I am so happy to finally launch another component to the UC project. This time, it's a radio station playing classic Ukrainian-Canadian folk music, polkas, waltzes, and pop much. It's titled Ukrainian Memories Radio. Most of the recordings were produced between the 1950s and 1970s in Manitoba and Ontario, and feature some of the most familiar names in the Ukrainian-Canadian folk music genre.
Coming into this collection of vinyl was not normal. In fact, it was extremely surprising and sentimental.
In 1992 after my grandfather died, my granny had a big yard sale in preparation to sell the family home in New Westminster. They had been living there since the early 1950s and in forty years had accumulated quite a lot of items. One of which was the gigantic record player chest, complete with many albums on vinyl of Ukrainian-Canadian folk music recordings. All of that was gone, and unfortunately, not much of a thought was given about where it might have ended up.
Fast-forward to the fall of 2021. I have been living in the Fraser Canyon for the last seven years, and only thought to visit our local second-hand shop for the first time while riding my bike through town. I noticed that they had a small collection of Ukrainian albums on vinyl, so I purchased a couple of them and went home.
When I dropped one of the albums out of the sleeve into my hand, I was in shock. There, on the record label was my grandmother's handwriting, and her name clearly marked. I checked the next album. Same marking.
I rode back down to the second hand store and bought out all the albums they had in the shop and took them home. Sure enough, on more than half of them, my grandmother had signed her name onto the labels.
In a strange way, these albums are back home. Back where they should be. Now I want to share them with you, which is why I launched Ukrainian Memories Radio. These aren't just the sounds of our Ukrainian-Canadian recording artists from the mid-20th century, these are the same albums played on that old record player chest in my grandparents' home that I enjoyed so much as a child. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did -- and still do!
