50 Fun Facts About American Music

Which Southern port city is regarded as the birthplace of jazz?

New Orleans let enslaved Africans gather on Sundays at Congo Square, where dances to African-style drumming were held until 1843. Those rhythms fed the music that became jazz.

Which Detroit record label, run from a house nicknamed Hitsville U.S.A., launched the Supremes and the Jackson 5?

Motown started with an $800 loan from its founder's family savings club. The name blends motor and town, a nod to the car factories of its home city.

Which 1969 music festival was held on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York?

Woodstock never took place in the town it is named after, which lies well to the northeast of the site. Yasgur refused to rent out his land for a 1970 revival.

Which mansion, bought by Elvis Presley for $102,500 in 1957, is now a museum devoted to the singer?

Graceland receives around 600,000 visitors a year, which makes it the second most visited home in the United States after the White House.

Which Michael Jackson album, released in 1982, remains the best-selling album of all time worldwide?

Thriller has sold an estimated 70 million copies worldwide. It also won eight Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.

Which lawyer wrote the words of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' after watching the British bombard Fort McHenry in 1814?

Francis Scott Key's poem was set to the tune of a song written for a London gentlemen's club. It did not officially become the national anthem until 1931.

Which Southern city is nicknamed Music City and is home to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum?

Nashville picked up the nickname in 1950, when a radio announcer ad-libbed on air that listeners were hearing the sounds of Music City, U.S.A.

Which country singer, nicknamed the Man in Black, recorded live albums at Folsom and San Quentin prisons?

Johnny Cash earned the nickname with his all-black stage wardrobe. He had played his first notable prison concert at San Quentin a decade before those albums, in 1958.

Which singer, crowned the Queen of Soul, became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Aretha Franklin was inducted in 1987, two years after the state of Michigan declared her voice a natural resource.

In which New York City borough did hip-hop emerge from 1970s block parties thrown by DJs such as Kool Herc?

The Bronx was where Kool Herc first stretched out the drum breaks, at a back-to-school party his sister Cindy hosted in the recreation room of their apartment building.

Which jazz trumpeter and singer was known by the nickname Satchmo, short for Satchelmouth?

Louis Armstrong was among the first to record scat singing, on Heebie Jeebies in 1926. He later toured Africa, Europe and Asia for the State Department as Ambassador Satch.

Which Ohio city won the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after pledging $65 million in public money?

Cleveland argued that local disc jockey Alan Freed had popularized the term rock and roll, and that his Moondog Coronation Ball there is often credited as the first major rock and roll concert.

Which Minnesota-born folk singer won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature for his song lyrics?

Bob Dylan was first nominated in 1996 by a Virginia professor, whose campaign for the prize went on for 20 years.

Which Minneapolis star of the 1984 film Purple Rain later swapped his name for an unpronounceable symbol?

Prince became the first singer to have a number-one film, album and single in the United States at the same time, all in 1984.

Which New Jersey rocker earned the nickname the Boss by collecting and handing out his band's nightly pay?

Bruce Springsteen broke through worldwide with Born to Run in 1975. Most of his albums feature the E Street Band, his backing group since 1972.

Which band from Aberdeen, Washington, brought grunge to the mainstream with the 1991 album Nevermind?

Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and Krist Novoselic met at Aberdeen High School. The album's first single, Smells Like Teen Spirit, became an unexpected hit.

Which country singer wrote 'Jolene' and '9 to 5' and lent her name to a Smoky Mountains theme park?

Dolly Parton wrote more than 3,000 songs. In 1995 she founded the Imagination Library, a children's book program, in honor of her father, who never learned to read or write.

Which rock and roll pioneer's 'Johnny B. Goode' was sent into deep space on the Voyager Golden Record?

Chuck Berry's 1958 hit is the only rock and roll song among the 27 pieces of music on the discs, which left Earth aboard both Voyager spacecraft in 1977.

Which Texas rock and roll star died in a 1959 Iowa plane crash with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper?

Buddy Holly had chartered the plane after a show in Clear Lake. His first hit was credited to the Crickets, a band name chosen to get around his existing contract with Decca.

Which Hoboken-born crooner was nicknamed Ol' Blue Eyes and the Chairman of the Board?

Frank Sinatra, the son of Italian immigrants, also won an Academy Award for his supporting role in the 1953 film From Here to Eternity.

Which crooner's 1942 recording of 'White Christmas' is the world's best-selling single on physical media?

Bing Crosby cut the song in just 18 minutes. Guinness World Records concluded in 2007 that it had sold at least 50 million copies, ahead of Elton John's Candle in the Wind 1997 on 33 million.

Which Russian-born songwriter wrote 'God Bless America' and gave its royalties to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts?

Irving Berlin wrote the song at the end of World War I but set it aside. It only became popular in 1938, when Kate Smith sang it on an Armistice Day radio broadcast.

Which Oklahoma folk singer wrote 'This Land Is Your Land' in 1940 as a critical answer to 'God Bless America'?

Woody Guthrie based the melody on a tune recorded by the Carter Family. He often performed with an anti-fascist message displayed on his guitar.

Which composer wrote Rhapsody in Blue for solo piano and jazz band in 1924?

George Gershwin said the ideas for the piece came to him on a train to Boston. Its famous opening clarinet slide began as a rehearsal joke by the band's clarinetist.

Which bandleader, known as the March King, composed 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' and 'Semper Fidelis'?

John Philip Sousa was enlisted in the United States Marine Band as an apprentice by his father in 1868. He later directed the band for 12 years.

Which syncopated piano style from around 1900 found a new audience when the 1973 film The Sting used 'The Entertainer'?

Ragtime keeps a steady, march-like bass in the left hand while the right hand plays an off-beat melody. Jazz overshadowed the style in the 1920s.

Which stringed instrument with African roots became a mainstay of bluegrass and old-time music alongside the fiddle?

The banjo enjoyed a resurgence after World War II in the hands of stars such as bluegrass picker Earl Scruggs and folk singer Pete Seeger.

Bluegrass music takes its name from Bill Monroe's band, the Blue Grass Boys, named in honor of which state?

Kentucky was Monroe's home state, and a large region at its center is known for its bluegrass. He is often called the Father of Bluegrass.

Which river city is home to Sun Studio and to Beale Street, declared the Home of the Blues by Congress in 1977?

Memphis still has producer Sam Phillips's Sun Studio standing and open for tours. The city's other landmarks include the Stax Museum of American Soul Music.

In which Midwestern city did Muddy Waters and fellow Southern migrants create electric blues at Chess Records?

Chicago bluesmen switched to electric instruments to be heard in loud, crowded nightclubs. The Rolling Stones, named after a Muddy Waters song, recorded at the Chess studio in 1964.

Which state's Delta region gave its name to one of the earliest known styles of blues?

Mississippi's Delta blues first reached record mostly as one person singing and playing an instrument. The style is regarded as a regional variant of country blues.

Which Harlem venue's Amateur Night features an executioner who sweeps failing acts off the stage with a broom?

The Apollo Theater lets the audience judge the novice performers each week. The executioner has also been known to use a chair, balls or prop weapons.

Which country music show, launched in 1925 as the WSM Barn Dance, is the longest-running radio broadcast in US history?

The Grand Ole Opry took its current name in 1927. Its station's 50,000-watt signal later made the program a Saturday night tradition in nearly 30 states.

Which former child prodigy, signed at age 11, won the Album of the Year Grammy with three consecutive albums?

Stevie Wonder won with Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale and Songs in the Key of Life. He has been blind since shortly after his birth.

Whose recording of 'Georgia on My Mind' was proclaimed the official state song of Georgia in 1979?

Ray Charles performed the song on the floor of the state legislature that year. Blind by the age of seven, he had learned to read and write music in Braille.

Which Godfather of Soul gave a televised Boston concert the day after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated?

James Brown's trademark stage routine had his MC drape a cape over his shoulders and lead him off, exhausted, before he shook it off and staggered back to the microphone.

Which jazz singer, nicknamed Lady Day, had waiters silence the room at Café Society before she sang 'Strange Fruit'?

Billie Holiday got the nickname from her friend and frequent accompanist, saxophonist Lester Young. In return she called him Prez.

Which bandleader made his name at Harlem's Cotton Club and took 'Take the A Train' as his orchestra's theme?

Duke Ellington was only offered the Cotton Club job after King Oliver turned it down. He had to expand his band from six players to eleven for the audition.

Which rapper's album Damn made him the first musician outside classical and jazz to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music?

Kendrick Lamar was born and raised in Compton, California, and began releasing music in high school under the stage name K.Dot.

Which former teenage country singer became the first artist to win the Album of the Year Grammy four times?

Taylor Swift reached four with Midnights in 2024. She had already been the first woman to win the award twice, and then the first woman to win it three times.

Which trumpeter led the sextet on the 1959 album Kind of Blue after recording the Birth of the Cool sessions?

Miles Davis gave his players, among them saxophonist John Coltrane, only sketches of scales and melody lines to improvise on. The album was taped in just two sessions.

Which composer wove the Shaker tune 'Simple Gifts' into his Pulitzer-winning ballet score Appalachian Spring?

Aaron Copland wrote the ballet for choreographer Martha Graham, who sent him an early scenario titled House of Victory. His peers called him the Dean of American Music.

Which 19th-century songwriter, called the father of American music, wrote 'Oh! Susanna' and 'Camptown Races'?

Stephen Foster also wrote Old Folks at Home, which became the official state song of Florida in 1935. Many of his songs were used in the minstrel shows of his day.

Which New York songwriting district is said to be named for the din of cheap upright pianos playing different tunes?

Tin Pan Alley began as a stretch of West 28th Street in Manhattan where many music publishers had their offices. The name was firmly attached by the fall of 1905.

Which Delta bluesman, dead at 27, is said in legend to have sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads?

Robert Johnson left a discography of just 29 songs, almost half of them recorded in Dallas. The legend echoes the old European tale of Faust.

Which gospel star, later called the Godmother of Rock and Roll, paired spiritual lyrics with electric guitar?

Rosetta Tharpe carried sacred songs into nightclubs and concert halls with big bands behind her, beginning with the 1938 recording Rock Me.

Which big band leader received the first gold record ever presented, for 'Chattanooga Choo Choo' in 1942?

Glenn Miller went missing in December 1944, when his flight over the English Channel from England to France never arrived.

Which singer performed on the Lincoln Memorial steps in 1939 after being barred from Constitution Hall?

Marian Anderson had been refused the hall under a white-performers-only policy. In 1955 she became the first Black American to sing with the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Which New York venue hosted Benny Goodman's 1938 concert, hailed as jazz's coming-out party to respectable music?

Carnegie Hall welcomed the clarinetist known as the King of Swing. In an era of racial segregation, he also led one of the first integrated jazz groups.

Which cable channel launched in August 1981 by playing the Buggles' 'Video Killed the Radio Star'?

MTV opened its launch with footage of the first Moon landing. Its presenters became known as video jockeys, or VJs.