It was a night Harry B. Soria, Jr., will never forget: He and wife Kilohana were in Rome, attending a January show presented by her halau sisters. Soria expected to hear Hawaiian music — but he didn’t expect to hear it live, played by Italian musicians who learned their hapa haole repertoire by listening to Soria’s weekly radio program, “Territorial Airwaves.”
The musicians were particularly inspired by Soria’s “Kilohana Collection” program, made up of B sides of 45-rpm Hawaiian singles from the 1950s. The valuable collection had been gifted to Kilohana by an elderly French collector.
“They had learned literally all of their Hawaiian songs by listening to territorialairwaves.com,” Soria recalled during a May 31 pau hana conversation at his Manoa Valley home.
Soria’s radio show inspired the Italian musicians, members of a band called Waikiki Leaks, to record a 2018 CD called “Swing Luau.” “It’s a beautiful collection of songs that they’ve brought back to life,” Soria said.
That’s just one example of the importance of “Territorial Airwaves,” which spotlights Hawaii’s musical traditions.
Soria celebrates the show’s 40th anniversary on Friday at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.
For this show, the terms “all-star” and “star-studded” are not exaggerations.
Ho‘okena, Kimo Alama Keaulana & Lei Hulu, and Alan Akaka & The Islanders represent the generations of musicians who were alive before Soria launched “Territorial Airwaves” on June 13, 1979. The show premiered on what was then “Hawaiian Radio” KCCN 1420 AM. It is now broadcast on AM940 in Hawaii and globally on territorialairwaves.com.
Hoku Award-winners Ra‘iatea Helm and Na Hoa represent island musicians under 40.
WITH ITS 40th anniversary, Territorial Airwaves ties the longevity record held by “Hawaii Calls,” the iconic “Golden Age” radio show created by Webley Edwards in 1935. “Hawaii Calls” was broadcast “from the beach at Waikiki” across the CBS network on the U.S. mainland and relayed around the world on a weekly basis until 1975.
Soria said his father, island broadcaster Harry B. Soria Sr., wanted ‘Territorial Airwaves” to have the same reach.
“We had my father with us until 1990, and he told me, ‘You need to get on shortwave (radio) like I was in the ’30s and ’40s, and I was able to broadcast on KGU and NBC throughout the United States and Canada.’
“There wasn’t any short wave available, but in 1992 suddenly the internet appeared and so we were able to stream. That became my equivalent to shortwave,” Soria said.
“Then in 2006, we developed the podcast that can be listened to 24/7, anywhere in the world. If dad were alive, he’d be very happy.”
THE EVENING is more than an anniversary party. It’s also a fundraiser for the Hawaiian Music Archives Foundation, a nonprofit that will ensure Soria’s personal archives are professionally preserved, curated and digitized so that they can be accessed by future generations of researchers and Hawaiian music fans.
The collection includes more than 10,000 vintage 78-rpm, 45-rpm and 33-rpm Hawaiian records, along with sheet music, music books, and other music industry and record industry memorabilia inherited from Soria’s father and grandfather, Harry G. Soria.
Doing nothing — having his meticulously assembled archives broken up in an estate auction, or left to sit somewhere in a basement — is not acceptable to Soria.
“I’m 70, we have no interested heirs, so what are we going to do?” he asked, rhetorically. “To me, the best thing to do is to make a foundation, a nonprofit, and start converting as much as possible into a digital access so that it can become a resource for study and for passing the music on for perpetuation by generations after us.”
Silent auction items on Friday include unopened Hawaiian vinyl albums from the 1950s and mint-condition Hawaiian song sheets from the 1920s.
SORIA SAID he never expected a 40th anniversary when he launched the show in in 1979.
“We did a big celebration for the third anniversary. We had a KCCN birthday party. ‘Territorial is three years old!’ We were so excited.”
It was, after all, a very different time. The “Hawaiian Renaissance” had reintroduced other types of Hawaiian music to island audiences and the conventional wisdom in some circles was that the hapa haole music of the Territorial Era, the years 1900 through 1959, amounted to nothing more than old-fashioned tourist music.
Critics notwithstanding, the listeners’ response to “Territorial Airwaves” showed that a widespread audience appreciated the music. They also wanted to learn more about the men and women who sang it, played it, wrote it and recorded it.
Interviews with old-time songwriters and music makers — R. Alex Anderson and Randy Oness, Genoa Keawe and Gabby Pahinui, Johnny Pineapple and Prince Kawohi — became an important part of the show.
As Hawaii’s radio industry changed through the years, “Territorial Airwaves” changed with it. The show moved from KCCN to KINE FM and then to AM940, “All Traditional Hawaiian All the Time.” It first went online at hawaiian105.com and is now on am940hawaii.com.
As years passed, Soria began playing the music and interviewing the artists of the 1960s and 1970s.
As of 2019 “Territorial Airwaves” is presenting the music of the 1980s and 1990s — Dennis Pavao, Moe Keale, Palani Vaughan — as well.
“Perpetuate the music — that’s the whole point.”
Soria’s personal involvement with the recording side of the business began when he served as producer and liner notes writer of the “Hawaiian Masters Collection” series for Los Angeles- based Tantalus Records. He subsequently partnered with Michael Cord to produce and annotate a much larger series of meticulously restored out-of-print recordings, including music released by defunct island record labels 49th State Hawaii and Bell Records.
Soria’s work with Cord earned him seven Na Hoku Hanohano awards between 1996 and 2008.
“Territorial Airwaves” received the Hawai‘i Academy of Recording Arts’ Krash Kealoha Industry Award in 2017.
“We want to remain relevant,” Soria said. “If we can still be relevant with what we’re doing, and have people who are interested in what we’re doing, that’s all you can ask for.”
“If we can make 50 years for the radio show and then step into the sunset — that’s 10 more years, I would be 80 — that would be nice.”
TERRITORIAL AIRWAVES 40TH ANNIVERSARY 1979-2019
>> Where: The Royal Hawaiian hotel
>> When: 5 p.m. Friday
>> Cost: $150-$300
>> Info: territorialairwaves.com
