Man's Best Friend - Woofers In Music Quiz

Answer: Big Mama Thornton

Oh ho HO! So you thought I threw in something so obviously stupid in my answer choices DIDJA? I'll have you know that EVERYBODY I listed has done a version of "Hound Dog" but only one was the original. And that'd be Big Mama's!

Born December 11, 1926 Big Mama was a hugely influential blues singer in the '50s. You don't believe me, just ask Janis Joplin. Oh yeah. You can't. Regardless: Big Mama's version of "Hound Dog" was her biggest hit. It spent seven weeks at Number One back in 1953 on Billboard's R&B Charts and sold almost two million copies. That's when being number one for seven weeks meant a LOT. And when this country barely had more than two million people living in it! Ok. Maybe not the whole country. Maybe just Los Angeles or New York. Still... for that time two million was a boatload of people.

Answer: Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias

"Old Trust"... Ever since my spousal abuse quiz I have been kicking myself (I know, I know... I should get a restraining order or at least have the courage to pack my things and leave) for not remembering the GREAT Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias track about puttin' the hurt on somebody: "Torture You". So this quiz is pretty much just an excuse for me to find a way to include this wonderfully loony British band in a quiz of mine.

"Old Trust" is the opening track of their second LP 'Italians In Outer Space', released in 1977 on the UK Transatlantic label. While not even close to being as brilliant as their self titled first album was, "Old Trust" was one of the few stand out tracks on their second album. It's a traditional country weeper about a man whose dog runs off with his wife, his mohair suit and his car. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr yer a bad boy Trust now git back here raht now! The song is on youtube if you are interested. Oh yeah: the other choices? I just typed the first word into google and the first letter of the second word and these are what came up. Except for choice #4. That's just my basic go-to if I got out for Mexican food and there are combos available on the menu.

Answer: Pet Sounds

The 1967 album 'Pet Sounds' is one of the albums released in rock music that is undisputedly considered to be one of the greatest records ever made. And who am I to argue.

The coda of the title track, "Pet Sounds" had all sorts of things going on that had nothing to do with a song proper, but one of the things you'll hear in it are Brian Wilson's dogs barking away (to my ears - and this is entirely my own opinion - it sounds like an ice cream man going by the house and dogs going nuts. I have NO idea whatsoever if that is what he was going for on the track).

Answer: Martha My Dear

"Martha My Dear" opens side two of the great Beatles double album simply called 'The Beatles'. Most people know it as 'The White Album'. Released on November 22, 1968, early pressings of this album were individually numbered.

Martha was Paul McCartney's sheepdog and she can be seen on his first solo album McCartney (not counting the film soundtrack for 'The Family Way', released three years previously), released in April of 1970, in two of the photos in that album's gatefold cover.

Answer: Everly Brothers

The Everly Brothers... Ahhhhh the Everly Brothers... How I do love thee!

"Bird Dog" was a track written by Boudleaux Bryant (as were many of their early hits) which was released on the Cadence label on July 28, 1958. It went to Number One on the Billboard Country Chart as well as number two on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 AS WELL AS Number Two for three weeks on the R&B charts. Y'think it was a popular song of theirs? Oh yeah: It also went to Number One in Australia, Canada and the UK!

Answer: Procol Harum

The title track off the third Procol Harum album of the same name from 1969. Ok now it does have the word "dog" in the title but the phrase is really meant as "an old sailor". As I am trying to be a quiz artist I am taking some artistic license here.

Answer: David Bowie

The title track from David's eighth album of the same name released in 1974. This album also became the basis of his US tour that year, which had the biggest and most elaborate stage production for a rock concert ever attempted up to that time and during which the 'David Live' album was recorded.

The album eventually went to number one in both the UK and Canada and to number five in the USA.

Answer: Rush

Do I have a clue what this song is about? Nope. Not even a guess. But it is from the band's 1975 release 'Fly By Night', their second album. The song itself is a huge fan favorite. This was the first Rush album with new drummer Neil Peart, who replaced previous drummer John Rutsey, who left the band due to his diabetes and his dislike of touring.

On the original vinyl release of 'Fly By Night' the track "By Tor etc" can play for eternity due to a locked groove at the end of the song. Well... maybe not all eternity but at least until the power grid goes out.

Answer: The Who

My all time personal favorite Who song. And the only song I know of that ends with the words "Lovely buttocks". WHAT IS NOT TO LOVE I ask you?

This wonderful song about betting on greyhound dog racing was a single track released in the UK on June 14, 1968 on Track Records. It flopped! The b side was "Call Me Lightning".

Answer: Nazareth

You know that song you used to hear on the radio back in the '70s that went "Now yer messin' with a... a son of a "rhymes-with-Mitch"(now yer messin' with-a-sumnarhymeswithmitch)"? The one you'd go into your local record store and sing to the beleaguered employee behind the counter and they'd look at the tiny arm growing out of your forehead? Or at least that's what the look they gave you felt like. Well guess what? That song was NOT called "Son Of A Rhymeswithmitch-".

It was called "Hair Of The Dog" and it was the title track of the 1975 album of the same name. Which also had the sizable hit "Love Hurts" on it. Nazareth were (actually are since some line up of the band is still touring around Europe last I checked) a band from Scotland who built their audience the old fashioned way: by touring like crazy and through sheer hard work. And putting on a damn good live show with no gimmicks. And then by doing little things that rewarded their audiences back in the early days when they were still trying to make it. Things most artists nowadays do not do or never learned how to do. 'HOTD' was their sixth album and the one that broke them in the States.

Their hit version of the old Everly Brothers track "Love Hurts" became the band's only US Top Ten hit, as well as becoming a top 10 hit in nine other countries. It reached number one in six of them and was on the Norwegian chart for 60 weeks! The title track of the album, while receiving a fair amount of FM radio airplay, was not released as a single (probably because getting airplay with the song's lyrical hook would have been nigh on impossible in those days).