Starting in the fall of 2010, the Southern Documentary Project, an institute of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, began producing Sounds of the South, a radio show based on music entries from The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. The show, hosted by Charles Reagan Wilson, is broadcast three times a week on Mississippi Public Broadcasting.

Each three-and-a-half minute spot discusses a particular Southern musician, form, or distinct venue. Topics include, among many others, Jelly Roll Morton, Bascombe Lunsford, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Jimmy Reed, Protest Music, Swamp Pop, Dolly Parton, Clifton Chenier, Southern Culture on the Skids, R.E.M., the banjo, John Coltrane, and Mose Allison.

Southern music has flourished as a meeting ground for the traditions of West African and European peoples, leading to the evolution of various traditional folk genres, bluegrass, country, jazz, gospel, rock, blues, and Southern hip-hop. Sounds of the South celebrates an essential element of Southern life—music and music makers of the American South.

SoundsOfTheSouth