Doug - sorry, I did but forgot to add an empty line. I noticed it myself as soon as I'd posted. I'm learning!

Edmund - it's not as though German music was particularly in evidence at the German Mudcat gathering, with most of the Germans non-musicians and a strong musicians' contingent from Yorkshire ... But I'll try and find worthwhile German websites in the future to point you to. For those really interested, there are several mail order firms specialising in folk music. Just give me time.

Ralphie, Jams are still going, although they have another outfit with virtually the same line-up now, with a different musical direction, 'mrs meyer's love affairs'. Gabriele and Jo Meyer are the brains behind both bands. I'll pass your comments on to them. I've no doubt they'll be very pleased.

Ernest - conservatives are easily scared ... :-), especially of new ideas. There was one singer/songwriter named Gerd Knesel who tried to write songs in a conservative vein, supporting the Christian Democrats at election time. He vanished without trace after a couple of years because few people who listen to this kind of music at all were interested in his viewpoints. Besides, I got the impression the songs weren't all that good. As everywhere: A laudable intention does not necessarily make a good song.

George, can't agree with you there - German Social Democrats are diligently following the so-called Labour Party down the road to conservatism, chasing the Conservatives. They're just a couple of years behind, as usual!

The sampler George mentioned, 'It's only Kraut ... but I like it' is indeed the first of the series brought out by PROFOLK. The others are 'Prime Cuts' (1998), 'Test the Best' (1999), 'Pearls for a New Century' (2000), and '2001 - A Folk Odyssey' (2001 - you guessd that, didn't you?). There is also a series of short CDs featuring each year's winner and runners-up of the German equivalent of the Young (Folk) Musicians Award.

George, Ernest has already mentioned that the German folk revival was indeed mainly left wing. It just started later. Its starting point was a series of songwriters' gatherings on Burg Waldeck in Southern Germany. This castle was associated with the German Youth Movement of the 1920s, in which both singing and patriotism featured prominently. These Waldeck gatherings in the early Sixties first brought names like Reinhard Mey, Hannes Wader, Hanns Dieter Hüsch and others to prominence, and people like Ramblin' Jack Elliot attended. The man who is seen by most as the brains behind the gatherings and indeed the start of the folk revival, Peter Rohland, is known to few outside the scene nowadays because he died tragically young in the mid-Sixties. He was the first to start singing German folk songs and also Yiddish songs, in a conscious attempt to overcome the memories of the Third Reich. I think the few recordings he made are still available at specialist shops.

Also, the regional aspect was by no means absent from the folk revival. There are several singer/songwriters as well as bands like 'Bläck Fööss' (from Cologne) who take pride in and consciously use their regional dialect in their music. Bavarian music regards itself as more or less separate from the rest of Germany, as Bavaria as a whole still does. Also, Low German has been rescued from total commercialisation by bands who sing the old songs and write new ones in a less cloying style than the one you usually hear on radio or TV. Unfortunately, they don't get much airplay. I'm on the committee of the Folk Music Association of Schleswig-Holstein, many of whose members sing in Low German, so I know what I'm talking about. Have a look at LAG Folk Schleswig-Holstein. (We even have a page in English.)The eMail address given sends you straight to my mailbox.

Promotional part over, and I hope you'll forgive me for running on again!