Pop Quiz

Answers 1. (e) Frank Beard and Dusty Hill were in the American Blues. The Moving Sidewalks, the Saints and the Coachmen were all the names of Gibbons's pre-Top acts. 2. (b) As cut by the song's author Jim Weatherly, the song's title was "Midnight Plane to Houston," but when Atlanta producer Sonny Limbo requested to change the title to "Midnight Train to Georgia," Weatherly okayed the switch. (Oddly, Limbo wanted the song for a session with Cissy Houston -- Whitney's mom.) Later, the lightly rewritten song was picked up by Gladys Knight and the Pips and taken all the way to the top of the charts and eventually a place in the American Idol songbook, where it is regularly butchered by the likes of Jasmine Trias. 3. (b) The Jester, which was on Richmond near Mandell. The two continued honing their craft at Sand Mountain Coffeehouse and the Old Quarter. 4. (d) Jarre's "Rendez-vous Houston" laser/music extravaganza united the city in a way not seen until the Rockets' Clutch City heyday. Looking back, it seems cheesy in the extreme, but it was totally rad at the time. 5. (b) Heather Korb's 1997 documentary Third Ward Blues on Hughes, Copeland and Gatemouth Brown captures much of the neighborhood's embarrassment of six-string riches. 6. (e) Reddy Red 7. (d) Oddly enough it was bluesman Hopkins and none of the zydeco cats. In 1949, Hopkins cut "Zolo Go," on which he tries to approximate a Creole accordion with an organ, as well as arrive at a spelling/pronunciation of the then-new music. The "zydeco" spelling was codified years later by fellow Houstonian Mack McCormack. Both Hopkins and McCormack were trying to arrive at a phonetic spelling of the French les haricots, which means "the beans." 8. (d) KPFT. 9. (c) Hoon 10. (a) Fleetwood Mac 11. (d) 12. (d) 13. (b) Coe. Looking back, there's a surprising amount of non-country on that CD. 14. Newbury, Sam Houston; Rogers, Davis; Willie D, Forest Brook; Crowell, Crosby; Lovett, Klein; Gibbons, Lee; Black, Katy; Knowles, HSPVA; Tune, Lamar; Flip, Worthing; SPM, Milby; Keen, Sharpstown; Cobb, Wheatley; Big Moe, Yates; Morrow, Memorial; Supernaw, Eisenhower; Ingram, Woodlands; Thomas, Lamar Consolidated. 15. True, and not just that, but he wrote all three in one week in his car while commuting between his Pasadena home and a nightly gig in a club on the Hempstead Highway. He probably wrote "Funny How Time Slips Away" and "Crazy" while stuck in traffic on the way to the shows, and "Night Life" while going home with a melancholy little buzz on. 16. Little Joe Washington