The Big Book of American Trivia
Page 5
2. “Hound Dog” [Answer]
3. “Chattahoochee” [Answer]
4. “Margaritaville” [Answer]
5. “Me and Bobby McGee” [Answer]
6. “Puff the Magic Dragon” [Answer]
7. “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” [Answer]
8. “California Girls” [Answer]
9. “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” [Answer]
10. “Mrs. Robinson” [Answer]
11. “Daddy Sang Bass” [Answer]
12. “Your Cheatin’ Heart” [Answer]
13. “Mona Lisa” [Answer]
14. “Flowers on the Wall” [Answer]
15. “Hold Tight” [Answer]
16. “Cheek to Cheek” [Answer]
17. “White Christmas” [Answer]
18. “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” [Answer]
19. “Blue Suede Shoes” [Answer]
20. “The Little Old Lady from Pasadena” [Answer]
21. “Wabash Cannonball” [Answer]
22. “Stand by Your Man” [Answer]
23. “Dream On” [Answer]
24. “Rock around the Clock” [Answer]
25. “Feels So Right” [Answer]
26. “Light My Fire” [Answer]
27. “Stormy Weather” [Answer]
28. “You’ve Got a Friend” [Answer]
29. “Joy to the World” [Answer]
30. “Mack the Knife” [Answer]
31. “Rocky Mountain High” [Answer]
32. “Venus” [Answer]
33. “Stop! In the Name of Love” [Answer]
34. “Tip-Toe Thru’ the Tulips with Me” [Answer]
35. “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” [Answer]
36. “Bye Bye Love” [Answer]
37. “Up-Up and Away” [Answer]
38. “Sixteen Tons” [Answer]
39. “Song Sung Blue” [Answer]
40. “American Pie” [Answer]
41. “California Dreamin’ ” [Answer]
42. “Everybody Loves Somebody” [Answer]
43. “Banana Boat (Day-O)” [Answer]
44. “Call Me Irresponsible” [Answer]
Singers, Crooners, and So Forth
1. What tragedy prompted Alan Jackson’s song “Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning”? [Answer]
2. Of the many fan clubs for singers, what deceased rocker has the most clubs? [Answer]
3. What sultry-voiced songstress was born Norma Deloris Egstrom? [Answer]
4. What crooner and former movie partner of Jerry Lewis died on Christmas Day 1995? [Answer]
5. What beloved jazz singer performed with the Billy Graham crusades in her later years? [Answer]
6. An eighty-eight-acre theme park is Pigeon Forge, Tennessee’s most popular attraction. What bigger-than-life country singer is it named for? [Answer]
7. What late black singer was the Queen of Gospel Singers? [Answer]
8. What musical satirist founded the Mothers of Invention in 1964? [Answer]
9. What sometimes controversial TV preacher (and singer) is a cousin of country singers Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley? [Answer]
10. What belting Broadway singer titled her 1956 autobiography Who Can Ask for Anything More? [Answer]
11. When they recorded, what “brothers” did Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield become? [Answer]
12. What country singer has a parkway named for him in his residence of Hendersonville, Tennessee? (Hint: wears black) [Answer]
13. What Mormon family group started out singing at Disneyland? [Answer]
14. What two instruments did the two Smothers Brothers play (and who played which instrument)? [Answer]
15. The Jordanaires and the Blue Moon Boys were backup singers for what pop idol? [Answer]
16. What patriotic singer was at one time named the “First Lady of Radio”? [Answer]
17. What laid-back crooner, who died in 2001, worked as a barber in his younger days? [Answer]
18. Michael, Jackie, Jermaine, Marlon, Randy, and Tito were what brother act in pop music? [Answer]
19. What much loved pop singer and movie actress started her career as one of the singing Gumm Sisters? (Hint: Toto) [Answer]
20. Patty, Maxene, and LaVerne were what close-harmony sister group? [Answer]
21. What country singer was enshrined in the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Cowboy Hall of Fame (and was also the father of a sitcom actor)? [Answer]
22. What rock singer who sang with the First Edition later became a country star? [Answer]
23. What Christian/pop singer married country singer Vince Gill in 2000? [Answer]
24. What four singing sisters made their reputation on The Lawrence Welk Show on TV? [Answer]
25. Who was for many, many years the singing host of the Miss America pageant? [Answer]
26. What pioneering pop singer died in a plane crash on February 3, 1959? (Hint: glasses) [Answer]
27. What Western movie star also sang with the Sons of the Pioneers? [Answer]
28. What baritone star of MGM movie musicals died in 2004? [Answer]
29. What U.S. military band features the Singing Sergeants? [Answer]
30. What singer-pianist won Clio Awards for his commercial jingles? [Answer]
31. What pop idol was launched by the small Sun Record Company of Memphis? [Answer]
32. What popular singer spoke the words, “Wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothing yet” in the 1927 movie, The Jazz Singer? [Answer]
33. What long-lived pop group has counted Peter Cetera and Robert Lamm among its vocalists? (Hint: “numerical” albums) [Answer]
34. What future country music star was in prison at San Quentin when Johnny Cash gave his 1960 concert there? [Answer]
35. What singer-fiddler-guitarist launched the Volunteer Jam concerts in Nashville? [Answer]
36. What music legend who died in 2004 was backed up by the Raelettes? [Answer]
37. What “redheaded stranger,” a country superstar, was born in Abbott, Texas, in 1933? [Answer]
38. Wide-mouthed Steven Tyler, who kicked his destructive drug habit, is lead singer for what hard rock group? [Answer]
39. What popular crooner had been part of a trio called the Rhythm Boys? [Answer]
Creating the American Song
1. What famous patriotic song was written on the back of an envelope during the bombing of a fort? [Answer]
2. What New England state’s state song is “Yankee Doodle”? [Answer]
3. What is the only state with its state song coming from a Broadway musical? [Answer]
4. What popular wedding song did Irving Berlin compose to win the hand of Ellin Mackay? [Answer]
5. What patriotic song did teacher Katherine Lee Bates pen in 1893 after viewing Pike’s Peak? [Answer]
6. What great songwriter’s first song, written when he was eighteen, was “Open Thy Lattice, Love”? (Hint: “Swanee River”) [Answer]
7. What state’s official song was a favorite Confederate marching song in the Civil War (even though the state itself was not in the Confederacy)? [Answer]
8. Liliuokalani, Hawaii’s last queen, wrote what popular song? [Answer]
9. What 1893 song, one of the most-sung songs in America, was originally titled “Good Morning to You”? [Answer]
10. In Bobbie Gentry’s 1967 song, what boy jumped off the Tallahatchee Bridge? [Answer]
11. What was the significance of Glenn Miller’s recording of the song “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”? [Answer]
12. Samuel Francis Smith wrote what great patriotic song (which is almost a second national anthem)? [Answer]
13. What beloved Christmas song by Irving Berlin was introduced by Bing Crosby in the 1942 movie Holiday Inn? [Answer]
14. What name is Stephen Foster’s plantation song “Old Folks at Home” better known by? [Answer]
15. “High Hopes” was the campaign song of what Democratic presidential candidate of the 1960s? [Answer]
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nbsp; 16. What famed poet of the Midwest collected folk songs in The American Songbag? [Answer]
17. “I Don’t Want to Walk without You, Jesus” was written for evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. With a (slightly) new title and lyrics, what pop song did it become? [Answer]
18. Henry Mancini’s song “Red River” became better known by what title? (Hint: Audrey Hepburn sang it.) [Answer]
19. The song “Let’s Dance” was the theme song for what noted band leader and clarinetist? [Answer]
20. What patriotic poem (later set to music) first appeared in the Baltimore American on September 20, 1814? [Answer]
21. Utah’s multicolored Big Rock Candy Mountain was made famous in a song by what folksinger? [Answer]
22. What country singer made Muskogee, Oklahoma, world famous with his song “Okie from Muskogee”? [Answer]
23. What much loved song—practically an anthem of the western U.S.—was written by Dr. Brewster Higley? (Hint: buffalo) [Answer]
24. What state has (appropriately) a country music standard as its state song? [Answer]
25. What president of the late 1800s found his opponent using the campaign song “Ma, Ma, Where’s My Pa? Gone to the White House! Ha! Ha! Ha!”? [Answer]
26. What southern state’s state song came under fire in the 1990s because it supposedly contained racist elements? [Answer]
27. “Happy Trails” was the familiar theme song of what movie cowboy? [Answer]
28. Composer Irving Berlin wrote the campaign song “I Like Ike” for what presidential candidate? [Answer]
29. What composer has two of his songs used as state songs? [Answer]
30. The British drinking song “Battle of the Kegs” became what song of the Revolutionary War? [Answer]
31. What two talented brothers wrote such classics as “I Got Rhythm,” “Summertime,” and “I Got Plenty of Nothin’ ”? [Answer]
32. If you are singing “On the Banks of the Wabash,” what state song are you singing? [Answer]
33. What Plains state has “Home on the Range” as its state song? [Answer]
34. The English drinking song “To Anacreon in Heaven” lent its tune to what familiar patriotic song? [Answer]
Composers and Songwriters and Such
1. What military band composer was “the March King”? [Answer]
2. What composer, who conducted the Boston Pops Orchestra, is famous for film music, including Star Wars, E.T., and Raiders of the Lost Ark? [Answer]
3. What patriotic songwriter, known as the Yankee Doodle Dandy, wrote over five hundred songs? [Answer]
4. Leonard Bernstein wrote the music for a famous play about New York street gangs. What was it? [Answer]
5. What beloved writer of songs about the South hardly ever visited the region? [Answer]
6. What musical theater duo gave the world such classics as The Sound of Music, The King and I, South Pacific, and Oklahoma? [Answer]
7. Charleston, South Carolina’s Spoleto Festival is a world-famous celebration of art and music. What noted composer introduced the festival? [Answer]
8. Decorah, Iowa, has a huge monument to what Czech composer? [Answer]
9. Sedalia, Missouri, hosts a ragtime music festival named for what noted composer? (Hint: The Sting) [Answer]
10. Lehigh University in Pennsylvania has one of America’s oldest festivals celebrating a great baroque composer. Who? [Answer]
11. What blind hymn writer wrote more songs than anyone who ever lived? [Answer]
12. Composer Ferde Grofé wrote the famous Grand Canyon Suite and also a suite about what great river? [Answer]
13. Songwriter Johnny Mercer donated an award he’d won to his hometown of Savannah, Georgia. What was it? [Answer]
14. Aaron Copland wrote a suite called Appalachian Spring and also music for a ballet on a legendary gunslinger. Who? [Answer]
15. Near the Okefenokee Swamp is a park named for which world-famous American composer? [Answer]
Holidays, Holy Days, and Other Special Days
1. What holiday, the unofficial end of summer, was first observed in 1894? [Answer]
2. National Whiners Day, which first began in 1986, falls on the day after what holiday? [Answer]
3. What U.S. autumn holiday is also celebrated in Spain, Italy, and Latin America? [Answer]
4. What Confederate general’s birthday, January 19, was a holiday in some southern states? [Answer]
5. In 1915 President Wilson designated what holiday as the second Sunday in May? [Answer]
6. What holiday is the number-one day for sales of fresh-cut flowers? [Answer]
7. What spring holiday was originally called Decoration Day? [Answer]
8. What assassinated president’s February 12 birthday became a federal holiday in 1892? [Answer]
9. What was the meaning of wearing a red carnation on Mother’s Day? [Answer]
10. On what patriotic holiday did presidents John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe die? [Answer]
11. Technically, how many national holidays are there? [Answer]
12. President’s Day combines the birthdays of which two presidents born in February? [Answer]
13. On what Christian holiday was Abraham Lincoln shot? [Answer]
14. Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, has the nation’s “official” animal connected with what winter holiday? (Hint: rodent) [Answer]
15. What historic New England capital celebrates Bunker Hill Day each June? [Answer]
16. By 1966 presidential proclamation, what holiday was fixed as the third Sunday in June? [Answer]
17. In 1789 what fall holiday became the first U.S. holiday designated by presidential proclamation? [Answer]
18. Armistice Day, made a legal holiday in 1938, now goes by what name? [Answer]
19. The last Friday in April is what nature-centered holiday? [Answer]
20. What fall holiday was first celebrated in 1792? [Answer]
21. What patriotic day was proclaimed by Woodrow Wilson in 1916? [Answer]
22. What federal holiday began in 1880 as a holiday for government workers in Washington, D.C.? [Answer]
Four-Wheeled Friend: The Automobile
We Americans have a love affair with our cars, don’t we? And why not, since they started here?
1. What automaker was called the “Father of Mass Production”? [Answer]
2. What tiny two-seat car went on sale in 2008? [Answer]
3. What make of car was named for a chief of the Ottawa tribe? [Answer]
4. What radical change did automaker Henry Ford make in his employees’ workday in 1914? [Answer]
5. In 1907 what cars for hire appeared in New York with meters and gas-powered engines? [Answer]
6. Before cars were advertised with the slogan “It starts from the seat!” how were they started? [Answer]
7. What sporty car did Ford introduce in April 1964 for the price of $2,368? [Answer]
8. What Japanese automaker built a plant in Smyrna, Tennessee? [Answer]
9. Manny, Moe, and Jack, who retail automotive parts, are better known by what name? [Answer]
10. What small item developed by Henry F. Phillips transformed assembly line production? [Answer]
11. What make of car is the oldest active American make? [Answer]
12. What fuel-inefficient (and cramped) model did Chevrolet introduce in September 1975? [Answer]
13. What was the first Japanese company to sell more than one hundred thousand cars in the United States in one year? [Answer]
14. Hydromatic, Fordomatic, and Dynaflow were what type of automobile feature? [Answer]
15. The P’up, which went on sale in 1981 in the United States, was made by what Japanese company? [Answer]
16. What auto executive’s autobiography was the best-selling nonfiction book of 1984 and 1985? [Answer]
17. What popular Toyota model went on sale in 1982? [Answer]
18. What luxury make of car had the longtime slogan “Standard of the World”?
[Answer]
19. What product became durable when heated with sulfur, as discovered accidentally by Charles Goodyear? [Answer]
20. The U.S.’s highest auto road climbs up what Colorado mountain? [Answer]
21. What maker of hulking, tanklike cars went out of business in 2010? [Answer]
22. What Korean-made cars hit the U.S. market in 1986? [Answer]
23. The rearview mirror on cars had its beginning at what famous auto race? [Answer]
24. What crucial auto part did William Champion begin manufacturing in 1908? [Answer]
25. In 1897, Ransom E. Olds began the automobile industry in what capital city? [Answer]
Join the Club
Americans are a sociable people, and we look for something to bring us together—churches, sports teams, Tupperware parties, whatever. Some of the clubs and associations in the U.S. do wonderful works for charity. And some are strictly for fun.
1. What Beverly Hills club was famous for its comical “roasts” of celebrities? [Answer]
2. What organization registers purebred pooches? [Answer]
3. What service club’s name indicates that it is the “least pessimistic” club in America? [Answer]
4. The LOOM is what fraternal organization for men? (Hint: antlers) [Answer]
5. What organization that was originally founded for urban evangelism is now noted for teaching swimming and lifesaving? [Answer]
6. What club for high school students has a seal featuring a plow, an eagle, and an owl? [Answer]
7. Caroline Harrison, wife of President Benjamin Harrison, was head of what prestigious social organization for women? [Answer]
8. The NRA is dedicated to protecting Second Amendment rights. What is the NRA? [Answer]
9. What lickable items are collected by people in the American Philatelic Society? [Answer]
10. What is the more common one-word name for members of the Imperial Council of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine? [Answer]
11. What grassroots conservative political organization was founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson? [Answer]