The Shel Silverstein Songbook Trivia Quiz

Answer: Tompall Glaser

"Put Another Log On The Fire" was Tompall Glaser's best-selling single as a solo artist. It reached number 21 on the Billboard Hot Country charts in 1975.
He began his career in the 1950s singing with his brothers Chuck and Jim in the trio Tompall & the Glaser Brothers.
The band broke up while its members had solo careers, but reunited in 1979.
Their top hit was Kris Kristofferson's "Lovin' Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again)", which reached number two in the Billboard country charts in 1981.

Answer: Johnny Cash

Shel Silverstein's nephew Mitch Myers later recalled that "A Boy Named Sue" was written while Shel was living in Nashville. He had sung it at a friend's house.
He went on: "Johnny's wife, June Carter, thought it was a great song for Johnny Cash to perform. And not too long after that they were headed off to San Quentin to record a record - 'Live At San Quentin' - and June said, 'Why don't you bring that Shel song with you.'
"And so they brought the lyrics. And when he was on stage he performed that song for the first time ever, he performed it live in front of that captive audience, in every sense of the word."
Silverstein was later to write a song entitled "The Father of the Boy Named Sue" - the same story told from the father's point of view.
In 1969, "A Boy Named Sue" topped the Billboard Country charts and was number two on the Hot 100 pop charts. It was also a Canadian country charts number one.

Answer: Waylon Jennings

Written with Kris Kristofferson, "The Taker" was on the 1971 Waylon Jennings album "The Taker/Tulsa".
The single reached number five in the Billboard Country charts and just about made it onto the Billboard Hot 100 at number 94.
Born in Texas, Jennings was a DJ before starting a singing career. He played bass with Buddy Holly.
Between 1959 and 2012, Jennings was to have 16 number one hits on all charts.

Answer: Dr Hook and the Medicine Show

"Sylvia's Mother" was based on a true story from Shel Silverstein's life. He told 'Rolling Stone' in 1972: "I just changed the last name, not to protect the innocent, but because it didn't fit. It happened about eight years ago and was pretty much the way it was in the song. I called Sylvia and her mother said, 'She can't talk to you.' I said, 'Why not?' Her mother said she was packing and she was leaving to get married, which was a big surprise to me.
"The guy was in Mexico and he was a bullfighter and a painter. At the time I thought that was like being a combination brain surgeon and encyclopedia salesman. Her mother finally let me talk to her, but her last words were, 'Shel, don't spoil it.' For about ten seconds I had this ego charge, as if I could have spoiled it. I couldn't have spoiled it with a sledge hammer."
Silverstein wrote most of the Medicine Show's songs.
In 1972, the song reached number five on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. It was a UK number two and topped the charts in both the Republic of Ireland and Australia.

Answer: Marianne Faithfull

Originally sung by Dr Hook in 1974, Marianne Faithfull reached number 48 in the UK charts with the song in 1979. It reached the top 20 in several mainland European countries.
Marianne Faithfull was a singer and actor. Her singing career began in 1964 when she was 'discovered' by Andrew Lood Oldham, manager of The Rolling Stones. Her first UK hit was "As Tears Go By", 1964, which was written by Oldham, Mick Jagger and Keith Richard. "Come Stay With Me" was a UK number four the following year.
Faithfull also had a busy stage, cinema and television acting career.

Answer: Judy Collins

The New Christy Minstrels, and Bobby Bare were among others to cover the song.
Collins was born in Seattle Washington. You may have noted that all the wrong answers were born in Canada.
Collins trained as a classical pianist, but gave that up in favour of folk music. A key player in the 1960s New York City folk scene, she sang protest songs and love songs and was a political activist.
Her biggest hit was a cover of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides, Now", which was a Billboard Hot 100 number eight in 1968.

Answer: Dave & Sugar

Dave & Sugar made it to number 25 on the Billboard Country charts in 1976.
Dave Rowland and backing vocalists Vicki Hackeman and Jackie Frantz first recorded in 1975. They had three Billboard country chart toppers, "The Door Is Always Open"(1976), "Tear Time" (1978), and "Golden Tears" (1979). (The backing vocalists changed several times before the band stopped recording in 1982.)

Like many other Shel Silverstein songs, it was first recorded by Dr Hook and the Medicine Show.

Answer: Loretta Lynn

The song topped the Billboard Country charts and the Canadian RPM Country charts in 1971. It was taken from an album of the same name.
Lynn was born in Kentucky in 1932 and her professional career started in 1960. She went on to win more than 50 country music industry awards - as well as two Grammys. She was Academy of Country Music's "Artist of the Decade" for the 1970s. Her career included ten number one albums and 16 number one singles on the Billboard country charts.

Answer: Bob Gibson

The song is not to be confused with the Walt Whitman poem of the same name.
Silverstein was already a noted artist when he met Bob Gibson.
Gibson and Bob Camp were an established folk music duo playing the the Gate of Horn Club in Chicago. Silverstein was there as a fan.
Gibson encouraged Silverstein to start writing lyrics. They became friends and and established a 35-year partnership that produced dozens of collaborations.
In 1995, Gibson recorded "Makin' A Mess - Bob Gibson Sings Shel Silverstein". It contained many Silverstein songs - "running the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous" as Gibson's official website put it.
Produced by Silverstein, it was Gibson's last album. He had been diagnosed in 1993 with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, a rare neurological disorder similar to Parkinson's, and died in 1996.

Answer: Bobby Bare

Although Bobby Bare had 34 country top ten hits in a long career, "Marie Laveau" was his only number one.
The song was a collaboration between Shel Silverstein and Baxter Taylor.
Bare started his singing career in the early 1950s, without too much success at first. Indeed when he did have a hit, with "The All American Boy", it was wrongly credited to another singer. (It reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1958.
Bare recorded regularly and also hit the top regions of the Billboard Country Charts with "Daddy What If" in 1973, a number two recorded with his son Bobby Bare Jr, who was also a musician.