Penn-Ohio Polka Pals will celebrate the release of its “2024 52nd Anniversary Edition” CD with a show Sunday at DiLucia’s Banquet Center.

The 20-song CD features new recordings by members of the group, dedicated to promoting polka music in the region. The recordings started out as something that was done to mark milestone anniversaries for the organization, but this is the third year in a row POPP has produced a CD.

“They’re trying to do them every year now, you know, to help promote new music out there,” said Gary Rhamy, owner of Peppermint Recording Studios in Youngstown and producer of the album. “We see this as a way of trying to get new music out into the polka field every year, because fewer and fewer bands are recording these days,”

The 50th anniversary edition in 2022 was named favorite international style album of the year by the International Polka Association.

Except for a couple of members who have home recording capabilities, all of the tracks were recorded at Peppermint.

“It’s a mix of bands and members,” Rhamy said. “Individual members could assemble a band and have them perform a recording for the album. You know, if he was an accordion player, he would get other musicians from the group.”

While the group’s members primarily hail from the two states in its name, both the Pals and its CDs draw from a wider geographic range. The 52nd-anniversary release includes area acts such as Del Sinchak, Bill Bevec, Rex Taneri and The Zolkas as well as three-time Grammy winner Walter Ostanek from Canada and Grammy winner Joey Miskulin, a Chicago native best known for his work with the band Riders in the Sky.

In addition to working with the musicians in the studio, one of Rhamy’s tasks is figuring out the best way to sequence 20 songs by 20 different performers playing music in a variety of styles that fall under the “polka” umbrella,

“I take into consideration different aspects of the music,” he said. “Is it an instrumental? Is it a vocal? Is it a regular accordion or does it feature a button box accordion? Is it a polka? Is it a waltz? If it’s something a little bit beyond polkas, how do you figure that in, because some of the bands do other types of music. So there’s a lot of variables, so it’s quite a challenge to figure out how to give a nice balance.”

The CD will be available at Sunday’s event, which will include performances by Taneri’s and Bevec’s bands as well as Patty C and the Guys from Cleveland. The $15 admission price also includes a buffet dinner provided by DiLucia’s.

The participating musicians will be selling the CD at their gigs, and it also will be available through Peppermint and some polka music distributors.

“There’s an organization up in Wisconsin that buys a quantity of these and sends them out as promotional gifts to people that subscribe to their polka network, so there are a lot of ways we can promote this CD,” Rhamy said.

If you go …

WHAT: Penn-Ohio Polka Pals CD release party for “2024 52nd Anniversary Edition” with Patty C and the Guys, Rex Taneri Band and Bill Bevec Band

WHEN: 2 to 6 p.m. Sunday

WHERE: DiLucia’s Banquet Center, 2610 Elm Road NE, Warren

HOW MUCH: Admission is $15 and includes a buffet dinner.