The Great Music Trivia Quiz Book. Rachel Federman

Folk Glenn Miller Blues Joseph Haydn

       Points: 1/2 point for each correct match

      4. Chuck Berry, considered by many to be the father of rock ’n’ roll, was famous for walking while playing guitar in a way that resembled which animal?

       Points: 1

      5. Which type of record has the longest playing time?

       a) LP (Long Play)

       b) EP (Extended Play)

       c) single

       Points: 1

      6. George Gershwin is famous for his Rhapsody in what color?

       a) Ruby

       b) Indigo

       c) Blue

       d) Yellow

       e) Marigold

       Points: 1

      7. The first Gold Record award was given in 1942 to which artist to celebrate over one million sales of “Chattanooga Choo Choo”?

       Points: 2

      8. Which U.S. city was given the first commercial FM license in the country in 1941?

       a) Nashville

       b) Chicago

       c) New York

       d) San Francisco

       e) St. Louis

       Points: 2

      9. Frustration with Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” inspired Woody Guthrie to write the lyrics to this famous protest song in 1944. (Hint: Picture the Redwood Forest.)

       Points: 1

      10. “White Christmas” (which songwriter Irving Berlin is known to have modestly called “the best song that anybody’s ever written”) was a hit single for Bing Crosby and is naturally associated with the 1954 movie of the same name. But the song that became the world’s greatest-selling single came onto the scene quietly in a 1942 film, also starring Bing Crosby. What was it called?

       a) Country Girl

       b) Blue Skies

       c) Going My Way

       d) Holiday Inn

       e) High Time

       Points: 2

      11. Thomas Edison’s phonograph, the first machine capable of storing sound, used a cylinder wrapped in what common household material?

       a) wax

       b) paper towel

       c) tin foil

       d) plastic wrap

       e) linoleum

       Points: 1

      12. The first collaboration between Rodgers and Hammerstein resulted in this 1943 musical named after a state “where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain.” Which one is it?

       Points: 1

      13. What was the longest-running musical on Broadway in New York City?

       Points: 3

      14. What was the longest-running musical in London’s West End?

       Points: 3

      15. Who did Frances Ethel Gumm play in The Wizard of Oz (1939)?

       Points: 2

       Pre-rock ’n’ roll score ___/25

       1950s

      (10 questions)

      

      The babies were booming, the singers were crooning, the suburbs were expanding, and – in the beginning at least – parents knew where their children were: up in their bedrooms listening to Doris Day. James Dean was a rebel without a cause, Marlon Brando was the wild one, and Frank Sinatra, pied piper for the lonely-hearted, starred in From Here to Eternity. Sure there were distant fears of alien invasion and nuclear war, but things were falling apart in other places, as Chinua Achebe’s exposé of Nigeria poetically showed.

      When Elvis broke onto the scene with his scandalous hip shakes and jailhouse rock, the establishment didn’t know what had hit it. Kids idolized convicted felons and social outsiders like Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. Wherever it was Sam Cooke wanted to be sent, parents didn’t want to know. Still, three years later, when the times really were a-changin’, those same parents would give their eye teeth to know all they had to worry about was a teenager in love exhausted from one-too-many-nights spent rocking around the clock.

      

      1. The Weavers made it a number one hit in 1950, but Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter recorded the original version of this haunting lullaby of sorts nearly two decades earlier. What was it called?

       “_______, Irene”

       Points: 2

      2. This 1956 release from 20th Century Fox about two brothers during the American Civil War was Elvis Presley’s first foray into cinema. The film’s original title – The Reno Brothers – was changed to the title of the first single when the advance music sales went through the roof. What is the name of the movie (and the single)?

       a) Viva Las Vegas

       b) Blue Suede Shoes