This week’s Unknown America is a compilation of strange and generally America-centric music. Below is a track list: 

Carry On My Wayward Son - Unknown girl 

Great Kansas cover by a lone teenaged girl. 

Then I Start to Yodel - Princess Ramona 

Pulled from a tape found in a dumpster labeled simply “Princess Ramona”. 

The Ronald Reagan Song - Edward C Hayes 

Pulled from a two-CD compilation of songs about Ronald Reagan by an Edward C. Hayes.

Gotta Get A Car - OLDSmobility 

Number from Oldsmobile's 1958 Dealer Announcement Show.

Country Roads - Ukuleles of Halifax 

35 children on ukuleles covering “Country Roads” by John Denver. Better than it sounds. 

Steel Mill Blues - Mike Pickering 

A “blues” tune composed during the Reagan era from the perspective of a steel mill worker who lost his job. 

Baked Noodle Ring - Katie’s Kitchen 

Just a weird sounding recipe recited by a Katie, found on a record. Other tracks are similarly odd sounding recipes. 

How Would We Look Without Zippers? - J.C. Penney Company

A track pulled from a corny “industrial musical” released during the 1960s. 

F.G. call-ins - WDNG Radio, Anniston, Alabama 

Call-ins from a regular listener of WDNG Alabama answering trivia questions. 

The Fall Of The Planet Earth - The Moonbillies 

Weird “country music” with a sci-fi angle about the world ending. 

Even Squeaky Fromme Loves Christmas - The Reverend Glen Armstrong 

Don’t know much about this one other than it was released in 1988. 

American Moon - Lunar Ladies Chorus, Bobbie Dimple 

Obscure space-age patriotism. 

"Unknown America" is a show that dives into places, people, events, and other aspects of American history that often go overlooked. Through occasional interviews, on-site reporting, frantically obsessive research, and personal accounts, the listener will emerge out the other side just a bit wiser and more curious about the forgotten footnotes of history that make America fascinating, curious, and complicated.

Hali Palombo is a composer, visual artist, filmmaker, shortwave radio enthusiast, and amateur historian from the Midwestern United States. Born in Northfield, Minnesota, she has had a natural curiosity about radio and the Midwestern United States from a young age. Her work often weaves the absurdity and mundane beauty of Illinois into her records, short films, drawings, and paintings.