Aku was one of the highest paid
deejays in the nation at the time, earning an estimated $500,000 a year.
He was born April 14, 1917, as Herschel Laib Hohenstein.
By the time he came to Hawaii as
a violinist on the Matsonia, he had changed it to Hal Lewis. KPOA (now
KORL) gave him his first radio job.
"Aku had a perfect voice for AM
radio," says KSSK's Michael W. Perry. "He just had the right timbre and
register. He was a musician. He understood sound and how music and
voice fit together."
Aku was one of the first to take
phone calls on the air. "Hello dere," he would say. Listeners would ask
about current events or tell him jokes. He took calls from
President Richard Nixon, Sammy Davis Jr. and Frank Sinatra. He had an
array of bells, whistles, buzzers and sound effects to provide
color.
When the rock 'n' roll era
washed over the radio waves, Aku stuck with classical and big-band
music. His 100,000 daily listeners stuck with him.
Lewis was given the nickname
"Akuhead" by an irate listener when he gave the wrong time on air,
sending her running to the office an hour early.
*** 11/13/20
‘A Day in the Life of a Fish-head’
2 comments:
I think it was 1961, and I was 7 year-old, who called the Aku Show to request a song, well after 30 minutes. or so, I called back, Aku told me it's coming. About 15 minutes later I pestered him again, but this time as soon as I said something, he cut me off, and said, yeah, yeah, yeah, and hung-up the phone. I tried to call back so I could call him a Dodo face, but he was smarter, and kept hanging-up before I could say anything.
I would wait with AKU in the alley outside KGMB TV at 3:30 in the morning in 1973. We would ring the doorbell for someone to open the door and let us into work. The broadcast tower had AKU written on it in big letters. I think some of my friends had recently come from the Waianae area and painted the tower. Aku seemed like a nice guy. Being young I was more impressed by the Studio Monitor Speakers that someone had stacked inside the door.
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