More Years They Made Music Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Superman, Green Lantern

In the title tune, Mr. Leitch cites Superman and Green Lantern ("Superman or Green Lantern ain't got...nothing on me...") and in the song "The Trip", he cites Dylan and Baez: "Bob Dylan, he sat, the Mad Hatter...broken hourglass in his hand, and Joanie sat in white lace looking 'cool' with a black lace fan!"

Answer: Allen Ginsburg, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Mary Quant

In "Sunny South Kensington", Donovan again drops the names of fellow "with it" celebrities poet Allen Ginsburg, French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo and mini-skirt inventor Mary Quant: "Jean-Paul Belmondo and-a Mary Quant got/Stomped to say the least/Ginsberg, he ended up-a dry and so/He a-took a trip out East."

I can guarantee you that Donovan probably hung out with every last one of these people like it was nothing. (One of his encounters with Dylan and Baez is documented in the D.A. Pennebaker film "Don't Look Back".) Celebs of that era, especially in Europe, stuck to each other like glue!

Answer: Over The Hills and Far Away

The rousing, you-gotta-dance-to-it tune is on the "Houses of the Holy" album and is one of my very favorites from the "Sons of the Yardbirds". Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and the Rolling Stones' Keith Richards, as far as I'm concerned, are the kings of the original guitar riff. Where they dig them up from inside themselves is beyond me.

Answer: The Yardbirds

On their last studio album, "Little Games", Mssrs. Page, Beck, Relf and Jones wedged this weird little, carnival-like gem among bluesy and other semi-psychedelic numbers. Though ostensibly a blues cover band, The Yardbirds will always be remembered, (by me at least,) for coming up with some of the most interesting 'original' tunes of the entire British Invasion.

Other excellent songs by them are: "Over, Under, Sideways, Down", "Little Games", "Heart Full Of Soul", "No Excess Baggage", "Train Keep-A-Rollin'" and "Glimpses".

Answer: Greg Guiffria

Angel's first two albums were excellent, especially their second, "Helluva Band". However, after this one, they never quite got the knack again. Their fourth album, "White Hot", was their last listenable one, and it included the rousing "Hold Me, Squeeze Me", which was 'very' loud, with Guiffria, the keyboardist, wailing like gangbusters on what sounds like a synthesizer. Frankie Domino's voice was so high, it could shatter glass! Greg Guiffria's group was named, oddly enough, "Guiffria". He hasn't done much since musically, as far as I know, and in fact may be a Las Vegas businessman!

Their third album was awful, however, even 'it' was better than their last one, "Sinful"!

Answer: Steely Dan

Donald Fagen and Walter Becker started the band in the early 1970s and toured between 1972 and '74, becoming a studio-only band from '75-80. Their first charted hits, "Do it Again" and "Reelin' In The Years" from their "Can't Buy A Thrill" album, were decidedly country-rock, but they're primarily remembered for the songs from their last 70's album "Aja", which included the hits "Aja", "Peg", "Deacon Blues", "Josie" and "Black Cow", all of which had a definite bluesy-jazzy-"lounge-lizard" feel to them. Fagen is especially noted, in his vocals, for very nasal pronunciations of vowels. "Pretzel Logic", their fourth album, was about where their style changed for good.

Answer: Love, Da Capo, Forever Changes and Four Sail

LOVE was the California group that could do no wrong as far as the critics were concerned. In all my years as a baby-boomer, I have yet to meet or read about any person who doesn't think the world of this group. Arthur Lee was the leader of this rare-for-its-time interracial rock band and he, John Echols and Bryan Maclean were the founding members. Lee wrote most of the songs, but MacLean also wrote some of their better known tunes, and Lee collaborated with him and Echols to produce some of the most original music of the late 60s. Neither Echols nor MacLean were present on their fourth album. McLean also had a sister that was lead singer of a group named "Lone Justice".

Lee died recently from leukemia and MacLean has been dead since 1998. Echols is still with us, but apparently, LOVE as we knew it will probably be no more. Great tunes by them are: "Seven and Seven Is", "Stephanie Knows Who", "A House Is Not A Motel", "Orange Skies", "Robert Montgomery" and "Talking In My Sleep". A lot of their fourth album, "Four Sail", can be heard in the John Cusack film "High Fidelity".

Answer: Unlike other rock groups, the drummer was the leader of the group

Yes, unlike just about every other famous rock band, the group drummer was not only the leader, but had the group named after him! Usually one of the guitarists, the lead singer or a keyboard player is group leader, 'never' the drummer!

Answer: His name is now "Wendy"

In 1972, well-known synthesizer-player Walter Carlos became Wendy Carlos after gender-reassignment surgery. Before this, she had been a popularizer of the instrument who was continually in demand. Since the operation, her workload has been marginal at best.

Her male persona was responsible for "Switched On Bach", "The Well Tempered Synthesizer", "Sonic Seasonings" and "By Request". Her only even 'marginally' well-known work, post-reassignment, was the score to "Tron", one of the last of the raft of awful movies the Disney organization made in the 70s.

Answer: "In A Silent Way"

After the brilliant original work on "Miles In The Sky", an album that was, unfortunately, a tad drug-informed, (you can tell by the titles of the cuts on the album,) Davis ventured away from his more structured work of the 50s and 60s. Gone were the ultra-cool blasts and jams of "Sketches" and "Kind Of Blue" to make way for a softer, more contemplative (read "bland") Miles.

His work no longer seemed "jazzy", but was edging toward what might be called "New Age" today. As critically lauded as this change was, it spelled a downward spiral in Davis' career, as his work, being less structured, became less and less inspired.

He ended his life doing guest spots on "Miami Vice" as a street contact for Crockett and Tubbs, sort of a Caribbean answer to "Huggy Bear" on "Starsky and Hutch". Shameful.

Answer: The Nice, King Crimson and Atomic Rooster

Despite their messianic tendencies, two of ELP's members were part of bands that were somewhat mephistophelean in nature: King Crimson for Greg Lake and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown for Carl Palmer. Keith Emerson's Nice, for all anyone knows, was relatively harmless, though I understand even 'they' burned an American flag at a concert once!

Emerson, Lake and Palmer was one of the seminal bands of the "art rock" movement of the early 70s, an era that produced, or saw the further prosperity of, groups like Procol Harum, Renaissance, The Moody Blues, Jethro Tull and others. Their sound was characterized by the sonorous tenor of Greg Lake, the unbelievable histrionics of Keith Emerson's keyboards, (split three ways between Moog, organ and piano,) and Carl Palmer's often computer-altered drumming. Their first four studio albums were something to sonically behold, along with their too-often-maligned fifth, "Love Beach", exhibiting the band at its best, usually with a suite of some sort of original music, one standout ballad and a transmogrified cover of some famous modern classical piece, like Janacek's "Sinfonietta" ("Knife Edge") or Villa Lobos' "Fantasia Para Un Gentilhombre" ("Canario"). Perhaps the one tune that says "ELP" more than any other tune they've done is the cover of Aaron Copland's "Rodeo: Hoedown", almost entirely done by Emerson, on their third album, "Trilogy". This album also has two other incredible cuts: The title cut and "From The Beginning"...one of the 'other' song people think of when they think "ELP", along with "Karn Evil 9" and "Lucky Man". The "Endless Enigma" suite on the album is also beautifully done. "Tarkus", the album which immediately precedes it, is a near double of "Trilogy" in the way it's laid out and arranged, though more of a sense of humor is displayed on it.

Answer: Jack Bruce

Though vocals were shared all around in the group, the acknowledged lead was Bruce, whose voice is the one heard on all of the groups signature tunes, like "SWABLR", "I'm So Glad" and the inimitable "Sunshine of Your Love". Oddly enough, Ginger Baker, their much imitated drummer, lent 'his' pipes to some of their most interesting tunes, like "Pressed Rat and Warthog", arguably their best tune, from "Wheels Of Fire", and "Blue Condition" from "Disraeli Gears". Clapton usually sang on the blues derivatives, like "Outside Women Blues" and "World Of Pain", both from "Disraeli Gears". Oddly enough, though Clapton is well known for having been a member of The Yardbirds, all three members were a part of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers at one time or another.

Answer: "1st" and "Horizontal"

When the Bee Gees happened on the scene, managed, luckily enough, by Beatles' manager Brian Epstein, it was definitely a good thing. They were actually very good on their first two albums! However, the old Woodstock-era "third album curse" hit them just as hard, if not worse, than most other groups of the time. The only listenable tune on "Idea", their third album in 1968, was "Got Get A Message To You"...the rest was pure swill. It was quite some time before they recovered from that, coming out with the successful "Trafalgar", which contained the hit "How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?" in 1972.

Their influences seemed to be strongly rooted in honky-tonk and tin pan alley-type songwriting. Believe it or not, it worked, but mostly on their first two albums! We all know what happened to them in the late 70s....:-)

Answer: "Jupiter" from "The Planets" by Gustav Holst, and "The Firebird" and "Petrouschka" by Igor Stravinsky

Besides being a acid wit, Frank Zappa was a well trained musician who had excellent taste in sampling. "Petrouschka" is quoted in "Status Back, Baby!", and the two other pieces are used in "The Invocation and Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin". The man was a Voltaire for his time, a major fan of the work of avant-garde composer Edgar Varése, and remarkably enough, he claimed he didn't do drugs! His bandmates have included people like George Duke, Howard Kaylan, Mark Volman and Terry Bozzio. Though he had a very loyal fan base from his halcyon days of the late sixties, he didn't become mainstream until the late 70s, by way of the song "Valley Girl" that he did with his oldest daughter, "Moon Unit". "Dancin' Fool", a parody of disco that he did shortly after it, however, was his true masterpiece of that period, as far as I'm concerned. Seek out "Absolutely Free" and "We're Only In It For The Money", and I assure you, if you are either an echo-boomer or a Gen-Xer, you will be on the floor laughing, along with your folks or older sibs!

Answer: Cynthia

Yep. Julian's mother. I'm sure she never buys Japanese, either!