Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Steve Cyrkin, Admin on August 9, 2026 at 10:11am

I love the research you're doing. 1956 is still circa 1950 BTW.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ryan W on August 9, 2026 at 12:23pm

Hal Lewis was one of the biggest radio personalities in Hawaiʻi’s history. He was better known on air as J. Akuhead Pupule, usually shortened to “Aku.” The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court itself later identified him as “Hal Lewis, aka J. Akuhead Pupule,” so there is no ambiguity about the identity. 

He came to Honolulu radio in 1946, first working at KGMB and then KPOA. According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, it was at KPOA that he developed the “Aku” persona after a listener angrily called him an “aku-head” when he gave the wrong time on air; Lewis embraced the insult and turned it into his radio name. 

Aku was not a conventional DJ. He mixed records with comedy, commentary, interviews, live calls, practical jokes and strong opinions. By the 1960s–80s he was an enormous presence in Hawaiʻi radio, at times reportedly commanding a huge share of the morning audience and becoming one of the country’s highest-paid radio personalities.  He was important enough that the Radio Hall of Fame inducted him posthumously in 2021. 

And for the KHON research, this is the particularly interesting part: Lewis was not merely some obscure station employee. He was already a major Honolulu radio personality during the early 1950s. The 1953 Radio Annual evidence we’ve been tracking places the “J. Akuhead Pupule Program” at KHON in Honolulu. By 1956 he had moved on again—a contemporary Honolulu Record article identifies “Hal Lewis (Akuhead on Station KGU)”, showing how he moved among Honolulu stations. 

So in terms of the Billie Holiday provenance, if a record truly came out of KHON’s record collection in the early 1950s, Hal “Aku” Lewis is exactly the kind of person who could have been around it: a prominent KHON air personality working in a record-driven radio environment, not just an executive behind a desk.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ryan W on August 9, 2026 at 12:27pm

Harry B. Soria Sr. was actually working at KHON by Christmas 1951. A detailed history of the Soria broadcasting family, originally published in Honolulu Magazine and based partly on interviews with Soria himself, says that by Christmas 1951 he had joined KHON, where he worked alongside hugely popular DJ Hal “Aku” Lewis. It also says PR man Buck Buchwach shared a KHON office with Lewis. Soria remained in that radio circle until moving to KGMB Radio/TV within about two years after television arrived in December 1952. 

2. Soria’s own son remembered his KHON-era father being personally connected to the musicians at the Waikiki Sands. Harry B. Soria Jr., born in 1948, recalled going to dinner at the Waikiki Sands with his parents when he was a little boy. During the musicians’ breaks, they would come over to the Soria family’s table. He specifically remembered seeing the “camaraderie and respect” the musicians had for his father. 

That is important because we now have an independent recollection showing a real KHON broadcaster moving socially among the performers at the Waikiki Sands.

Then comes the other side of the bridge.

3. Billie Holiday is independently remembered as performing at the same Waikiki Sands—and doing essentially the same thing between sets. Nohelani Cypriano says her mother, Leinaʻala Simerson, managed the Hawaiian show at the old Waikiki Sands while Billie Holiday was performing jazz there. She adds that Billie and Leinaʻala regularly shared dinners during their breaks. 

That isn’t just an unsupported family story about the Sands. A Honolulu Star-Bulletin obituary independently confirms that Leinaʻala Simerson and her troupe performed at the Waikiki Sands, and a later Star-Bulletin feature actually identifies her in a photograph of the original Waikiki Sands musicians alongside Genoa Keawe and others. 

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 39
• 40
• 41
• Next ›
• Page