The Hills Are Alive Trivia Quiz

Answer: Mockin' Bird Hill

Patti Page's recording of "Mockin' Bird Hill" lasted on the 'Billboard' pop music chart for 22 weeks and went as high as number two; the Les Paul/Mary Ford version also reached the 'Billboard' chart and reached number one on the 'Cash Box' best-selling record charts on April 21, 1951 through May 12th and returned to number one on May 26th.

The tune was also covered by Burl Ives and Slim Whitman and was mentioned in "Spanish Bombs", a song by The Clash. As for the other choices: "Hill Farmers Blues" is by Mark Knopfler, "Old Dirt Hill" from the Dave Matthews Band and "Tight Wad Hill" is sung by Green Day.

Answer: ZZ Top

ZZ Top is a rock band which was formed in Houston, Texas in 1969 and continues with the same three singers, well into the next century. The trio, known for their long beards, consists of Dusty Hill, Billy Gibbons and drummer Frank Beard (the only one without a beard).

This group has remained together longer than most marriages and has produced albums which include "Eliminator", "XXX", "Tres hombres", "Afterburner" and "La Futura". Among their 'top' songs are "La Grange" (1973) and "Gimme All Your Lovin'", "Sharp Dressed Man" and "Legs", all from the 1983 "Eliminator" album.

As an aside, the group is the last entry in the "Encyclopedia Britannica".

Answer: Happy Birthday to You

It's a song that is played many times every single day of the year...
originally called "Good Morning to All", the tune of "Happy Birthday to You" is attributed to sisters Patty and Mildred Hill. The melody was written in 1893, but the current 'Happy Birthday' song became popular in the 20th century. Born near Louisville, Kentucky, Mildred (1859-1916) was a songwriter and musicologist, while her sister Patty (1868-1946) was a composer and kindergarten teacher. Patty and Mildred were posthumously inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame on June 12, 1996.

Answer: Fats Domino

"Blueberry Hill" was first published in 1940 and was covered by such notables of the day as Sammy Kaye, Glenn Miller, Kay Kyser, Jimmy Dorsey, Louis Armstrong and even Gene Autry (in the 1941 movie "The Singing Hill" - a bonus 'Hill'!). In 1956, Antoine "Fats" Domino Jr. performed the song on "The Ed Sullivan Show". "Fats" version of the song reached number two in the Top 40 and was number one on the R&B charts for 11 weeks, sold more than five million copies between 1956 and 1957, and was "the Fat Man's" biggest hit.

He won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987 and, in 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him number 25 on their list of "the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time".

Answer: Yakety Sax

All of the above tunes were recorded by the great saxophonist 'Boots' Randolph, but it was his 1963 instrumental, "Yakety Sax", that Alfred Hawthorn 'Benny' Hill (1924-1992) used as his signature tune on his long-running comedy program "The Benny Hill Show" from 1955 to 1991.

After serving in the army in World War II, Hill went to London and adopted the stage name Benny Hill as homage to his favorite comedian Jack Benny. The humor (or humour) on his show was based on slapstick and parody (sort of a pre-Monty Python).

His most common running gag, the closing sequence, was literally a running gag where various cast members would chase Hill, to the music of "Yakety Sax".

Answer: Harold Hill

While all the 'Hills' above have music in their backgrounds, Harold Hill is the only fictional character among them. Harold Hill is a con man and the main character of Meredith Willson's musical "The Music Man". The show was first performed on Broadway in 1957 and made into a 1962 movie starring the wonderful Robert Preston with Shirley Jones as Marian, the Librarian. 'Professor' Hill, as he called himself, was a traveling salesman who arrives in the fictional town "right here in River City". He is intent on swindling the natives of Iowa while posing as a band instructor.

He plans to get them to pay him for the band (et al.), take their money and skip town.

Answer: Jimmy Buffett

"Mansion on the Hill" was the first song Bruce Springsteen wrote for his 1982 album "Nebraska". As with many of Springsteen's songs, it is about the 'have-nots' looking up at the 'haves': "Tonight down here in Linden Town, I watch the cars rushin' by home from the mill/There's a beautiful full moon rising above the mansion on the hill".

It was covered by Emmylou Harris in 1992. Neil Young also wrote and recorded the same title in 1990, but it was a different song, as was the Hank Williams Sr. song from 1948.

It seems the only person not associated with this title is the parrotheads' own Jimmy Buffett who must have been too busy in "Margaritaville".

Answer: Hill Street Blues Theme

Grammy and Emmy Award winning composer Mike Post wrote the "Hill Street Blues" theme song for the gritty 1981 TV show. (I can still hear the tune in my head.) The show was set in the Hill Street police station in some unknown urban city, and it won eight Emmy Awards in its debut season. Mike Post is also known for having composed other primetime TV theme songs like "Law and Order", "The A-Team", "The Rockford Files", "NYPD Blue" and "LA Law". With respect to the incorrect choices: Stevie Wonder sang "House on the Hill"; Gordon Lightfoot did "Redwood Hill" and the Indigo Girls are responsible for "Deadman's Hill".

Answer: Dan Hill

Lauryn Hill is a singer and rapper who was once a member of The Fugees, produced a solo album, "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill", and served time for tax evasion. Ian Hill is a founding member of the heavy metal band, Judas Priest, and Faith Hill is a country singer ("Breathe") who married Tim McGraw but, coincidentally, was previously married to a man named Dan Hill. Now on to our Dan Hill...Daniel Grafton Hill IV is a Canadian singer and songwriter.

He has recorded two major international hits, i.e., "Can't We Try" (1987) with Vonda Shepard (who played a singer on the TV show "Ally McBeal"), and the solo hit "Sometimes When We Touch" (1977).

Answer: Bunker Hill

Ending with a very tough question... David Walker (1941-late 1980s?) was a singer who used the stage name Bunker Hill, no doubt after the Revolutionary War battle of 1775. He was raised in the nation's capital and, originally, wanted to become a professional boxer, even becoming the sparring partner of Archie Moore.

He left boxing to follow a career in gospel singing and joined The Mighty Clouds of Joy in the late 1950s. In 1962 he was offered a novelty secular song and, to avoid being thrown out of the Mighty Clouds of Joy, he took on 'Bunker Hill' as a pseudonym.

He had a hit song "Hide and Go Seek" in 1962, got kicked out of the Clouds and disappeared in the 1960s.