American Music
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free American Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Few countries have invented as many kinds of music as the United States. Jazz, blues, country, gospel, rock and roll, soul and hip-hop all grew up there, often in a single neighborhood, a single studio or a single dance hall, before they travelled around the world. This quiz follows that story from patriotic songs and parlor tunes of the 1800s to the big bands, the first rock and roll records, the soul and folk of the 1960s, and the pop and rap of recent decades. Expect questions on famous nicknames, hometowns and record labels, the cities that gave each style its sound, landmark festivals and venues, and the odd stories behind well-known songs and albums. It is written for anyone who enjoys a multiple-choice music round, whether for a quiz night, a classroom or a few minutes of fun. The opening questions are ones most listeners can reach, the later ones reward real fans, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Southern port city is regarded as the birthplace of jazz?
New Orleans
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.
Q 02Which Detroit record label, run from a house nicknamed Hitsville U.S.A., launched the Supremes and the Jackson 5?
Motown
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.
Q 03Which 1969 music festival was held on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York?
Woodstock
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.
Q 04Which mansion, bought by Elvis Presley for $102,500 in 1957, is now a museum devoted to the singer?
Graceland
Graceland receives around 600,000 visitors a year, which makes it the second most visited home in the United States after the White House.
Q 05Which Michael Jackson album, released in 1982, remains the best-selling album of all time worldwide?
Thriller
Thriller has sold an estimated 70 million copies worldwide. It also won eight Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.
Q 06Which lawyer wrote the words of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' after watching the British bombard Fort McHenry in 1814?
Francis Scott Key
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.
Q 07Which Southern city is nicknamed Music City and is home to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum?
Nashville
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.
Q 08Which country singer, nicknamed the Man in Black, recorded live albums at Folsom and San Quentin prisons?
Johnny Cash
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.
Q 09Which singer, crowned the Queen of Soul, became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin was inducted in 1987, two years after the state of Michigan declared her voice a natural resource.
Q 10In which New York City borough did hip-hop emerge from 1970s block parties thrown by DJs such as Kool Herc?
The Bronx
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.
Q 11Which jazz trumpeter and singer was known by the nickname Satchmo, short for Satchelmouth?
Louis Armstrong
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.
Q 12Which Ohio city won the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after pledging $65 million in public money?
Cleveland
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.
Q 13Which Minnesota-born folk singer won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature for his song lyrics?
Bob Dylan
Q 21Which crooner's 1942 recording of 'White Christmas' is the world's best-selling single on physical media?
Bing Crosby
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.
Q 22Which Russian-born songwriter wrote 'God Bless America' and gave its royalties to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts?
Irving Berlin
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.
Q 23Which Oklahoma folk singer wrote 'This Land Is Your Land' in 1940 as a critical answer to 'God Bless America'?
Woody Guthrie
Bob Dylan was first nominated in 1996 by a Virginia professor, whose campaign for the prize went on for 20 years.
Q 14Which Minneapolis star of the 1984 film Purple Rain later swapped his name for an unpronounceable symbol?
Prince
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.
Q 15Which New Jersey rocker earned the nickname the Boss by collecting and handing out his band's nightly pay?
Bruce Springsteen
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.
Q 16Which band from Aberdeen, Washington, brought grunge to the mainstream with the 1991 album Nevermind?
Nirvana
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.
Q 17Which country singer wrote 'Jolene' and '9 to 5' and lent her name to a Smoky Mountains theme park?
Dolly Parton
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.
Q 18Which rock and roll pioneer's 'Johnny B. Goode' was sent into deep space on the Voyager Golden Record?
Chuck Berry
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.
Q 19Which Texas rock and roll star died in a 1959 Iowa plane crash with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper?
Buddy Holly
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.
Q 20Which Hoboken-born crooner was nicknamed Ol' Blue Eyes and the Chairman of the Board?
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra, the son of Italian immigrants, also won an Academy Award for his supporting role in the 1953 film From Here to Eternity.
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.
Q 24Which composer wrote Rhapsody in Blue for solo piano and jazz band in 1924?
George Gershwin
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.
Q 25Which bandleader, known as the March King, composed 'The Stars and Stripes Forever' and 'Semper Fidelis'?
John Philip Sousa
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.
Q 26Which syncopated piano style from around 1900 found a new audience when the 1973 film The Sting used 'The Entertainer'?
Ragtime
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.
Q 27Which stringed instrument with African roots became a mainstay of bluegrass and old-time music alongside the fiddle?
Banjo
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.
Q 28Bluegrass music takes its name from Bill Monroe's band, the Blue Grass Boys, named in honor of which state?
Kentucky
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.
Q 29Which river city is home to Sun Studio and to Beale Street, declared the Home of the Blues by Congress in 1977?
Memphis
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.
Q 30In which Midwestern city did Muddy Waters and fellow Southern migrants create electric blues at Chess Records?
Chicago
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.