Folk, traditional, and regional styles from all over the world; generally music that would be loosely classified into "folk", "world" or "country" in the typical record store. Ethnographic, field recordings, local labels, state-sponsored labels, records that were made possible through grants, etc., sometimes themed or in the style of a survey, sampler, or anthology.
Songs about trucking and trucker culture, the vice of pinball, road companionship, gospel and some regional country, and bluegrass gems, including places as far flung as Canada and Montana. Labels like Starday and regional records pressed at Rite Records Productions and Arthur Smith Studios.
A "pure blend" of traditional music from Ireland. Hear reels, jigs, hornpipes, and the most delicate aires, from all over the Emerald Isle played on fiddles, pipes, button accordions, tin whistles, dulcimer, and more. Recordings of Seamus Ennis, Margaret Barry, Michael Coleman, Paddy Killoran, the McPeakes, John Rea, and more, on Gael-Linn, Topic, Shanachie, Folkways, etc. With ballads sung in both the native and the foreign tongue, and songs of resistance mixed in.
A mix of regional styles and traditional music from the Balkans and Southeastern Europe. Hear ethnographic field recordings of music from the former regions of Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, Rumania, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Hungary. Tree leaf-playing choruses, kolo flute, lute, hurdy gurdy, fiddle, bagpipes, jaw harp, Traveller (gypsy) ballads, etc.
A show of regional styles and traditional music focused on indigenous Central and South America. This episode includes both field recordings and speculative commercial attempts of pre-Columbian or pre-conquest music and instruments, as well as more modern traditional styles.
A solid hour of Indonesian percussion orchestras, friend of the show Will R. does a Gamelan guest set, with some later tracks added by the show host, hear Gamelan, and other Gamelan adjacent music from Java, Bali, and some American Gamelan.
A mix of sounds from all over. Hear shepherds pipes, marimba & jawbone, panpipe ensembles, Khene, double membrane drum, Norwegian hardanger (octave) fiddle, and more.
Keep warm with a winter mix of regional styles and traditional music from all over the Caribbean. Hear chanteys, mazurka, merengue, calypso, and other regional styles, on recordings from Loulou Boilasville Orchestra, Rawlingson Hector, Everard DeJean, Nassau String Band, Ago's Bal Band, Orchestre Jazz Corondo, The Duke of Iron, and others.
Celebrate the New Year with the Vernacular Sounds 2024 NYE Bluegrass Country Gospel Bonanza. Labels such as Starday, REM, King, Audiolab, and some independent or self-released material mingles with some bigger Nashville labels. Recordings by Moore & Napier, Easter Brothers, Carl Story, Red Ellis, Wayne Raney, A.L. Phipps Family, J.D. Jarvis, Cooke Duet and others.
The 2024 Vernacular Sound Holiday Special is a mix of regional styles and traditional music from all over England, with some ceremonial and holiday material. Grab some ale or nog or whatever and hear wassailing, brass bands, and Mummers along with ballads, broadsides, and some songs of labor and industrial discontent. Recordings by the Copper Family, Harry Cox, the Watersons, Anne Briggs, Harry Boardman, Maureen Craik, Ed Pickford and more.
A mix of regional styles and traditional music from Louisiana. Hear early to mid 50’s Cajun, Creole, Zydeco, Acadian and New Orleans brass bands, are all featured recordings from Amede Ardoin, Dennis McGee, Joseph Falcon & Cleoma Breaux, S.D. Courville, Dewey Balfa and his family, Nathan Abshire, Hackberry Ramblers, Elise Doshotel & His Lousiana Rhythmnaires (featuring steel guitar wizard Atlas Fruge), Eureka Brass Band, and others.
