Oggy, Oggy, Oggy: The Max Boyce Story Multiple Choice Quiz | Music

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Where in Wales was the birth place of the singer and comedian Max Boyce?

Answer: Glynneath

Boyce was born on September 7th 1945. His father died in an explosion in a coal mine in that same year. At the age of 15, Boyce, too, went down the mines, spending some eight years there. While studying for a mining engineering degree in the early 1970s, he began to write songs about life in the Welsh valleys.

A recording and TV career followed. He was appointed MBE (Member of the British Empire) in 2000.

2. Which of these sports is intrinsically associated with the Welsh singer/songwriter and comedian Max Boyce?

Answer: Rugby Union

From his early days in the working men's clubs of Wales singing about lives in the valleys, Boyce began to sing about his passion, Rugby Union. Some of those songs, notably 'Hymns And Arias', were adopted as unofficial anthems by Welsh fans and were sung at matches involving the national team. Several of his albums were recorded before audiences in rugby clubs.

3. Although born and raised in Wales, the singer/songwriter and comedian Max Boyce could not speak Welsh.

Answer: False

Boyce frequently dropped Welsh phrases and comments into his anecdotes. He also recorded songs in Welsh

4. After an apprenticeship spent in the clubs of Wales, the singer/songwriter and comedian Max Boyce found national fame when he appeared on a TV talent show. What was it called?

Answer: Opportunity Knocks

Although he did not win, Boyce was spotted by the leading record company EMI in 1973 and offered a record deal. Two years earlier Boyce had recorded 'Max Boyce in Session' on the Cambrian label. Boyce's first EMI album "Live at Treorchy" was a gold seller.

5. Which sporting trio were immortalised by the Welsh singer/songwriter and comedian Max Boyce?

Answer: The Pontypool Front Row

"Up and under, here we go
Are you ready, yes or or no
Up and under, here we go
It's the song of the Pontypool front row"
For a period in the 1970s, the front row of the scrum of Pontypool rugby team was one of the most dominating units in the game.
Also known as the "Viet Gwent", the trio of Graham Price, Bobby Windsor and Charlie Faulkner played as a unit 19 times for Wales, losing on only four occasions.

6. As a former miner, Max Boyce had a compassionate involvement with the mining communities of Wales and wrote several songs about them. According to his song "Duw It's Hard", what had the pithead baths of one closed-down colliery become?

Answer: A supermarket

"Cos it's hard, Duw it's hard
It's harder than they will ever know
And it's they must take the blame
The price of coal's the same
But the pithead baths is a supermarket now."

As a former collier, Boyce professed that he had not been particularly saddened by the closing of the mines.

7. What achievement could the Welsh singer Max Boyce claim about his album "We All Had Doctors' Papers"?

Answer: It was the first comedy record ever to top the UK album charts

Recorded at Pontarddulais Rugby Club, it was number one for a week in November 1975. No comedy album had ever reached the top of the UK charts before then.

8. After several gold-selling records, Max Boyce became a regular on British TV screens. In one series he filmed his time at a bootcamp with an American Football team. Which team?

Answer: Dallas Cowboys

"Max Boyce Meets The Dallas Cowboys" was screened by the BBC in November 1982. Two year later he returned to the USA to film a series devoted to rodeos, "Boyce Goes West".

9. At a Max Boyce concert, what was the proper reply by the audience to the singer's calls of "Oggy, Oggy, Oggy"?

Answer: Oi, Oi, Oi

"Oggy, Oggy, Oggy" (alternative spellings also exist) was originally a Cornish phrase.
The pattern used by Boyce went like this:
Oggy Oggy Oggy!
Oi Oi Oi!
Oggy Oggy Oggy!
Oi Oi Oi!
Oggy!
Oi!
Oggy!
Oi!
Oggy Oggy Oggy!
Oi Oi Oi!

It was frequently used by Boyce in association with what became something of a theme song, 'Sospan Fach'.

10. The Welsh singer and comedian Max Boyce formerly worked down the coalmines and wrote many songs about mining. In one song he lamented the hardship and the illnesses that were part and parcel of mining. What was the song called?

Answer: Rhondda Grey

This was a song about a boy coming home from school with a project to paint scenes of the valley in which he lived. He asked his parents what bright colours he should use to depict the sights all around him. In the last verse, his father took him down the street to show him the old former miners sitting on a council seat, their faces weary and grey from years of the hard work underground and its consequent illnesses.
He told the boy:
"And that's the colour that we want
That no shop has ever sold
You can't buy that in Woollie's lad
With your reds and greens and gold
It's a colour you can't buy lad, no matter what you pay
But that's the colour that we want, it's a sort of Rhondda Grey
They call it Rhondda Grey."

11. Which of these songs was the subject of a Max Boyce parody?

Answer: The Deck of Cards

'The Deck of Cards' was based on "The Soldier's Almanack, Bible And Prayer Book", a 19th Century British publication. In 1959 a version by Wink Martindale reached Number 7 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 charts.
Boyce gave it a rugby union theme:
"During the latter part of last season
A bunch of students had been on a long sponsored walk
They arrived in a little town -
The next day, being Tuesday, some of the boys went training
A Welsh Rugby Union coach commanded the boys in training
And after he had outlined various scrummaging techniques, he told them to take out their Welsh Rugby Union Handbook
Those of the boys who had Welsh Rugby Union Handbooks took them out
But one boy only had a deck of cards..."
The rest of the song related how the various cards reminded the boy of the heroes and glories of Welsh rugby.

12. In the Max Boyce song 'Hymns And Arias', what had once been in a bottle given by Welsh rugby fans to an England supporter?

Answer: Bitter ale

"And we were singing hymns and arias,
'Land of my Fathers', 'Ar hyd y nos'."

This was the tale of Welsh fans travelling to London for a match against England. On not being able to find toilets at the ground, some used a bottle "that once held bitter ale". When Wales won, the song continued:
"We sympathised with an Englishman
Whose team was doomed to fail
So we gave him that old bottle,
That once held bitter ale!

And he started singing
Hymns and arias..."

13. According to Max Boyce, what was the most priceless commodity known to Welshmen?

Answer: Outside halves

In the introduction to his spoken song 'The Outside Half Factory' Boyce said: "We produce in my little factory deep in in the heart of west Wales the most priceless commodity known to Welshmen, outside halves". Outside half was, of course, a position in rugby union teams.

14. In the 1980s, Max Boyce featured in a movie documentary called "To The North of Kathmandu". Which of these former Beatles was a co-star?

Answer: Ringo Starr

Barbara Bach and Billy Connolly also appeared in the feature about the 1985 World Elephant Polo Championships.

15. Although he wrote many of his own songs, the Welsh singer and comedian Max Boyce also adapted the words of one of Wales's best known poets into a song he called 'When We Walked To Merthyr Tydfil'. Who was that poet?

Answer: Idris Davies

Idris Davies (1905-1953) was born in Monmouthshire and worked in the coalmines. The experiences he gained there, especially of pit closures, were to be themes of many later poems. His poems included 'The Angry Summer', and 'The Bells of Rhymney', which the American folksinger Pete Seeger set to music. T.S. Eliot said of Davies' poems: "They are the best poetic document I know about a particular epoch in a particular place, and I think that they really have a claim to permanence."
Boyce wrote a tune for the poem 'Gwalia Deserta' (written in 1938) and added a chorus:
"When we walked To Merthyr Tydfil in the moonlight long ago
When the mountain tracks were frozen and the crests were white with snow
We had tales and songs between us and our souls too young to fret
And we had hopes and visions, that the heart remembers yet"

Listen to Max Boyce on Spotify. If the comedic rugby references are beyond your experiences, listen to the sophistication and depth of meaning of songs like 'Did You Understand', 'Duw It's Hard', 'Rhondda Grey' and 'Ten Thousand Instant Christians'. They show Boyce could hold his head high in the company of any folksinger.

Source: Author darksplash

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor CellarDoor before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Oggy, Oggy, Oggy: The Max Boyce Story Quiz

From the working men's clubs of Wales to the heights of national TV stardom, the singer and comedian Max Boyce earned a place in the affection of the British nation.

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