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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What motto of Hank Williams' made him similar to Robert Johnson according to Marcus?
(a) What life doesn't give me, I'll take.
(b) Life goes on.
(c) Nothing really matters.
(d) The end is near.

2. What car did Elvis both buy and sing about?
(a) A blue truck.
(b) A white limousine.
(c) A pink Cadillac.
(d) A red Ferrari.

3. Who wrote "Hound Dog"?
(a) Carl Perkins.
(b) Elvis Presley.
(c) Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
(d) Robert Johnson.

4. Who said "This is the mystery of democracy . . . that its richest fruits spring up out of souls which no man has prepared and in circumstances where they are least expected"?
(a) Abraham Lincoln.
(b) Woodrow Wilson.
(c) Elvis Presley.
(d) Greil Marcus.

5. Why did political activist, Eldridge Cleaver, not want to go to jail?
(a) He did not want to lose his friends.
(b) He was afraid to be the next Billy Lyons.
(c) He loved freedom too much.
(d) He was innocent.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was on the cover of Riot?

2. According to Marcus in "Sly Stone," what is pop culture by definition?

3. Curtis Mayfield's songs in Superfly were meant to be what according to Marcus?

4. Who said "if I couldn't perform I'd give up . . . It's not a question of the money side of it. . . not having that ninety minutes up there anymore. Phew. I don't like to think about it"?

5. Who does Marcus quote to introduce the chapter "Randy Newman"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What type of risk does Randy Newman make in his music? What risk does he avoid?

2. According to Marcus in "Randy Newman," what is important about the Beach Boys? (101)

3. According to Marcus in the section "Sly Versus Superfly," why does Riot matter?

4. What is the epitaph written by John Hurt? Why does Marcus include the Stag-o-lee epitaph at the end of "Sly Stone: The Myth of Staggerlee"?

5. In the section "Sly vs. Superfly," what problems emerge from the black movies being made in the early seventies? How is real life different from the movies?

6. In "Elvis," Marcus compares Elvis Presley to Abraham Lincoln, why?

7. According to Marcus in "Sly Stone," how does the music produced by Sly and the Family Stone resemble freedom?

8. What is the basic plot for the Myth of Staggerlee?

9. Why does Marcus compare the Fresh album by Sly to "Nietzsche's belief that he who gazes into the abyss will find the abyss looking back; that he who looks too long at monsters may well become one" (90)?

10. According to Marcus in "Sly Stone," how did Newton and Cleaver use the myth of Staggerlee?

(see the answer keys)

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