As the story goes, Bing Crosby first heard “Sweet Leilani” during a mid-1930s vacation in Honolulu. His friend Harry Owens, then music director of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, had written that hapa haole song in October 1934 to celebrate the birth of his daughter.

Crosby loved it and told Owens that he wanted to include it in his upcoming movie, “Waikiki Wedding.” But Arthur Hornblow Jr., producer of the 1937 musical comedy, balked: He had already hired Ralph Rainger and Leo Robin to write the score.

Crosby dug in his heels and ultimately prevailed. “Sweet Leilani” was the first of his 22 gold records and wound up winning the Academy Award for best song in 1938.

The recognition was fitting, considering hapa haole music was all the rage at the time.

According to Victoria Holt Takamine, kumu hula of the hula school Pua Ali‘i ‘Ilima, that genre is defined as tunes about Hawaii written in English primarily between 1920 and 1959.

Heavily influenced by big-band and swing band music, those were the songs of her mother’s generation, few of whom spoke the Hawaiian language.

“That’s because they grew up in the early to mid-1900s, when Hawaiian was banned in schools,” Takamine said. “Native Hawaiians of that era wrote songs about Hawaii in the only language they knew, English. Other composers of hapa haole music had never been to Hawaii, but had a romanticized vision of what it was like. They wrote hapa haole songs for Hollywood movies and Broadway musicals from as far away as Tin Pan Alley in New York.”

In 1960, when a 12-year-old Takamine started taking hula classes from the respected Maiki Aiu Lake, the emphasis was on hula auana (modern Hawaiian dance). Hapa haole hula falls into that category.

“My love of the hapa haole genre comes from Auntie Maiki,” Takamine said. “She taught me my first hapa haole songs. She danced hapa haole hula in a cellophane skirt, and she dressed me and my hula sisters in cellophane skirts for shows at hotels, nightclubs and restaurants in Waikiki. It was fun. We loved it!”

Throughout the 1960s they performed weekly at the Moana Hotel’s seaside Banyan Tree Court, swishing and swaying to the music of greats such as Pua Almeida, Tony Kwan and Billy Hew Len.

“The hapa haole song ‘To Make You Love Me Ku‘uipo’ was Auntie Maiki’s solo number,” Takamine said. “I would always try to peek out from the dressing room to watch her dance. It was magical!”

Today Takamine is often asked to dance impromptu at parties and other events, and she is amazed how unfamiliar musicians are with the hapa haole songs that she suggests.

“Many young people have never heard of hapa haole music, let alone listened to it,” she said. “It might not be traditional Hawaiian, but it’s an important chapter in Hawaii’s history. It provides valuable insights about what the islands and people’s impressions of them were like in the first part of the 20th century.”

To acknowledge that, Takamine launched the Hapa Haole Hula Competition in 2003 under the Pa‘i Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Pua Aliʻi ʻIlima, for which she serves as executive director.

This year the festival is expanding from one to three days, but there will be no competition. Instead, the event is being billed as the Hapa Haole Hula Festival, with shows on Saturday and Aug. 28 and a workshop on Aug. 18.

Among songs that will be performed Saturday will be “Puka Puka Pants” from the 1961 Broadway musical “13 Daughters”; “I Fell in Love With Honolulu,” composed by retired University of Hawaii music professor Neil McKay; and “That’s How to Do the Hula,” by the late Edna Bekeart, a member of the Farden family, renowned for their many musical contributions in Hawaii.

Dancers will include past winners of the hula competition.

“It will be at the Royal Hawaiian Center, which stands on a historically significant site known in ancient times as Helumoa,” Takamine said. “King Kamehameha I built a home there in 1795, after he conquered Oahu. The Royal Hawaiian Hotel opened at Helumoa in 1927, and for decades its Monarch Room was Waikiki’s premier showroom.”

On Aug. 18 theater impresario Burton White, the Pa‘i Foundation’s development director, will host “Hapa ­Haole Hollywood,” exploring the three eras of the genre: ragtime (1895-1915), Tin Pan Alley (1915-1920s) and golden (1930s-1950s).

White will show movie clips from his collection, including one of his favorites, a scene from “Honolulu” (1939) featuring a lively tap dance by Eleanor Powell (808ne.ws/gracieallen).

“All the hallmarks of hapa haole music are in that wonderful 4-1/2-minute clip,” White said. “Look for the instrumentation, vocal arrangement and American swing style of the melody; the romantic Hawaiian subject matter of the lyrics; and the spotlight on the ukulele with background rhythm and sounds provided by a violin, guitar, bass, clarinet and trumpet.”

The festival wraps up with an Aug. 28 concert that includes new swing band arrangements of hapa haole hits such as “Swingtime in Honolulu,” “For You a Lei” and “In a Little Hula Heaven,” performed by the Kapolei Middle School band.

Danny Kaleikini, Cathy Foy, Pua Ali‘i ‘Ilima, Halau Hula Ka No‘eau (under kumu hula Michael Pili Pang) and some past winners of the hula competition are also slated to appear.

“It’ll be exciting to see dancers and the Kapolei Middle School students sharing hapa haole music and hula of bygone times, which are seldom performed today,” Takamine said. “For the band, it’s the past connecting with the present and the future — children discovering and playing the music their grandparents and great-grandparents loved and hopefully being moved to perpetuate it.”

Cheryl Chee Tsutsumi is a ­Honolulu-based freelance writer whose travel features for the Star-Advertiser have won several Society of American Travel Writers awards.