Women with Guitars Trivia Quiz

Answer: Joan Baez

As a freshman student at Boston University, Joan Baez started her 50-plus year career at Club 47 in Cambridge. Since recording her first record album at age 18, her three-octave range and natural vibrato have become known worldwide. As her fame grew she switched from singing the standard folk ballads to songs of change and protest. Over the years she has been instrumental in introducing new singers and songwriters to the music scene, including a guy who uses the surname Dylan.

Answer: Miriam Makeba

Miriam Makeba was from South Africa where she campaigned against apartheid. After bringing her music and racial concerns to Britain and America her passport was cancelled and she was refused reentry to South Africa. The folk music community embraced her; Harry Belafonte took a special interest in her success.

She and drummer (Babatunde) Olatunji were probably the first African musicians most Americans knew by name; she would be put in the "World Music" category nowadays. She is most identified with her song "Pata Pata" which became a U.S. hit record in 1967.

As to the loss of her South African passport, three other African countries immediately offered her citizenship.

Answer: Jean Ritchie

One of 14 children born to a family in Viper, Kentucky, Jean Ritchie sang and memorized songs from an early age. Moving to New York City in 1946 she started meeting singers like Pete Seeger, Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie. She sang a cappella or with a guitar or Appalachian dulcimer for accompaniment. She has been called "The Mother of Folk" for her work in finding and disseminating old folk music from America and the British Isles.

Answer: Maria Muldaur

Maria D'Amato Muldaur started her professional music career singing and playing fiddle for the Even Dozen Jug Band in New York around 1963. She was then recruited by the Jim Kweskin jug band and married one of the band members, Geoff Muldaur. She started a solo career after her divorce in 1972; her biggest song was "Midnight at the Oasis" which peaked at number six on the "Billboard Hot 100".

Answer: Buffy Sainte-Marie

Beverly (Buffy) Sainte-Marie was born in Saskatchewan, Canada in 1941. Orphaned, she was adopted by relatives and grew up in suburban Boston, Massachusetts. Always conscious of her native heritage she has been a leader of those seeking justice for natives of the Americas.

In 1963 she composed an antiwar song, "Universal Soldier", which Donovan had a hit record with in 1964. In the late 1960s she was often seen wearing a short dress and go-go boots; she has since disparaged that as her "Pocohontas-with-a-guitar" look.

She appeared on "Sesame Street" for a number of years to show children that "Indians still exist".

Answer: Jean Redpath

Jean Redpath was born to a musical family in Edinburgh, Scotland. By the time she came to America in 1961, at age 24, she had learned about 400 Scottish songs. She became friends with Bob Dylan and Ramblin' Jack Elliott. She frequently performed in folk music clubs and her influence was such that Scottish ballads became familiar to the folk music audience. From 1976 to 1990 she recorded seven volumes of the songs of Scot poet Robert Burns.

As many as 22 volumes were planned but her musical collaborator died and she felt no one could replace him.

Answer: Odetta

Odetta Holmes was born in Alabama and grew up in Los Angeles, California. She took opera singing lessons as a teenager because that was what her mother wanted her to be. Odetta instead went into musical theater and started singing folk music around 1950. She performed around the United States and eventually around the world. Martin Luther King, Jr. called her "the queen of American folk music". Bob Dylan said when he first heard an album of hers he learned every song on it and traded his electric guitar for an acoustic model.

The other three women listed as possible answers to the question are members of the African-American a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Answer: Mary Travers

Mary Travers became part of the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary (with Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey) in New York City in 1961, after she had been singing there for six years. They were one of the top groups of the folk music revival and brought Bob Dylan to national prominence by including some of his songs on their album "In the Wind". She sang with the group and individually at civil rights demonstrations. After the group broke up she recorded several solo albums. Travers died in Connecticut in 2009.

Answer: Judy Collins

Originally studying classical piano, Judy Collins took a liking to folk music while living in Colorado. She moved to Greenwich Village in New York City, signed a recording contract with Elektra Records and had her first album released in 1961, at age 22. Starting with traditional folk songs she turned to protest songs by Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs and Tom Paxton.

In the mid-'60s she branched out to pop music, recording songs by the Beatles, Jacques Brel and Leonard Cohen. Her piercing blue eyes inspired her one-time back-up guitar player Stephen Stills (later of Crosby, Stills and Nash) to write the CSN classic song "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes". Like many of her contemporaries she was a social activist; she currently campaigns on behalf of the abolition of land mines.

Answer: Joni Mitchell

Though folk music was starting to wane when Joni Mitchell arrived in the U.S. from Saskatchewan in 1965, she still made a name for herself. With the help of Tom Rush including her song "Urge for Going" on his album "The Circle Game" (also the name of one of her songs) she became known among the folk music fans. "Chelsea Morning" (U.S. President Bill Clinton said he and his wife, Hillary, named their daughter Chelsea because of that song.) and "Both Sides, Now" cemented her reputation as a songwriter. Branching out in the 1970s she wrote and performed "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Woodstock".

She has also experimented with jazz and pop music.