Genres
Pick one or more. The radio never repeats a track until you've heard everything in your selection.
History
Everything you've heard in this browser, newest first, and what's coming up. Tap a track to play it.
Up next
Played
About Old Folk Air
An endless radio of the world's old folk recordings: old-time fiddles, country blues, field recordings, polkas, calypso, Karelian laments, Bhojpuri songs and more, from about 1900 to 1970. Free, with no ads and no accounts, streamed straight from the archives that look after them.
On your phone
The Android app plays the same radio with the screen off, evens out the volume between recordings, skips very noisy discs, and keeps playlists.
Android 8 or newer. Open this page on your phone, tap Download, then open the file; Android may ask you to allow installs from your browser.
Where the music comes from
There's no streaming server: every recording plays straight from the archive that holds it, which is credited on each track.
- Internet Archive: digitised 78 rpm discs, folk LPs and field recordings
- Library of Congress: American Folklife Center field recordings from the 1930s and 40s
- National Library of Finland and the Finnish Literature Society: Finnish 78s and Karelian and Ingrian field recordings
- Instituto Moreira Salles: Brazilian regional 78s
- Digital South Asia Library: Linguistic Survey of India recordings, 1913–1929
Rights and removals
The recordings are hosted by the archives above and aren't covered by this project's licences. Every track meets our selection rules:
- recorded or released in 1970 or earlier;
- not claimed by a rights holder in the US Copyright Office's records of pre-1972 recordings;
- if made after 1925, not on sale or streaming in the music stores we check;
- songs credited to a writer only when every writer is known to have died at least 70 years ago (traditional and uncredited songs are included);
- no restrictions noted by the archive, and nothing sacred or culturally sensitive.
Most of these recordings are old enough to be out of copyright, but some may still be protected in some countries. We keep checking, and we remove any recording on request: email thehowardsmith@gmail.com or use “Report” on the track.
For archives and libraries
Do you look after a collection of traditional or historical recordings? We'd love to help more people hear them. Old Folk Air streams straight from your own servers, credits your institution on every track with a link back to your catalogue, and never copies or re-hosts your files. If you'd like your recordings included, or want to set conditions, please get in touch: thehowardsmith@gmail.com
Privacy
No accounts, no ads, no analytics and no cookies. Your genre choice and listening history are kept in this browser only. The page loads the track list from this site and each recording from the archive that holds it.
Code: Apache-2.0 · Track list: CC0 · Source on GitHub · Made in Aotearoa New Zealand