Herb Ohta (Ohta-San)

Herbert Ichiro Ohta, known professionally as Ohta-San, was born October 21, 1934, in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, the son of Japanese immigrants. His mother taught him his first chords as a young boy, and by age nine he had won a local amateur ʻukulele contest. At about twelve he became a student of ʻukulele player Eddie Kamae. Ohta served in the U.S. Marine Corps beginning in 1953, including a posting in Japan where he worked as an interpreter, and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1955.

His Hawaiʻi breakthrough was the instrumental "Sushi," released in 1964 on Hula Records, whose head, Don McDiarmid Jr., gave him the honorific stage name Ohta-San. The track topped Hawaiʻi charts and led to a contract with Decca. In 1973 he recorded "Song for Anna," composed by French songwriter André Popp, which A&M Records released internationally; the recording sold in the millions and gave him a worldwide audience. Over a six-decade career he recorded dozens of albums across Hawaiian, jazz, pop, and classical styles for labels including Decca, A&M, and Hula Records.

Credited with expanding the expressive range of the ʻukulele, Ohta-San was inducted into the ʻUkulele Hall of Fame in 2006 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hawaiʻi Academy of Recording Arts. In 2024 he was presented the 2022 National Medal of Arts by the President of the United States for "redefining ukulele music as a deeply moving American sound." Among his students are Roy Sakuma, founder of Hawaiʻi's ʻUkulele Festival, and his son, ʻukulele artist Herb Ohta Jr.