Music Inside Out with Gwen Thompkins

This is an unofficial test from the staff of Music Inside Out. Remember, this is ONLY a test:

Question: Who's funnier? 

A. Bruce Springsteen
B. Bob Dylan
C. Laurel and Hardy
D. Don Vappie
E. I hate tests.

Don't miss the Music Inside Out grand slam this week. We've played some of the best stories, songs and lessons from the season, featuring all the musicians we could squeeze into two hours. Review with us, if you will, our musical guests and hip shakin' moments.

John Boutté is hard to intimidate. He may be the only guy who has ever told Stevie Wonder that his singing was flat. Boutté's observation, during a chance encounter with Wonder, changed his life for good. What's more, it made our lives better.

For more than 20 years, Boutté has built a career writing and performing his own songs, as well as re-interpreting the signature work of others. This week, Boutté tells Music Inside Out how he got so good at finding lyrics to suit his voice, his tenderness, his outrage and his legendary sass.

This month, OperaCréole will hold a concert in honor of Scott Joplin and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, two composers of African descent, whose operatic works were never fully realized. The group will perform selections from Joplin's much-debated "Treemonisha" (Is it, or is it not grand opera?) and Coleridge -Taylor's "Thelma," which was lost for nearly 100 years before a graduate student discovered it reportedly in the archives of the British Library.

There's a reason why lions prefer the company of other lions. Just ask Reggie Scanlan. As a bass player, Scanlan worked with James Booker and Professor Longhair before starting a 33-year run with the Radiators. He's now in a band of all-stars called the New Orleans Suspects.

Like most girls her age, Susan Cowsill watched The Partridge Family every week on television. But unlike most girls her age, she was related to the Partridges, albeit in a Hollywood kind of way. The show was modeled after Cowsill and other members of her singing family.

In the 1960s and early '70s, The Cowsills were regulars on television, appearing with Ed Sullivan, Johnny Cash and on their own programs. They also had a string of top ten hits, including "The Rain, the Park and Other Things," and "Hair."

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If you've never seen Sonny Landreth's hands glide over the fret of his slide guitar, you should. It's like watching someone touch the finest of silk.

If you've never heard Sonny Landreth play the blues, or classical music or flat out rock 'n roll, you should. His sound is extraordinary.

Landreth's fans include John Hiatt, Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt and Johnny Winter — with whom he toured earlier this year.

Not bad for a self-described "stepson" of Louisiana, born in Mississippi and raised on big helpings of Cajun and Zydeco music.

Say hello to Magnolia Eleanor Rhein, the newest member of the Music Inside Out family.

Magnolia is the beautiful daughter of producer Jason Rhein and his wife Kelleye. In addition to his work on Music Inside Out, Jason is also the founder and Creative Media Director at Elephant Quilt Productions, and is the bassist and co-songwriter/producer in local rock group Rotary Downs.

When jazz trumpeter Jeremy Davenport got off the road to take a lengthy engagement at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in New Orleans, he said no one seemed more surprised than his former boss — Harry Connick Jr. Davenport had traveled the world in Connick's band, which was and remains, hot stuff.