Alfred Apaka

Singer and musician

  • Born: March 19, 1919
  • Place of Birth: Honolulu, Hawaii
  • Died: January 30, 1960
  • Place of Death: Honolulu, Hawaii

Alfred Apaka earned the nicknames Voice of Hawaii and Hawaii’s Golden Baritone in the mid-twentieth century after rising to stardom as a popular lounge singer and recording star. He is also credited for his role in transforming Waikiki Beach from a small village into a major destination resort.

Birth name: Alfred Aiu Afat

Areas of achievement: Entertainment, music

Early Life

Alfred Aholo Apaka Jr. was born Alfred Aiu Afat to Mary Keahi Aholo and Alfred Aiu Afat Sr. in Honolulu, in the US territory of Hawaii. He was of mixed Pacific Islander and Chinese descent. The only son of six children, he grew up singing in school and church choirs and playing the string bass and ukulele. He inherited his music ability mostly from his father, also a singer, and from observing the instruction provided to his father by his aunt Lydia Aholo—“Aunt Tutu”—who had majored in music at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. Aunt Tutu was the hanai (adopted) daughter of Queen Liliuokalani, the last of the Hawaiian monarchs, and a strong supporter of traditional music.

Afat ran track and played football at President Theodore Roosevelt High School, where he also served as a cadet captain in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). As a student, he successfully auditioned for a singing position with the Don McDiarmid Orchestra and thus began what would become a legendary career at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and Waialae Country Club, where Don McDiarmid’s group was the house band. While completing his diploma, Afat sang traditional Hawaiian songs and the increasingly popular hapa haole (half white) songs in English, with backup from guitars, basses, ukuleles, and the iconic kika kila (steel guitar).

Life’s Work

In 1940, Afat left Hawaii to perform with Ray Kinney and his Hawaiian Musical Ambassadors on an extended engagement at the Hotel Lexington in New York City. The band later spent time in Los Angeles working with Decca Records, offering Afat his first recording opportunity. During this period in his career, he felt compelled to change his name from Alfred Aiu Afat to Alfred Aholo Apaka, and his father followed suit.

After returning to Hawaii, Apaka formed his own band, which toured the West Coast regularly during the postwar years. He also recorded with Randy Oness’s Select Hawaiian Serenaders at Bell Records in Waikiki Beach and sang with Danny Stewart and His Islanders, as well as the Singing Surfriders, the house band on the popular weekly radio show Hawaii Calls.

In 1952, entertainer Bob Hope saw Apaka singing at Don the Beachcomber’s restaurant in Waikiki and invited him to appear on his television and radio shows. Apaka went on to record an album of Hawaiian songs with the Andrew Sisters, appeared on entertainer Bing Crosby’s radio show, and was a guest on television host Ed Sullivan’s Talk of the Town and The Dinah Shore Show.

From 1955 until his death in 1960, Apaka performed at the Tapa Showroom in the Hawaiian Village (now the Hilton Hawaiian Village) in Waikiki and served as its entertainment director. Apaka was at the height of his career when he suffered a heart attack. He is buried with a microphone in his hand at Diamond Head Memorial Park, located above Waikiki Beach.

Several records of Apaka’s greatest hits were released in the decades following his death in 1960. In 1999, an album of previously unreleased recordings, The Lost Recordings of Hawaii’s Golden Voice, received the Na Hoku Hanohano Award.

Apaka was married twice. He had a son, Jeff Apaka, with his second wife, Edna Mae Blake, to whom he was married from 1945 until 1959.

Significance

Apaka’s magnifying stage presence and smooth baritone voice, which could reach tenor octaves, made him a natural for singing “Akaka Falls,” “Beyond the Reef,” “Sweet Leilani,” and other hapa haole and Native Hawaiian songs for which he became known. Yet by adding smiling hula dancers, colorful leis, and talented backup bands, he helped bring Hawaiian music to the mainstream.

Apaka became the face of Waikiki Beach during the 1950s, when Waikiki was being transformed from a small beach community to a major destination resort, largely at the hands of the industrialist Henry Kaiser. As Kaiser developed the Hawaiian Village, Waikiki’s premier resort for many years, he constructed the Tapa Showroom specifically for Apaka’s show. The dome-shaped venue seated one thousand fans and filled up with tourists night after night. Apaka played a key role in attracting tourists to the island as well as popularizing Hawaiian music.

In 1997, the Hilton Hawaiian Village erected a statue of Apaka at the Tapa Bar. He was inducted into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame in 1995 and the Hawaii Hospitality Hall of Fame in 2009.

Bibliography

Apaka, Jeffrey. "The Life and Legacy of 'The Golden Voice of Hawaiʻi.'" Ka Wai Ola, 1 Mar. 2019, kawaiola.news/moomeheu/moolelo/the-life-and-legacy-of-the-golden-voice-of-hawaii. Accessed 20 Aug. 2024.

Marshall, Wende Elizabeth. “Remembering Hawaiian, Transforming Shame.” Anthropology and Humanism 31.2 (Dec. 2006): 185–200. Print.

Soria, Harry B., Jr. Liner notes for Alfred Ahola Apaka: Hawaii’s Golden Voice. Hawaiian Legend Series, Vol. 5. Perf. Randy Oness’s Select Hawaiian Serenaders, AI Kealoha Perry and his Singing Surfriders, and Alfred Apaka and his Hawaiians. Cord International, 1998/2010. CD.

Todaro, Tony. The Golden Years of Hawaiian Entertainment,1874–1974. Honolulu: Todaro, 1974. Print.