I'd like to avoid new songs. Only traditional. Do all these musicians play and sing traditional songs and tunes? (Roberto)

That's a tough one. Like in many Irish groups they mix old and new material and quite often the newer CDs include newer material.

Take Zupfgeigenhansel: they play traditional songs (that they have dug out and nobody did sing before them), They play recent songs (that everybody knows and sings), they took an old poem/song (they didn't know whether it was a song) and wrote a modern tune, they play songs from 150 years ago with a known writer...

If folksongs is what is sung by the people then you have to add 'Mr losse den Dom in Kö:lle' as one of the most popular songs since decades in Cologne. (Sing just one line in a pub and you have all of them singing with you).

As a rough guide: Zupfgeigenhansel (the older the LP, the more traditional the material); Ougenweide (most is old, but not popular in the sense of still sung; they are digging out songs, not playing the songs actually sung); of Hannes Wader look for 'Hannes Wader Volkssänger' and nothing else (that's no judgement of quality, I like him, only an advice in the context of this thread), the first two of the Leipzig folk session band also fit your wish.

Of the other groups I just don#t know enough.

Wolfgang