Aloha and Welcome to this LEGENDARY SURFERS chapter on the long-running radio program Hawaii Calls (1935-1975) and its influence on surfers from the 1930s on into the ‘70s.
Hawaii Calls was regularly listened to by surfers of the 1930s and ‘40s and a bit less after that, as travel between the U.S. Mainland and the Hawaiian Islands became easier.
The Wikipedia entry, with many images and sound bites, is worth a view: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_Calls
In fact, I recommend listening to a sample of the show prior to reading this chapter; even just a little bit to get the feel.
Here’s an except featuring Webley Edwards giving his famous greeting to begin the radio program:
A broadcast quality tape containing two Webley Edwards Hawaii Calls albums can be found here:
On July 3, 1935, the first Hawaii Calls radio program was broadcast from the Moana Hotel on the beach at Waikiki. Hawaii Calls, created and hosted by local radio pioneer Webley Edwards, successfully showcased top Hawaiian music and artists, popularizing hapa-haole (mixed race) and Hawaiian music for U.S. Mainland listeners.
In its heyday, the show was heard on approximately 750 radio stations in North America, the Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, parts of Europe, Africa, and on Armed Forces Radio throughout the world.
Webley Edwards initially conceived of a short-trial live radio show to beam authentic Hawaiian music to The States by shortwave. From the very beginning, Edwards served as narrator and host.
Musical direction in the early years was provided by Harry Owens (composer of Sweet Leilani) and other local band leaders; Edwards selected the island’s top hotel and nightclub performers to appear live.
The half hour program’s format consisted of a live Saturday evening broadcast of Hawaiian music (instrumentalists, hula, vocalists), often performed by an 11-piece dance orchestra or hotel ensembles. Edwards opened with the phrase that became the show’s hallmark: “The people of Hawaii bid you welcome — Hawaii calls!”
The show’s location moved over time, among prominent Waikiki venues (Moana Hotel and later hotels such as the Royal Hawaiian, Hawaiian Village, Outrigger/other Waikiki stages) so the broadcast always sounded “live from Waikiki.”
The show’s distribution was unique and used the available technologies of the time. It broadcast to all affiliates via shortwave. The programs were recorded upon reception, for later local airing, giving the show an added dimension for sounding far away due to the inherent lack of fidelity in shortwave signals.
Regulars on the program included:
Alfred Apaka – one of the show’s most famous voices; his appearances on Hawaii Calls helped make him a national figure and linked his “golden baritone” to the program.
Haunani Kahalewai – a featured female vocalist on many broadcasts and later billed as “Hawaii’s First Lady of Song.”
Gabby Pahinui, Harry Owens, Ed Kenney, Pua Almeida, Nina Keali`iwahamana, Boyce Rodrigues, Sonny Nicholas, Benny Kalama, Barney Isaacs, Jules Ah See, Jimmy Kaopuiki, Sonny Kamahele, Hilo Hattie, Poncie Ponce, and Emma Veary all performed on the show, as well as countless others.
Hawaii Calls played an outsized role in packaging and exporting romanticized sounds and images of Hawai‘i to primarily Mainland America. English-lyric hapa-haole songs and smooth arrangements made the music accessible to tourists and radio audiences. That exposure helped fuel Mainland demand for Hawaiian records, films, and vacations, and contributed materially to the islands’ tourism industry in mid-century.
Production was expensive. Over time the program relied heavily on institutional support – notably, the Hawaii Visitors Bureau, which subsidized the show heavily (court records from the 1970s show millions in contributions through 1973). That public/private funding link anchored the broadcast’s tourist-promotion role.
The show ran continuously from 1935 until 1975, producing about 2,083 weekly episodes. At its peak, it was widely syndicated. But, by the early 1970s audience and financial support dwindled and by August 16, 1975 the program aired its final broadcast.
Reasons for the decline included changing musical tastes, decreased station carriage, rising production costs, and the reduction and withdrawal of Visitors Bureau financial support in the 1970s.
Scholars and commentators have noted a double legacy of the program. While Hawaii Calls preserved and spread elements of Hawaiian music and created work for performers, it also filtered Hawaiian music through Mainland America’s expectations – anglicized lyrics, standardized arrangements, and a “touristic” image that sometimes sidelined deeper local Native Hawaiian music.
Despite its shortcomings, Hawaii Calls was the Twentieth Century’s single most influential regular radio program to spread Hawaiian music – and to some degree Hawaiian culture – worldwide. And while surfers amounted to a very, very small fraction of the show’s audience, its influence was probably greatest upon surfers and musicians.
Influence on Surfers
By the time Hawaii Calls debuted in 1935, Duke Kahanamoku had been giving surfing demonstrations in various countries – and “spreading aloha” – for a little over twenty years. Taking Duke’s lead, Tom Blake had been promoting the connection between surfing and “the Islands” for over ten. His book Hawaiian Surfriders had just been published the year before – the first book focused on the history of surfing.
Yet, the draw of surfers to Hawaii was not based on any great knowledge of surfing history by the surfers of that era. They knew surfing had come to their countries from Hawaii and Hawaiian surf was already fabled in their minds. The ultimate goal of a surfer was to ride them and feel what Duke, Blake and other early travellers to O’ahu described as a sport that was much more than just a sport.
Hawaii Calls, broadcasting live Hawaiian music – steel guitar, slack-key, falsetto vocals – from Waikiki’s Moana Hotel, gave surfers a tangible lifeline to the Hawaiian Islands and, thus, to Hawaiian surf that they would ride – hopefully – one day.
Calvin “Tulie” Clark, a well-known member of the Palos Verdes Surfing Club, reminisced on surfing in the 1930s, playing Hawaiian music, partying and listening to the radio: “We had ukes and guitars, and one fella had a trumpet, and we used to have big luaus. After we'd surf, we'd go back to the beach and just eat, then we'd play Hawaiian songs till midnight or so. Just Hawaiian music because that's all we liked. We used to listen to this radio program called Hawaii Calls, it was broadcast out of Waikiki, and we’d all dream about going to Hawaii.”
Hawaii Calls broadcast through World War II and afterwards, airing weekly on major radio networks and relay shortwave stations. Billy Meng, who was a mentor to a number of core Southern California surfers after the war, remembered huddling around a radio waiting for “HAWAII CALLS!” and hearing Hawaiian music that made him and his pals want to go surf in The Islands. “All of a sudden, there’d be a blast of beautiful Hawaiian music… Everyone wanted to go to the Islands because of the music… I said to myself, ‘I’m going to Hawaii!’ And I did.”
The late 1950s saw surfing’s popularity hit the mainstream, first with the Gidget movies, then with further commercialization afterwards. Amid all of it, Hawaii Calls remained rooted in traditional Hawaiian sounds and acted as a counterbalance to the changing surf culture and surf music.
Serious surfers – especially those traveling to the North Shore – saw the show as a reminder that surfing had deeper cultural roots; that Hawaiʻi was not just a wave zone, but a living culture deserving respect.
By the 1970s, Hawaii Calls was still on the air, but ended in mid-decade. It left behind its own unique legacy. Older surfers associated it with a purer, pre-commercial time and it is often cited in surf writing, oral histories, and documentaries.
It helped establish the recognition that surfing is inseparable from Hawaiian culture, not just Hawaiian waves.
For historians, writers, and reflective surfers around the world – especially those drawn to surfing’s deeper meaning – Hawaii Calls represented a moment when surfing first entered homes as feeling and imagination; a radio program that gave surfers a soundtrack rooted in place, tradition and inspiration.
ENDIT
END NOTES
Dozens of recorded Hawaii Calls programs, compilation albums, and private recordings survive in libraries, collector circles, and the Hawaii state archives / university collections. Researchers and enthusiasts still circulate recordings and transcriptions. Retrospectives and reissues periodically appear and some shows and excerpts have been posted online at YouTube.
For readers wanting to dive deeper into the subject of how and why surfers were drawn to Hawaiian surf and culture during the 1930s, I highly recommend Patrick Moser’s Waikiki Dreams, published by the University of Illinois Press, 2024. Patrick’s study of U.S. Mainland surfing in the 1930s is the best that’s ever been done and will stand a long time as the most authoritative single source on the subject.
RESOURCES
Kanahele, George S., ed. Hawaiian Music and Musicians: An Encyclopedic History (Ka Mele Hawai‘i a Me ka Po‘e Mele). Univ. Press of Hawaii; revised ed. Mutual Publishing (2012 edition). – definitive encyclopedic history with entries on performers and programs (useful background/context).
Ruymar, Lorene. The Hawaiian Steel Guitar and Its Great Hawaiian Musicians. Centerstream Publications, 1996. – useful for musical/technical context (steel-guitar role on Hawaii Calls).
Shishikura, M. “I’ll Remember You: Nostalgia and Hapa-Haole Music” (University of Hawaiʻi repository / thesis, 2007). – discusses Hawaii Calls in the context of hapa-haole history and nostalgia.
Smulyan, S. “Live from Waikiki: Colonialism, Race, and Radio in Hawaii.” Journal of Popular Culture (2007). – analysis of radio’s role in producing Hawaiian soundscapes and tourist images; valuable critical perspective.
Contemporary newspaper features and trade press items on Webley Edwards and the show (examples): Honolulu Advertiser / Honolulu Star-Bulletin feature pieces on Edwards (mid-20th century retrospectives). (See digital newspaper archives / Star-Advertiser retrospective).
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa – Hawaiian Music Collection / Hawaii Calls items (audio transcriptions, images, program documentation). Example record: Hawaii Calls audio (1966 transcription) and 1951 photo items in UHM digital collections. – primary audio and images.
KSBE / Randy Oness Collection – finding aid (mentions performers and Hawaii Calls connections). – useful for performer-level primary material and song lists.
Hula Records / Hawaii Calls Inc. archives (private label & rights holders – contact for access to original tapes and licensing). See mentions in industry press and Hula Records materials.
Webley Edwards Presents: “Hawaii Calls” (Capitol Records LP releases; assorted years, e.g., 1956–1966). Several Capitol LPs anthologize program performances; Internet Archive hosts a 1962 LP upload. – use for listening examples and to cite program repertoire/arrangements.
University of Hawaiʻi audio holdings and digitized MP3 transcriptions (examples in UHM’s Hawaiian Music Collection). – direct program recordings and transcription discs.
Commercial compilations and reissues: Hawaii Calls: Greatest Hits (Webley Edwards; Capitol; 1960) and modern CD compilations released by Hula Records / Mele.com / various reissue labels. – useful for public listening and liner-note details.
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