rock and roll exam

Question 1

race records” and “hillbilly records” were changed to

Answer 1

rhythm & blues” (R&B) and “country & western”

Question 2

who coins the term “Grand Ole Opry”

Answer 2

DJ George D. (“Judge”) Hay from WLS in Chicago, where he hosted popular “National Barn Dance” program

Question 3

among first Opry stars

Answer 3

DeFord Bailey

Question 4

among the first country music “stars” associated with the Grand Ole Opry

Answer 4

Roy Acuff

Question 5

1940s – labour issues in music industry open door for

Answer 5

“race” and “hillbilly” musicians

Question 6

what formed as a way for radio stations to get around paying ASCAP royalties on published music

Answer 6

BMI formed (Broadcast Music Inc.)

Question 7

AFM Strike - American Federation of Musicians strike for royalties on recordings and…

Answer 7

opens door for non-union musicians (“hillbilly” and “race” aka C&W/R&B)

Question 8

TV and film help make him an enormous star “The Singing Cowboy”

early on, performed many styles, including risqué tunes about gambling, drinking, sex
inspired by success of Jimmie Rodgers, he takes up “hillbilly” style, learns to yodel

Fosters wholesome image, which enhances his TV, Film, and Radio prospects

– e.g., The Cowboy Code (noble, honest, brave, fair, kind, etc)

Answer 8

Gene Autry

Question 9

” “ spring up during Prohibition mostly run-down, “hole-in-the-wall” kind of bars in small towns and along rural highways…place to spend your Friday paycheque, cry into beer; both lamenting and celebrating wild side of life

Answer 9

Honky Tonk

Question 10

1st female country music star

Answer 10

Kitty Wells

Question 11

answer song to Hank Thompson’s “The Wild Side of Life,” which accuses women of seducing good men into bad behavior

Answer 11

“It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels”

Question 12

1st song by a woman to hit #1 on Billboard Country & Western chart…same melody as great speckled bird

Answer 12

“It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels”

Question 13

“father of country music”

Answer 13

Hank Williams

Question 14

succeeded Duke Ellington at the Cotton Club, stylish image; popularized zoot suit. published Hepster’s Dictionary language of marginalized culture

Answer 14

Cab Calloway

Question 15

dark topic; about a prostitute addicted to hard drugs

– scat vocal in call-and-response

– sold 1 million copies

Answer 15

Cab Calloway, “Minnie the Moocher”

Question 16

one of first female musicians to tour with big bands; one of first black

musicians to tour with white bands

Answer 16

Billie Holiday

Question 17

composed by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish high school teacher, who wrote the song after seeing photos of a lynching

Answer 17

Strange Fruit

Question 18

professional musicians want share of recording industry and radio profits and instead start “ “ Strike

“hillbilly” and “race” musicians aren’t musically literate (so cannot be members of ASCAP or the AFM)

consequently, they aren’t on strike, and get more time on radio

Answer 18

AFM Strike

Question 19

Labour issued in the music industry also contribute to the rise of the “ “ in big band music

Answer 19

singer

Question 20

This riot started when “bobby soxers” (adolescent girls) rioted because they couldn’t get in to see Frank Sinatra

Answer 20

Columbus Day Riot

Question 21

define rubato

Answer 21

expression fluctuations of tempo

Question 22

define vibrato

Answer 22

expressive fluctuations in pitch

Question 23

• massive success for black performer, including 14 Top Ten hits on pop charts
• marketed as “Sepia Sinatra”
• first African American to host a weekly radio program
• first African American performer to have a network TV show

Answer 23

Nat King Cole

Question 24

” “ typically designates music mass-produced by a popular music industry with the express aim of commercial success

Answer 24

“popular music”

Question 25

typically designates music used in the everyday life of common people who have no interest in commodifying and selling their music

Answer 25

“folk music”

Question 26

father and son who have a recording machine installed in the trunk of their car and tour the southern United States - rather than transcribe folk songs, they record them; valorize the performers, not the songs or songwriters - seek out most remote communities, farthest away from the “corrupting” influence of mass-produced popular culture

Answer 26

John Lomax and Alan Lomax

Question 27

discovered by Lomaxes in Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana. Lomaxes foster myth that they helped him get out of prison

Answer 27

Leadbelly

Question 28

- wrote songs about abject condition of the common “folk”; often explicity pro-labor, pro-working class - takes up hobo lifestyle - becomes model for Bob Dylan, who adopts his sound and style

Answer 28

Woody Guthrie

Question 29

song based on 19th-century folk song about Jesse James

Answer 29

Jesus Christ - Woodie Guthrie

Question 30

- African American sacred music - grows out of 19th-century Spiritual tradition - gospel incorporates elements of secular popular music into gospel - blues elements

Answer 30

Gospel

Question 31

- emphasizes embodied spirituality - focus on spirit possession as took place on the original Pentecost - "Storefront churches" in urban centres - heavy use of call-and-response, heavy use of bodily percussion, grooves, shouting

Answer 31

Pentecostal Church Music (Pentecostalism)

Question 32

among the first to produce religious music incorporating secular elements from popular music (i.e., Gospel music) -- born in Texas; blind from birth

Answer 32

Arizona Dranes

Question 33

church that was hugely influential in development of rock ‘n’ roll

Answer 33

Church of God in Christ (COGIC)

Question 34

the “Father of Black Gospel Music”

Answer 34

Thomas Dorsey

Question 35

Mahalia Jackson performed PRECIOUS LORD, TAKE MY HAND but song was written by...

Answer 35

Thomas Dorsey

Question 36

- female pioneer of the electric guitar that was brought up in the COGIC - heard Arizona Dranes at age 11

Answer 36

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Question 37

would become enormous solo star, but started out in gospel quartet called Soul Stirrers - -famous for falsetto voice: head voice - -dies young under sordid, mysterious circumstances - -considered a pioneer of Soul Music

Answer 37

Sam Cooke

Question 38

another pioneer of Soul Music -- blind pianist and singer from Georgia

Answer 38

Ray Charles

Question 39

both are subgenres of Rhythm & Blues, new marketing category for music by Black musicians

Answer 39

Jump Blues and Boogie Woogie

Question 40

most successful Jump Blues artist of the 1940s

Answer 40

Louis Jordan

Question 41

piano-driven style that emerges out of ragtime and stride piano

Answer 41

Boogie Woogie

Question 42

played piano on TOBA circuit (Theatre Owners Booking Association;

Answer 42

Pinetop (Clarence) Smith

Question 43

- city that becomes becomes a hotbed for Boogie Woogie pianists - a big recording centre - The big Easy

Answer 43

New Orleans

Question 44

-starts by tap dancing in street (“my first instrument was the bottom of his feet”) --develops percussive approach to piano

Answer 44

Professor Longhair

Question 45

- song incorporates Afro-Carribean rhythms popularized by the rumba and mambo crazes of the 1930s and 1940s - clave rhythm played on claves (Afro-Cuban percussion instrument) - slow tempo, laid back feel described by Fess as “The Sway” - reflects laid back attitude of residents of New Orleans, nicknamed the Big Easy

Answer 45

Mardi Gras in New Orleans”

Question 46

- most successful Black artist in the 1950s | - major figure in the rock-and-roll explosion of the mid-1950s

Answer 46

Fats Domino

Question 47

Sun Records was located in...

Answer 47

Memphis

Question 48

a major destination for southern Blacks during Great Migration, Chess Records was in...

Answer 48

Chicago

Question 49

- Atlantic Records was was struggling and on the verge of bankruptcy when Wexler signs Ruth Brown to Atlantic - she has several huge hits that save the label - Atlantic nicknamed “The House that Ruth Built” It was located in...

Answer 49

NY

Question 50

- King Records was founded by Syd Nathan and focused on R&B and Country & Western - was one of first integrated labels It was located in...

Answer 50

Cincinnati

Question 51

among the most successful R&B singers on King Records

Answer 51

Wynonie Harris

Question 52

routinely put forward as candidate for the “first rock-and-roll song ever recorded”

Answer 52

Good Rockin' Tonight - Wynonie Harris

Question 53

massive hit by male vocal group derived from gospel tradition, went to #1 on the R&B charts

Answer 53

The Dominoes, “Sixty Minute Man”

Question 54

credited with “electrifying” the blues known as the “Father of the Chicago Blues”

Answer 54

Muddy Waters

Question 55

Baby Boom, post war prosperity, rise of teenager, rise of tv are all factors contributing in the beginning of...

Answer 55

rock and roll

Question 56

Term “Rock ‘n’ Roll” popularized by disc jockey " " - among the 1st White disc jockeys to play music of Black artist

Answer 56

Alan Freed

Question 57

White group that redid Big Joe Turner's “Shake, Rattle, Roll”

Answer 57

Bill Haley and His Comets

Question 58

1st Black group to break the Top 10 on the pop charts

Answer 58

The Chords

Question 59

White group that redid The Chords "Sh-Boom"

Answer 59

The Crew Cuts

Question 60

Wrote "Mystery Train" before Elvis covered it

Answer 60

Junior Parker

Question 61

goes Sun Records to record a song for his mother’s birthday

Answer 61

elvis presley

Question 62

said...“I play the guitar as if I’m playing drums. I play drum licks on the guitar.”

Answer 62

Bo Diddley

Question 63

- great lyricist: “poet laureate of rock ‘n’ roll” - creative use of language, rhyme schemes, flow - major figure in bringing the electric guitar to the forefront of rock ‘n’ roll - great stage presence - famous “duck walk”

Answer 63

Chuck Berry

Question 64

Chuck Berry song, lyrics make references to car culture

Answer 64

“Maybellene

Question 65

jumped on stage and played a lewd song about anal sex, which would become “Tutti Frutti” after the lyrics were cleaned up a bit

Answer 65

Little Richard

Question 66

was told to “go home and sin a little bit, then come back with a song I can sell.” -- developed “Man in Black”

Answer 66

Johnny Cash

Question 67

manager Col. Tom Parker promoted who?

Answer 67

Elvis

Question 68

Major label " " buys out Elvis’s contract from Sun Records for $35,000

Answer 68

RCA

Question 69

Rockabilly artist, also came out of Sun Records, flamboyant piano player, married 13 year old cousin

Answer 69

Jerry Lee Lewis

Question 70

among few women in early rock ‘n’ roll

Answer 70

wanda jackson

Question 71

- appeared like the “nerdy” boy-next-door, making rock ‘n’ roll seem all the more threatening - died in plane crash at age 22 among first of white rock ‘n’ roll stars who wrote his own material (a la Chuck Berry and Little Richard; Elvis did not write his own material) -helped standardize what would become the classic rock ‘n’ roll ensemble -with lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, drums (no more horns)

Answer 71

buddy holly

Question 71

appeared like the “nerdy” boy-next-door, making rock ‘n’ roll seem all the more threatening -- died in plane crash at age 22

Answer 71

buddy holly

Question 72

died with Buddy Holly in plane crash (Valens was 17 years old)

Answer 72

Richie Valens

Question 73

the day Holly and Valens died was known as the ....

Answer 73

day that music died

Question 74

founder of Sun Records, produced recordings by Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash

Answer 74

Sam Phillips

Question 75

sub-genre of R&B/rock ‘n’ roll that emerges from gospel and barbershop quartet -- much of it is a cappella

Answer 75

doo wop

Question 76

first all-Black group to have number 1 on pop charts, featured female singer with men

Answer 76

The Platters

Question 77

- band name capitalizes on the new social and marketing category of “the teenager” - integrated group from the Bronx, NY, featuring 3 Black singers and 2 Puerto Rican singers - project safe image

Answer 77

Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers

Question 78

How old was frankie lyman when writing "why do fools fall in love"

Answer 78

13

Question 79

members from Italian immigrant families from the Bronx, NYC | like many immigrant groups, faced discrimination, career aided by appearance on American Bandstand

Answer 79

Dion and the Belmonts

Question 80

African American doo wop group consisting of 5 women

Answer 80

The Chantels