50 Fun Facts About Music Trivia for Seniors

Which Memphis mansion did Elvis Presley buy in 1957 and call home until his death in 1977?

Graceland cost Elvis $102,500 when he was just 22. It opened to the public as a museum in 1982, and he is buried in its grounds.

Which Sunday-night variety program drew 73 million viewers for the Beatles' first live American TV performance in 1964?

The Ed Sullivan Show usually drew about 21 million viewers, so the Beatles more than tripled its audience. The broadcast set a U.S. television record that stood for three years.

Which Irving Berlin song, written for Bing Crosby's film Holiday Inn, became the world's best-selling single?

White Christmas has sold more than 50 million physical copies in Bing Crosby's version alone. It also won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Which big band leader, famous for In the Mood, vanished on a wartime flight over the English Channel in 1944?

Glenn Miller was flying from England to France when his plane failed to arrive. In 1942 he had been handed the first gold record ever made, for Chattanooga Choo Choo.

Which New Orleans jazz trumpeter, nicknamed Satchmo, topped the British charts with What a Wonderful World?

Louis Armstrong's nickname Satchmo was short for Satchelmouth. He made his last recorded trumpet performances on a 1968 album of Disney songs.

Which Rodgers and Hammerstein musical follows Maria, governess to the seven von Trapp children in Salzburg, Austria?

The Sound of Music overtook Gone with the Wind in 1966 to become the highest-grossing film in history. Maria von Trapp was a real person, and the story draws on her 1949 memoir.

Which country singer, nicknamed the Man in Black, recorded a famous live album inside Folsom State Prison in 1968?

Johnny Cash wore a trademark all-black stage wardrobe, and At Folsom Prison was his first live album. He went on to record three more live albums in prisons, starting with At San Quentin in 1969.

Which London street has the zebra crossing that the Beatles walk across on the cover of a 1969 album?

Abbey Road was the address of EMI Studios, where the Beatles recorded, and the photograph was taken right outside in August 1969. The cover is one of the most imitated in music history.

Which Beatles ballad, whose melody came to Paul McCartney in a dream, had the working title Scrambled Eggs?

Yesterday is one of the most covered songs in the history of recorded music. McCartney sang joke words about breakfast until the real lyric arrived.

Which teenage star sang Over the Rainbow as Dorothy Gale in the film The Wizard of Oz?

Judy Garland was 16 when she recorded the song, and the studio nearly cut it because a slow ballad early on was thought to stall the story.

Which crooner from Hoboken, New Jersey, was nicknamed Ol' Blue Eyes and the Chairman of the Board?

Frank Sinatra, the only child of Italian immigrants, sold an estimated 150 million records. His 1973 comeback album was even titled Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back.

Which Detroit record label, founded by Berry Gordy in 1959, recorded its hits at a studio named Hitsville U.S.A.?

Motown began life as Tamla Records before taking its famous name in 1960. Gordy and his family lived upstairs at Hitsville while the records were cut in a converted photography studio at the back.

Which accordion-playing bandleader hosted a long-running TV show of champagne music, complete with a bubble machine?

Lawrence Welk hosted his show from 1951 to 1982. The champagne tag came from a Pittsburgh hotel engagement, where his band's light sound was likened to the drink.

Which flamboyant pianist made a candelabrum on the piano his trademark and became the world's highest-paid entertainer?

Liberace took the candelabrum idea from a prop in a 1945 film about Chopin. At the height of his fame he held concert residencies in Las Vegas.

Which Elvis Presley ballad gave its name to the Western, first called The Reno Brothers, that was his acting debut?

Love Me Tender passed a million advance sales, a first for a single, so the studio renamed the film to match. Its melody is the Civil War ballad Aura Lea.

Which country singer made a hit of Crazy, written by Willie Nelson, two years before dying in a plane crash?

Patsy Cline's version is considered a country music standard. She was killed in March 1963, aged 30, on a flight from Kansas City back to Nashville.

Which singer's dance hit The Twist topped the American charts in 1960 and then again in 1962?

Chubby Checker's record went back to number one when grown-ups took up the dance. The song was first recorded by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, who released it as a B-side.

Which singer of Unforgettable and Mona Lisa hosted his own variety show on NBC television in 1956 and 1957?

Nat King Cole began as a jazz pianist leading his own trio. In 1991 studio technology let his daughter Natalie sing Unforgettable with him as a duet, long after his death.

Which singer's album Calypso, featuring the Banana Boat Song, was the first LP by one artist to sell a million?

Harry Belafonte brought Caribbean music to international audiences in the 1950s. He was also an actor and a civil rights activist, and lived to the age of 96.

Which Texan rock and roll star died with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper in a 1959 Iowa plane crash?

Buddy Holly was only 22. His bandmate Waylon Jennings gave up a seat on the plane to the Big Bopper, who had the flu, and Valens won his place on a coin toss.

Which Queen of Soul turned Otis Redding's song Respect into her signature hit and a civil rights anthem?

Aretha Franklin added the spelled-out title that listeners remember. In 1987 she became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Which Detroit group fronted by Diana Ross became America's most successful vocal group, with twelve number-one singles?

The Supremes began as four friends from the same Detroit housing project. Most of their hits came from a single songwriting team, Holland-Dozier-Holland.

Which singer and actress introduced Que Sera, Sera in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller The Man Who Knew Too Much?

Doris Day sings it in the film as a signal to her kidnapped son. The song went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Which country star wrote Your Cheatin' Heart and Hey, Good Lookin' before dying on New Year's Day 1953, aged 29?

Hank Williams could barely read music, yet in 2010 he was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize citation for his songwriting. His heart failed in the back seat of a car on the way to a concert.

Which Bill Haley & His Comets record took off after playing over the opening credits of the film Blackboard Jungle?

Rock Around the Clock became the first rock and roll record to top the pop charts in both the US and the UK. It was also Britain's first million-selling single.

Which country star wrote I Will Always Love You as a farewell to her mentor Porter Wagoner?

Dolly Parton wrote it in 1973 as she left Wagoner after seven years to go solo. Whitney Houston's version for the 1992 film The Bodyguard later carried the song around the world.

Which woodwind instrument did Benny Goodman play at his landmark 1938 jazz concert in New York's Carnegie Hall?

Clarinet fell to Benny Goodman as the youngest of three brothers sent to music classes: the older two were given a tuba and a trumpet. He grew up to be known as the King of Swing.

Which 1969 music festival drew more than 460,000 people to Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York?

Woodstock was not held in the town it is named after. It turned into a free concert when the organizers could not get fences and ticket booths up in time.

Which drummer replaced Pete Best in the Beatles in 1962 and later narrated the children's series Thomas & Friends?

Ringo Starr quit a Liverpool band called the Hurricanes when the Beatles asked him to join. He narrated the first two series of the railway stories for television.

Which Gene Kelly musical, co-starring Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor, is set during Hollywood's switch to talkies?

Singin' in the Rain's title number was filmed while Kelly had a fever of 103 degrees. The tale that milk was mixed into the water so it would show on camera is a myth.

Which Leonard Bernstein musical moves Romeo and Juliet to New York, with rival gangs called the Jets and the Sharks?

West Side Story began in 1949, when choreographer Jerome Robbins proposed a modern musical version of Shakespeare's play. Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics.

Which dancer co-starred with Ginger Rogers in ten Hollywood musicals, including Top Hat and Swing Time?

Fred Astaire first shared the screen with Rogers in Flying Down to Rio in 1933, when he was billed only fifth. His daughter said he was often given a top hat to make him look taller.

Which jazz vocalist, called the First Lady of Song, was celebrated for her horn-like scat singing?

Ella Fitzgerald received the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. On one prize-winning live recording in Berlin she forgot the words and simply improvised new ones.

Which bandleader made his name at Harlem's Cotton Club and used Take the A Train as his orchestra's signature tune?

Duke Ellington did not write his own signature tune: it was composed by Billy Strayhorn, his writing and arranging partner for nearly three decades.

Which close-harmony trio sang Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy in 1941 and sold an estimated 80 million records?

The Andrews Sisters first drew national attention in 1937 with a Yiddish tune, Bei Mir Bist Du Schön. They later recorded several million-sellers with Bing Crosby.

Which crooner's signature song, I Left My Heart in San Francisco, first came out as a B-side in 1962?

Tony Bennett was handed the song by his accompanist Ralph Sharon, a friend of its two writers. They had written it in Brooklyn in 1953, nostalgic for the city they had left.

Which singer from Steubenville, Ohio, broke through in a comedy double act with Jerry Lewis?

Dean Martin, born Dino Crocetti, teamed up with Lewis in 1946. He went on to become one of the most popular acts in Las Vegas, and a film actor and television host as well.

Which Henry Mancini song did Audrey Hepburn perform in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's, winning an Academy Award?

Moon River was written especially for Hepburn to sing in the film. Her own recording was not released on an album until 1993, after her death.

Which songwriter of Blowin' in the Wind stunned the 1965 Newport Folk Festival by playing an electric set?

Bob Dylan left the stage after three songs, to a mix of cheering and booing. In 2016 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Which patriotic song began as a poem Francis Scott Key wrote after watching the British bombard Fort McHenry?

The Star-Spangled Banner borrowed its tune from a song written for a London gentlemen's club. It became the official national anthem only under President Herbert Hoover.

Which composer, known as the March King, wrote The Stars and Stripes Forever and directed the U.S. Marine Band?

John Philip Sousa was enlisted in the Marine Band as an apprentice by his own father, and later directed it for 12 years. He also helped develop the sousaphone, a marching tuba.

Which Nashville country show, aired on WSM since 1925, is the longest-running radio broadcast in American history?

Grand Ole Opry took its present name in 1927, two years after it first went on the air. It moved into its most famous home, the Ryman Auditorium, in 1943.

Which Rossini overture has a finale used as the theme music for The Lone Ranger on radio and television?

William Tell was the last of Rossini's 39 operas, written before he went into semi-retirement. Its overture paints a musical picture of life in the Swiss Alps.

Which composer of Rhapsody in Blue and the opera Porgy and Bess died of a brain tumor at just 38?

George Gershwin wrote Porgy and Bess with his brother Ira and DuBose Heyward, the author of the novel behind it. The opera's best-known song is Summertime.

Which song from the German music drama The Threepenny Opera gave Bobby Darin a number-one hit and two Grammys?

Mack the Knife was composed by Kurt Weill, with words by Bertolt Brecht, in 1928. Its villain is modeled on Macheath, a dashing highwayman from a much older English opera.

Which singer, the best-selling female artist of the 1950s, had a novelty number one about a doggie in a window?

Patti Page sold over 100 million records in a six-decade career. Her signature song, Tennessee Waltz, became a hit by accident: it was the B-side of a holiday novelty record.

Which radio singer introduced Irving Berlin's God Bless America on an Armistice Day broadcast in 1938?

Kate Smith made it her signature song. Berlin had first written it during World War I, and he assigned the royalties to a fund for the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in New York City.

Which entertainer performed six songs in The Jazz Singer, the 1927 film that ended the silent era?

Al Jolson's film was the first feature-length picture with synchronized singing and speech, though only in a few scenes. Earlier sound features had offered just a score and effects.

Which British singer of We'll Meet Again was known as the Forces' Sweetheart during the Second World War?

Vera Lynn sang for the troops in Egypt, India and Burma. In 2009, aged 92, she became the oldest living artist to top the UK albums chart.

Which ragtime composer of Maple Leaf Rag found new fame when the 1973 film The Sting used his music?

Scott Joplin was buried in a pauper's grave that stayed unmarked for 57 years. It finally got a marker in 1974, the year The Sting won Best Picture.