Hawaiian Tourist Bureau was at the whim of political forces.

Edwards, whose pop-ularity eventually got him elected to the Hawaiian legislature, clearly had friends in that body, since the legislature routinely came through with funding for Hawaii Calls. But the novelty of Hawaiian music began to fade with the popularity of other musical styles, particularly the dominance of rock & roll.

The program’s tone also changed when Edwards suffered from a heart attack in 1972 and was no longer able to host. Danny Kaleikini stepped in to replace Edwards, but the program continued to struggle in terms of both funding and popularity.

After forty years and 2,083 shows, the Hawaii Calls series came to an end on August 16, 1975, broadcasting from the Cinerama Reef Hotel. Two years later, Webley Edwards died.

In the twenty-first century, Hawaiian music has made a resurgence with singers like the late Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, whose exquisite Hawaiian medley of “Over the Rainbow” and “What a Wonderful World” has been featured in countless movies and television shows (including the BBC’s 2009 documentary South Pacific).

The Hawaiian language is a beautiful and nuanced tongue. The word “aloha” can mean both “hello” and “goodbye.” For his innovative radio programming and for making Hawaiian music’s first inroads into American culture, one can only say “aloha” and “maloha” (thank you) to the memory of Webley Edwards, a radio pioneer of the highest quality who created a truly wonderful program.