The Edison Collection – Various Artists – ‘Hawaiian Rainbow’ – Hawaiian Music on Edison Records (1916 – 1929)

Hawaiian Rainbow is the latest CD in the Document ASA (American Sound Archives) series featuring previously unissued recordings produced by the Edison Company between the years of 1914-1929. Hawaiian music had been recorded as early as the 1890s but was not especially popular or influential until 1912 when Richard Walton Tully’s Play Bird of Paradise hit the Broadway stage sparking an explosion of interest. Next came the appearance of Keoki Awai’s Royal Hawaiian Quartette at the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco. In late 1915 Victor began issuing Hawaiian discs on a monthly basis. By 1916 all companies, not least Edison, recorded Hawaiian or pseudo-Hawaiian numbers. An article titled “Hawaiian Music Universally Popular,” included in the September 1916 issue of Edison Phonograph Monthly, asks, “Two years ago what did the public know about Hawaiian Music, Ukuleles, Hula Hula Dances? Since then Hawaiian music and American versions of it have taken the United States by storm…