Hal "Aku Head" Lewis developed as much controversy as he did fans as one of the highest paid radio personalities in the world.

He woke up his Island audience with oldies music, jokes and political opinion for 17 years on the radio station now known as KSSK.

Born Herschel Hohenstein, "Aku Head" was a professional violinist before he began working in Island radio and made a name for himself as a disc jockey years later at the Hilo Hattie show at KPOA. At the height of his popularity in the late 1960s — when his station still held its original call sign of KGMB — Lewis commanded 20 percent of O'ahu's morning radio audience. Estimates of his peak annual pay ranged up to $500,000.

Lewis' comments resulted in lawsuits and on-air apologies, but the off-beat deejay never relented. Just before his death in 1983 from lung cancer, Lewis publicized and "covered" an April 1 parade featuring "Magnum P.I." Tom Selleck and other notables that turned out to be an April Fool's Day joke, to the frustration of the several thousand fans who came out to watch.

The name "Aku Head" may have stemmed from the call of an angry listener, who asked to speak to the disc jockey with the large nose. She called him an "aku-head," comparing his profile to that of the tuna fish called aku in Hawaiian. The deejay took to the name immediately and thereafter hated being referred to as Hal Lewis.

As controversial and politically incorrect as Aku Head's radio program was, it drew listeners from across the Islands — and Aku appreciated them to the end.

In a statement he prepared and was read on the air after his death, Aku Head said: "Folks, I wish there was some way I could make you know how much I have loved you all through the years."