Hal Lewis, better known as J. Akuhead Pupule, was the top deejay in the islands from 1947 until his death 29 years ago on July 21, 1983.

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.

Aku said it began with a simple mistake in 1947 on KPOA radio.

"After I had been on the air a few days, I gave the wrong time one morning by mistake. I said it was an hour later than it really was."

"The next morning an irate lady called up. She said, ‘What’s the matter with you? Yesterday you told me it was 8 o’clock when it was only 7. I ran out my house. I got so excited I forgot to put on my pants. When I got to work nobody was there for one hour. I no listen to you anymore. You’re an akuhead.’"

"I told the story on the air," Lewis continued. "Some guy called up and said, ‘Akuhead is a good name for you.’ I just thought it sounded funny."

"It started out as Akuhead and later I added Pupule (crazy). Even later I decided the name needed some dignity. So I added the J., which stands for nothing. I think that name was worth its weight in gold."

Aku loved to play pranks on his listeners. In 1954 he announced that statehood had been approved by Congress, and to apologize to islanders for waiting so many years, they could get a refund on their 1953 taxes if they filled out an application that was in the newspaper that day.

Hundreds called the IRS office or pored over the newspaper many times searching for that coupon, until they were told it was an April Fools’ Day prank.

His most famous prank was an announced Easter parade down Kalakaua Avenue, on April 1. He described the floats, paniolo on horseback and marching bands from the studio, as it passed by, in his mind. Hundreds of people had shown up on Kalakaua with beach chairs and coolers to wait for a parade that never happened.

Aku wrote a letter to his listeners to be read after his death. "Folks, the news is, I didn’t make it. Last Friday I went to Queens for a nuclear medicine radioactive scan. It showed that the damn cancer had jumped to the left lung, which means I’m in the group — well like I said — I didn’t make it."

"I know it’s a sad piece of news and I’m sorry to lay it on you this way, but for some reason I feel up about it rather than down. One of the main factors is the hundreds and hundreds of cards and letters from you all — with love and prayers, and all your talk-story notes about things we did together over the years.

"The positive vibrations of all those messages has created a force of contentment, well-being and peace that surrounds me now. After all, at 66, I’ve had a damn good life. Those of you folks who’ve been hanging with Aku in the mornings for the past 36 years know that my life has been a rich and rewarding experience. And the hundreds and thousands of you were the ones who made it possible — Hell! — You shared it with me.

"And folks, I wish there was some way I could make you know how much I have loved you all through the years."

One tearful caller to Perry & Price the following morning said she wanted to thank him for all the mornings they had breakfast together. "It’s amazing you can sit down and cry for someone you’ve never met," she said.

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Bob Sigall, author of the “Companies We Keep” books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.