If there is one German singer of the post-war era who rose from nowhere to fame and fortune, then surely that singer is Ruth-Margret Putz. When she was born on February 26, 1930 – sometimes wrongly given as 1931 – in Krefeld, she was the daughter neither of a family of musicians nor of a middle-class, educated household where an early musical education would have been seen as a character-building exercise. On the contrary: young Margret Doerkens rarely came into contact with music, except through a distant uncle who owned a piano. It is all the more rewarding therefore that this CD offers twenty-first-century listeners the opportunity of acquainting themselves with Ruth-Margret Putz's wide-ranging vocal ability and artistic attributes.