Hawaii Calls was a radio program that ran from 1935 through 1975 that featured live Hawaiian music. It was broadcast each week from the courtyard of the Moana Hotel on Waikiki Beach and was hosted by Webley Edwards. The first show reached the West Coast of the continental United States through shortwave radio. At its height, it was heard on over 750 stations around the world. However, when it went off the air in 1975, only 10 stations were airing the show. Because of its positive portrayal of Hawaii, the show received a subsidy for many years -- first from government of the Territory of Hawaii, and then from the State of Hawaii. The termination of the subsidy was one of the reasons that the show went off the air [See: Kanahele, George S., Hawaiian Music and Musicians: An Illustrated History]

In 1992 another program used the name for a one year run in another Waikiki hotel but failed to attracted enough financial support to continue. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.