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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Marcus say each performer he will discuss in the book attempts to do?
(a) Create oneself.
(b) Redefine love.
(c) Entertain.
(d) Make music for money.

2. In "The Band," to what does Marcus compare the song "We Can Talk About It Now"?
(a) A merry-go-round.
(b) A reunion.
(c) The beginning of a new relationship.
(d) A roller coaster.

3. In the section "Even Stranger Blues," to what does Marcus compare Robbie's guitar sound?
(a) Jim Brown's performance in The Dirty Dozen.
(b) Chuck Berry's performance at the Grand.
(c) A car screeching to a halt.
(d) Cats on the fence.

4. What is ironic about rock 'n' roll and democracy?
(a) Neither works in a specific way.
(b) They demand work and play.
(c) They are both individual and a community.
(d) Each asks people to be something better than they are.

5. How many songs did Johnson record before he died?
(a) 29.
(b) 5.
(c) 30.
(d) 98.

6. The song "We Can Talk About It Now" creates what kind of image?
(a) The country at its best.
(b) The country at its worst.
(c) A broken heart.
(d) Homecoming.

7. Who wrote: "You run without moving from a terror in which you cannot believe"?
(a) Robert Johnson.
(b) William Faulkner.
(c) Greil Marcus.
(d) F. Scott Fitzgerald.

8. According to Marcus in "Harmonica Frank -1951," whose music caught the spirit and sound of Harmonica Frank and made it popular?
(a) Little Richard.
(b) Sam Phillips.
(c) Bob Dylan.
(d) Elvis Presley.

9. Who said "I played rock and roll before I ever heard of Elvis Presley. I saw him in Memphis before he ever made a record"?
(a) Bob Dylan.
(b) Little Richard.
(c) Harmonica Frank.
(d) Sam Phillips.

10. The Prologue states that Marcus wants to discuss rock 'n' roll in what context?
(a) As youth culture.
(b) As a counterculture.
(c) As music in general.
(d) As American culture.

11. Who said "If you have a mother-in-law with only one eye, and that eye is in the middle of her forehead, you don't keep her in the living room"?
(a) Harmonica Frank.
(b) Erich Segal.
(c) Norman Mailer.
(d) Lyndon Johnson.

12. Whom does Marcus claim puts the pieces together to find meaning in the music?
(a) Rock 'n' rollers.
(b) The critic.
(c) Artists.
(d) The audience.

13. Four of the members from The Band are from where?
(a) Arkansas.
(b) North Carolina.
(c) Australia.
(d) Canada.

14. In "The Band," what does Marcus point to as the reason that The Band had the influences of many different bands and yet had an original sound?
(a) They were musical geniuses.
(b) They studied under many different bands.
(c) They stole from the best and pieced it together.
(d) They were inheritors of rock 'n' roll.

15. Who said "If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel . . . I could make a billion dollars"?
(a) Greil Marcus.
(b) Harmonica Frank.
(c) Sam Phillips.
(d) Carl Perkins.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who wrote Why Are We in Vietnam?

2. What is American culture built on according to Marcus?

3. What is added in the middle of the chapter "Harmonica Frank -1951," set off with a note from the author?

4. What happened the first day of The Band's first concert after releasing The Band?

5. From what feeling does Robert Johnson pull his images?

(see the answer keys)

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