Thanks for the answer, Bradfordian. You know, you get these images of a country which turn out to have very little to do with reality. When my wife and I went on our honeymoon to Paris, we took a day trip via the Eurostar to London. One of the things that I was excited about was that I was in the Land Of Donegan. Lonnie was a major reason why I got in to folk music, and while I had several 45 rpms, and two albums of his, at that time none of his music was available over here on CD. When I walked into a gigantic Tower Records, I figured that I should just be able to walk over to the first person and say, "Could you direct me to the Lonnie Donegan section, please?" What a let-down to discover they didn't have a single Lonnie Donegan CD. Since then, they've released several Lonnie Donnegan CDs and the big boxed set, and one of my friends in England even sent me a whole CD recently of Lonnie doing gospel!

I still have my 45 rpm on London, of Skokiann. What amazes me is the impact that record had on South African music. I have a two CD album that I bought specifically because it is the only re-issue of Skokiann I've ever seen. There are a half a dozen cuts on the CDs that sound like more contemporary versions of Skokiann... similar rhythms and chord changes.

I was glad to see this thread pop back up, at least for a moment. I thought that there'd be at least a few people on Mudcat who have a love of South African music ... including reggae, which is very popular there. We heard a wonderful reggae band in the lobby of the hotel we stayed in when we were in Africa seven years ago. It looks like Mudcat is far more Euro-centric than I realized...

Jerry