I have a problem with this. Somebody has come up with the idea of recording for posterity songs that have crossed borders, we can pay up £300 for the advantage of buying one of the resulting CDs at trade price. Someone above says the previous one was "good and interesting too", definitely worth £300 plus then.

There are hundreds if not thousands of albums/CDs in existence that contain songs that have crossed borders and we don't all require someone else to draw pictures for us to explain where they come from.
Many have very well researched notes. There is a mine of information quite readily available if you wish to find out more.

I am not at all surprised that the Americans weren't impressed.

If you have £300 to spare you can easily obtain an amazing amount of not "good and interesting too" material but some wonderful and exciting performance on vinyl and CD even at retail prices, most of which are still available for posterity or at least as long as any current recording will last before crumbling to dust.

Sorry but I am not impressed. Have I missed something?