1960s - 1970s Pop/Rock Songs and Songwriters Quiz

Answer: Bob Dylan

The song "If Not For You" was written by Bob Dylan and recorded for his LP titled "New Morning", which was released in 1970. One month after Dylan released it, George Harrison released a version on his "All Things Must Pass" three LP set. Olivia Newton John had the greatest success with the song.

Her version reached number twenty five on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart and hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Easy Listening chart. The year was 1971.

Answer: Rod Stewart

Rod "The Mod" Stewart wrote "Maggie May". He did have a little help from Martin Quittenton who was the guitarist from Steamhammer, though. "Maggie May" not only hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart but it remained at number one for five weeks in 1971.

In 2004 "Rolling Stone" magazine declared the song as being number one hundred thirty one on their list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Rod was a huge fan of Sam Cooke's and did record several of his songs but Sam had no hand in writing it.

In 1975 Rod Stewart recorded "This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)", which was a song written by the Isley Brothers in 1966. They had nothing to do with writing the original version either.

Answer: P.F. Sloan

According to P.F. Sloan, he wrote "Eve Of Destruction" sometime around the middle of 1964 between midnight and dawn. "Eve Of Destruction" was one of the most well known protest songs along with "I Ain't Marching Anymore" by Phil Ochs and "The 'Fish' Cheer / I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag" by Country Joe And The Fish.

Some radio stations in the U.S. claimed that "Eve Of Destruction" was an aid to the enemy in Vietnam and would not give it any air play. The version by Barry McGuire was the most well known and on September 25th, 1965 the song hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart.

This song became a Hippie anthem with its anti government lyrics about political issues during the turbulent 1960s.

Answer: Led Zeppelin - Page/Plant

Led Zeppelin wrote "Kashmir". The band members who actually penned it were Jimmy Page and Robert Plant with some input from John Bonham. It was a track on their "Physical Graffiti" LP which was released in 1975. The song wasn't on the charts at the time but in 2007 it finally hit number forty two on the U.S. Billboard Hot Digital Songs Chart. "Kashmir" is arguably the greatest song ever written by Led Zeppelin.

The debate seems to be between "Kashmir" and "Stairway To Heaven".

Answer: Unknown

The answer is unknown. "Black Betty" by Ram Jam reached number eighteen on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1977. However, they had nothing to do with writing it. Ram Jam started out as a band called Starstruck. In 1975 Starstruck took the fifty nine second version of "Black Betty" by Leadbelly, rearranged it, and pressed up one thousand copies of a forty five RPM record featuring the song.

They used their own money and called their label Truckstar. They were later signed to the RCA label and "Black Betty" was rereleased taking the music world by storm.

The name of the band on the forty five was Ram Jam. The short version by Leadbelly was recorded in 1939. In 1933 at Central State Farm Prison, Sugar Land, Texas, John and Alan Lomax recorded a convict named James "Iron Head" Baker, along with a group, singing "Black Betty" a cappella.

This was the first known recording. The actual writer of the song is still being debated.

Answer: Darby Slick

"Somebody To Love" was written by guitarist Darby Slick for The Great Society band. At the time he was brother-in-law to Grace Slick. The Great Society were the first band to perform the song. Grace and Darby were both members of that band. The original working title for "Somebody To Love" was actually "Someone To Love".

It was written by Darby in November, 1965 when he was coming down from an acid trip and had just learned that his girlfriend had spent the night with some other guy. Grace Slick had nothing to do with writing "Somebody To Love" nor did The Great Society as a band.

When Grace left The Great Society she took "Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit" with her to Jefferson Airplane's "Surrealistic Pillow" sessions. The rest is history.

Answer: Joe South

The song "Hush" was written by a musician named Joe South. He had a hit song titled "Games People Play" that was on the radio back in the late 1960s. Joe actually wrote "Hush" for another musician named Billy Joe Royal. Billy's rendition peaked at number fifty two on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart back in 1967.

The version by Deep Purple became very famous in 1968. It was released on their debut LP titled "Shades Of Deep Purple" and became their first hit single. It peaked at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in the latter part of 1968.

At the time, the vocalist for Deep Purple was Rod Evans who later went on to the band Captain Beyond. He was replaced with vocalist Ian Gillan who eventually helped make them a legend.

Answer: Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan wrote "Quinn the Eskimo (Mighty Quinn)". He recorded it in 1967 during the Basement Tapes sessions. At the beginning of 1968, the rendition by Manfred Mann reached number one on the U.K. Singles Chart (Official Charts Company) and peaked at number ten on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. The Hollies did record a version but Carole King did not.

Answer: Unknown

"The House Of The Rising Sun" is a song that has been recorded by hundreds of bands and musicians. The original songwriter is unknown. The most well known version was recorded by The Animals in just one take on May eighteenth of 1964. By September of 1964 it had peaked at number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart.

It also reached number one in the U.K., Sweden, Finland, and Canada. The band Frijid Pink also recorded a very popular version of the song in 1970. It peaked at number seven on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in April of that year.

There is so much information to pass along about this song and its possible origins but I have to keep this as brief as possible. The earliest known recording was done by two Appalachian artists named Clarence "Tom" Ashley and Gwen Foster. Ashley learned it from Enoch Ashley who was his grandfather. Alan Lomax the famous folklorist recorded a version in 1937, in eastern Kentucky, by sixteen year old Georgia Turner.

He titled it "Rising Sun Blues".

Others who recorded it were Bert Martin, and later Daw Henson from eastern Kentucky, just after Georgia Turner recorded it. Also: Lead Belly (two versions), Roy Acuff, Bob Dylan, Josh White, Woody Guthrie, Dolly Parton et al recorded versions.

Answer: Peter Green

In 1968 it was Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac who actually wrote "Black Magic Woman". In 1969 it popped up on several Fleetwood Mac compilation LPs. It hit number thirty seven on the U.K. Singles chart and became a fairly popular blues-rock song. Santana then released their version of the song and it reached number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart in January of 1971. "Black Magic Woman" was on Santana's LP titled "Abraxas" and was a good part of the reason that "Abraxas" hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Top 200 chart.

It stayed on the charts for more than a year and since has sold over four million copies as of 2014.

Answer: Henry Thomas

In 1928 bluesman Henry Thomas wrote the music for "Going Up The Country". At the time he called it "Bull Doze Blues". On June thirteenth of 1928 it was recorded on the Vocalion records label. Henry sang, played guitar, and played the quills on the song.

The quills is a wind instrument sounding not unlike the panpipes. In October of 1968 Canned Heat released "Going Up the Country" on their "Living The Blues" LP. In November of the same year they released the song as a single. In December it reached number eleven on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

Instead of the quills, band member Jim Horn was able to recreate the sound using a flute. Canned Heat took the music penned by Henry Thomas, added their own lyrics, and "Going Up The Country" was born.

It became the "unofficial anthem" to the 1969 Woodstock Festival.

Answer: Carole King/Gerry Goffin

"The Loco-Motion" was written by Carole King/Gerry Goffin back in 1962. It appeared three times in the American Top Five and each time was in a different decade. In 1962 the version by Little Eva hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, in 1974 the version by Grand Funk peaked at number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, and in 1988 the version by Kylie Minogue reached number three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. Carole King was one of the most prolific songwriters of our time.

She wrote or co-wrote one hundred eighteen pop song hits that were on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 charts through the years. She began writing songs in the 1950s.

Answer: Peter Green

Surprisingly enough "The Green Manalishi" was penned by Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac. It was recorded by Fleetwood Mac and released as a single in the U.K. in May of 1970. It reached number ten on the Billboard UK Top 50/40 Singles chart. Judas Priest recorded the version that most people thought was the original.

They released their version in the U.S. on their "Hell Bent For Leather" LP in 1978. The same LP was titled "Killing Machine" in the U.K. Peter Green wrote "The Green Manalishi" near the end of his time with Fleetwood Mac.

He was struggling with LSD at the time and the song seems to be about attempting to stop his downward spiral into the depths of madness. Green said the song was about money (the devil) and has always held that stance.

He had a drug induced dream in which he said a green dog visited him and barked at him. He knew the dog was representing money. Green said: "It scared me because I knew the dog had been dead a long time. It was a stray and I was looking after it.

But I was dead and had to fight to get back into my body, which I eventually did".

Answer: Jagger/Richards (Rolling Stones)

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote "Sympathy For The Devil". Actually, it was mostly done by Jagger. The song was released in 1968 on the Stones' "Beggars Banquet" LP. "The Devil Is My Name" was the working title originally given to the song. It was sung from Lucifer's point of view as a first person narrative. I always thought that "Sympathy For The Devil" was the song the Rolling Stones were singing at the Altamont Speedway Free Festival when a Hell's Angel stabbed a man to death.

While researching this question I found that it was actually "Under My Thumb" that the Stones were playing when the stabbing occurred. Rolling Stone magazine has a list of the 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time and "Sympathy For The Devil" is rated number thirty two.

Answer: Jacques Brel

The Belgian songwriter Jacques Brel originally wrote the music to "Seasons In The Sun" back in 1961. The title it was given at the time was "Le Moribond" ("The Dying Man"). The title and lyrics were in French. The song was sarcastic and were about the speaker's wife cheating on him. Rod McKuen adapted the song to "Seasons In The Sun" and translated the lyrics to the English language.

When Terry Jacks released his version in 1974 he completely changed the lyrics. They were about a man saying goodbye to his friends because he was dying. Terry was inspired to write these lyrics because a good friend of his was dying of leukemia and only had six months to live.

In March of 1974 "Seasons In The Sun" hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart for Terry Jacks.

It also hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Easy Listening chart the same month. In later years the song was called one of the worst pop songs ever recorded by many. "Seasons In The Sun" has been redone many times. Here are a few who recorded it: The Coachmen (U.K. 1966), The Fortunes 1968, The Kingston Trio 1963, et al.