50s, 60s and 70s Music Trivia
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59 free 50s, 60s and 70s Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
One quiz, three decades. This 50s, 60s and 70s music trivia set gives equal weight to each era: the birth of rock and roll at Sun Records, the Day the Music Died and the first Hot 100; the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, Motown, Dylan going electric and Woodstock; then the 1970s of Bowie, Queen, Fleetwood Mac, ABBA, the Bee Gees, the Sex Pistols and the night Chicago blew up its disco records. It is built for the classic mixed-age trivia night, where the person who remembers buying Rumours on vinyl sits next to the one who knows it from a playlist. Questions run from easy chart facts to genuinely hard ones about producers, labels and studio stories, and none of them ask you to finish a lyric. Every answer was checked against the Wikipedia article for the artist, album or event, and each question carries the citation. If you want to go deeper on a single decade, BrainPickle also has separate 50s music, 60s music and 70s music quizzes.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01'Rock Around the Clock' took off in 1955 after it played over the opening credits of which film?
Blackboard Jungle
Blackboard Jungle: by the account of star Glenn Ford's son Peter, director Richard Brooks borrowed the record from his collection, and teens danced in the aisles.
Q 02Who founded Sun Records in Memphis in 1952?
Sam Phillips
Sam Phillips discovered Elvis, then sold his recording contract to RCA Victor in November 1955 for $35,000.
Q 03Elvis Presley's first RCA Victor single, released in January 1956, was which song?
Heartbreak Hotel
Some RCA executives thought Heartbreak Hotel a bad choice, yet it went to number one.
Q 04Which rock and roll pioneer turned Bob Wills's fiddle tune 'Ida Red' into his 1955 hit 'Maybellene'?
Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry pitched it to his label as an 'Ida' song, but the label had him retitle it before release.
Q 05Which 'safer' white singer's cover of Little Richard's 'Tutti Frutti' charted higher than the original?
Pat Boone
Pat Boone's outselling cover led producer Bumps Blackwell to have Little Richard sing 'Long Tall Sally' very fast to thwart him; Boone covered it regardless.
Q 06Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper died in a February 1959 plane crash near which Iowa town?
Clear Lake
Clear Lake was where they had just played a concert; Holly chartered the plane because the tour buses kept breaking down.
Q 07Which future country star gave up his seat on Buddy Holly's fatal flight to the flu-stricken Big Bopper?
Waylon Jennings
Waylon Jennings was so traumatized by the crash that he quit the music business for a time.
Q 08Ritchie Valens's hit 'La Bamba' was adapted from what?
A Mexican folk song
A Mexican folk song: Valens, loyal to his Mexican heritage, was reluctant to rock it up until his producer persuaded him.
Q 09Jerry Lee Lewis's career collapsed in 1958 when a British reporter discovered he had married whom?
His 13-year-old cousin
His 13-year-old cousin, Myra Gale Brown, was traveling with him, and the outcry cut his British tour short.
Q 10Which Fats Domino hit revived a 1940 Glenn Miller number two?
Blueberry Hill
Blueberry Hill: Domino knew the song from Louis Armstrong's 1949 recording, which inspired his cover.
Q 11Which record topped Billboard's first Hot 100 in August 1958?
Poor Little Fool by Ricky Nelson
Poor Little Fool by Ricky Nelson: he opposed releasing it as a single, then refused to approve a photo for its sleeve.
Q 12Sam Cooke's 1957 chart-topper 'You Send Me' had which George Gershwin standard as its B-side?
Summertime
Cooke had come from gospel as lead singer of the Soul Stirrers, and the pop crossover made him a star.
Q 13Johnny Cash revived his career in 1968 with a live album recorded at which California prison?
Folsom
Folsom had inspired his song 'Folsom Prison Blues', which he wrote after watching a film about the prison while in the Air Force.
Q 21Woodstock in August 1969 was held on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in which New York town?
Bethel
Bethel got the festival just a month before it began, after the town of Wallkill passed a law that blocked it.
Q 22Who closed Woodstock, taking the stage early on Monday morning after rain delays?
Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix went on so late that most of the crowd had already left, leaving only a small fraction of the festival's peak audience.
Q 23Brian Wilson made which 1966 Beach Boys album with session musicians while the rest of the band was on tour?
Pet Sounds
Pet Sounds sold disappointingly at first compared with earlier Beach Boys albums, though critics came to hail it as a masterpiece.
Q 14Elvis Presley spent most of his 1958–60 Army service stationed in which country?
West Germany
West Germany was his post, yet his records kept selling while he served, because RCA had stockpiled unreleased songs before he left.
Q 15Some Boston radio stations banned which 1957 Everly Brothers hit over supposedly suggestive lyrics?
Wake Up Little Susie
Wake Up Little Susie tells of a couple who doze off at the movies and miss her curfew, and despite the ban it went to number one.
Q 16Elvis's first Sun single paired 'That's All Right' with which bluegrass tune on the B-side?
Blue Moon of Kentucky
Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips played 'That's All Right' on air three days after it was cut, and the phones lit up.
Q 17About how many Americans watched the Beatles' first live US TV appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964?
73 million
73 million viewers tuned in, and the broadcast amplified the media frenzy already building around the band.
Q 18Motown's founder borrowed how much from a family savings fund to launch his first label?
$800
$800 borrowed from the family got Gordy started, and that year he turned a Detroit photography studio into his recording studio, with his family living upstairs.
Q 19Which Motown group had the most 1960s US number ones of any American vocal group?
The Supremes
The Supremes scored twelve number ones, and in 1967 Motown renamed them Diana Ross & the Supremes, putting its lead singer's name first.
Q 20Where did Bob Dylan famously go electric in July 1965?
Newport Folk Festival
At the Newport Folk Festival, members of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band backed him, and some in the crowd booed.
Q 24Brian Jones named the Rolling Stones on the spot after spotting an LP by which bluesman?
Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters' LP was lying on the floor when the band needed a name fast, and Brian Jones picked its track 'Rollin' Stone'.
Q 25Aretha Franklin's 1967 signature hit 'Respect' was first released in 1965 by which singer?
Otis Redding
Otis Redding released it first, but Franklin flipped its lyrics to a woman's point of view.
Q 26The BBC banned which Sgt Pepper track from broadcast over a supposed drug reference?
A Day in the Life
A Day in the Life drew on newspaper stories, including, by its lead writer's account, the death of Guinness heir Tara Browne.
Q 27Which band took a jangly electric cover of Bob Dylan's 'Mr. Tambourine Man' to number one in 1965?
The Byrds
The Byrds' Roger McGuinn was the only member to play an instrument on it, as session musicians stood in for a band not yet trusted in the studio.
Q 28Under what name did teenagers Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel first record in the late 1950s?
Tom & Jerry
Tom & Jerry's single 'Hey Schoolgirl' landed the teenagers a spot on American Bandstand.
Q 29The Doors took their name from a book by which writer?
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, his account of taking mescaline, had itself borrowed its name from a William Blake line.
Q 30The Ed Sullivan Show never invited the Doors back after Jim Morrison did what on air in 1967?
Sang 'higher' anyway
Sang 'higher' anyway: the show saw a possible drug reference, and after the band agreed to change the line, Morrison sang it as written.