Interviews

1. Living in Hawaii after Pearl Harbor

2. Mother taught him how to play the ukulele

3. Inspired to play ukulele after hearing Eddie Kamae

4. How he got on the All-Navy show on Ed Sullivan

5. Friend convinced him to make a record

6. Number 1 Hit "Sushi"

7. Playing 3 shows a night in Waikiki

8. "Song for Anna"

9. Performing in Japan

Herb Ohta

(b. 1934) Ukulele player from Hawaii

How he got on the All-Navy show on Ed Sullivan

We had to get up in the morning—four thirty in the morning, hold reveille, and we had to march to the cafeteria, even if we didn’t want to eat.

I was so mad, and then…they almost court-martialed me because I opened the locker room and I had the rifle hanging on the top shelf by the butt with the muzzle end facing down, and the thing fell down and hit my bare foot, right, and I broke three bones over there. And I could hardly walk to the mess hall. So what happened was, they had me on guard duty permanently. In the barracks, I used to wake them up in the morning. But I had this cast on, just for that foot.

And then I saw something on the desk of the front office, and it said, auditions for Ed Sullivan Show. You know, hey…what is this? So I asked my sister to send me my ukulele. And I auditioned at Mission Ballroom in San Diego and won, and from there, we went to Patuxent, Maryland, and then went to the St. Albans Hospital in New York and the Ed Sullivan Show.

armed forces Hawai'i military music musical instruments musicians ukulele United States

Date: August 2012

Location: Hawai`i, US

Interviewer: John Esaki

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

78-years-old, is known by ukulele fans in Japan and around the world as "Ohta-san." Ohta-san is a master ukulele player who learned to play the instrument from his mother in the pre-World War II era in Honolulu. He played a major role in popularizing the ukulele in the 1960s and 70s, expanding the repertoire of the instrument beyond Hawai`ian songs to include international pop and jazz. In his interview, Ohta-san vividly demonstrates his stylistic development by playing excerpts from songs that were significant to his career. (June 2014)