General Flashcards
This musician was born Gordon Sumner in Northumberland, England in 1951 and has experienced success as both a solo artist and part of a band.
Sting
This former record producer and co-founder of Interscope Records has been better known in recent years for co-founding Beats Electronics with Dr. Dre.
Jimmy Iovine
The Traveling Wilburys featured these five musicians.
Jeff Lynne (ELO) Tom Petty Bob Dylan George Harrison Roy Orbison
She is the most-charting female vocalist of all time, behind Aretha Franklin. She is known for songwriting partnerships with Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
Dionne Warwick
The fourth verse of this song begins, “He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat.”
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
A year before her death in a plane crash, Patsy Cline had a huge hit with the song “Crazy.” What other singer, still with us, wrote it?
Willie Nelson
Who’s the only star from the early 1960s heyday of Motown who was still making records on the label into the 21st century?
Stevie Wonder
“Borderline” and “Lucky Star” are early singles by which artist?
Madonna
The band that reached #1 in 1967 with “Incense and Peppermints”; the band led in the 1970s by Eric Carmen; the Irish rock band fronted by Dolores O’Riordan; the sleazy hard rock band that recorded “Lit Up” and “Too Drunk…”; Britain’s biggest-selling all-female pop trio: the names of all of these musical groups share, most prominently, what distinction?
Fruit
What is the term for the musical genre, synthesizing elements from blues, jazz, country and western, R&B, gospel, and other forms, that originated among the Cajuns and African American Creoles of southwest Louisiana in the early 20th century? The vest frottoir (or rub-board) is an instrument closely associated with the genre.
Zydeco
What musical artist and “Queen of Funk,” born Yvette Marie Stevens in Chicago in 1953, took at a young age her African name which means “woman of fire”?
Chaka Khan
This former Change frontman was an in-demand background vocalist who worked with Diana Ross, David Bowie, Chaka Khan and more before becoming a successful solo artist.
Luther Vandross
What pop ballad, a big hit in 1955 and again in 1990, got its puzzling title from its original use in a little-seen prison escape movie?
“Unchained Melody,” made famous by the Righteous Brothers, started life as the tender love theme from a movie called Unchained.
This foursome was “Runnin’ with the Devil” but runnin’ without brown M&Ms, excluded in the concert contracts.
Van Halen
The electronic musician and DJ born Richard Melville Hall was named in part after his famous author great-great-great-granduncle, and his nickname also references that ancestor. What is Hall’s nickname (and stage name)?
Moby
What musician earned the nickname “The Lizard King” thanks to the inclusion a poem they wrote containing those words, which was included in the sleeve of their band’s album, “Waiting For The Sun”?
Jim Morrison
A reference to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., “Early morning, April 4 / A shot rings out in the Memphis sky” is the start of the final verse of what song? In recent years, the singer has corrected the lyric in some live performances to “Early evening,” as King was shot just after 6 pm.
U2 - Pride (In The Name Of Love)
Les Baxter’s 1951 album Ritual of the Savage launched a musical genre that was eventually named after a 1957 Martin Denny LP. The genre combined influences that mainstream American audiences in the ’50s considered excitingly different and unusual: tiki culture; instruments such as the marimba or congas; riffs on South Pacific, East Asian, and African musical styles; and the occasional bird call. What’s the genre?
Exotica
BMI defines this type of old, familiar song as one that’s played 2.5 million times.
Standard
His works are the only ones in the National Recording Registry that are preserved on piano rolls.
Scott Joplin
A predecessor to what still-active rock band was formed by its pre-teen founders as “The Broken Combs” way back in 1964? Coincidentally, this is the same year that Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman” and The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” were released as singles.
Van Halen
What hip-hop genre takes its name for a slang term for the drug-infested houses and neighborhoods of early 2000s Atlanta?
Trap
Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, she has the “hardest working legs in show business.”
Tina Turner
A swagman (a wanderer in search of work) jumpin in a billabong (as water hole) to avoid capture in this Aussie song.
Waltzing Matilda
This singer’s first studio album came out in 1955, but a 2011 duets release was his first album to hit no. 1.
Tony Bennett
Name the singer, actress, and “Goddess of Pop” who starred in the 1969 film Chastity and co-hosted a variety show on CBS beginning in 1971 before hosting a show of her own (after separating from her co-host) in 1975, all during a recording career that now spans six decades.
Cher
Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Etta James, Willie Dixon, Buddy Guy, Bo Diddley, and Sonny Boy Williamson II were among the artists who recorded for what Chicago-based blues and R&B record label? The label was not named after a game (as might be assumed, especially considering the label’s logos), but rather is an Anglicized version of the founding brothers’ Polish last name.
Chess Records
What legendary rap MC formed his stage name by shortening his first name, an Arabic word for “helper” more familiar as the surname of a 20th-century head of state?
Nas was born Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, and uses the same Arabic name as former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nassar.
