Folk, Song & World Music In Germany 1998

Compiled by: Holger Janssen, Mike Kamp, Manfred Wagenbreth and Heidi Zink
Booklet by: Michael Kleff
Proof reading: Frank McLynn
Graphics and Lay-Out by: Thomas Neumann
Photos by: C. Damasceno, C. Heukamp, S. Löser, Th. Neumann, G. Pfeiffer, R. Pfister, D. Ulbrich, B. Waldschmidt, archiv SET-Studio/Hans Kölling
Produced by: Ulrich Doberenz for PROFOLK .e.V.
Co-produced by: Michael Kleff, Heidi Zink

Special thanks to: Mike Kamp, Jo Meyer, Alison Moffat, Nora, Petra Rottschalk
Very special thanks to: Steffen Lieberwirth

Note: The group membership listings are all based on the current formations, however, there are guest musicians on many of the tracks.

More real music from all over Germany!

Where German folk music was once the victim of a national narrative it is now a national music experiencing a ´Blütezeit´- a heyday, a blossoming - . And it keeps getting better and better. That‘s how Ken Hunt recently put it in an article on the German scene for Sing Out! Magazine.
Or as Hundsbuam Miserablige‘s Streitbichi Michi said in the same article Look here, friends. We have our own culture but it isn‘t anything like what they made out of it before....
The days are over when German bands would only take from other cultures rather than their own.

The 1998 PROFOLK sampler CD Prime Cuts 1998 captures the bewildering diversity of this new music scene. There is plugged-in folk, well-crafted song portraits, there is an outstanding new finesse in instrumentals, there are many well known exponents of World Beat and still new grooves and talents emerging. Last year‘s sampler focused a lot on instrumental tunes as well as material sung in unaffected accents, abandoning the accepted pronunciations and the standard German.
Do you remember Hundsbuam Miserablige‘s bombast, Jams‘ Low German hiphop and Saure Gummern‘s blues-tinged drolleries from Hesse? PROFOLK‘s 1998 collection features more world music than before, all Made in Germany. Who knows in which direction next year‘s sampler will go?
To cite Ken Hunt again: A genuine renaissance in German folk music is taking place. And nobody has to take out German citizenship to witness its rebirth. This guy is right.
Just put on this CD and listen.