60s Music
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
8correct to beat the crowd
228 free 60s Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
65 free 60s Music trivia questions with answers. The 1960s packed more change into ten years than any decade in pop history. It opened with the Twist and Roy Orbison and closed with Woodstock, Abbey Road and Altamont. In between came the British Invasion, Motown's hit factory, Dylan going electric, surf pop, Stax soul, psychedelia and the first supergroups. This quiz covers all of it. The questions range from easy (which show gave the Beatles their US TV debut) to genuinely tough (who improvised the organ riff on 'Like a Rolling Stone', what Motown was called for its first year). Expect chart records, real names, working titles, festival stories and the odd FBI investigation. It works as a warm-up for a pub quiz, a music-night round for a party, or a solo test of how much you really know about the decade. Every answer was checked against a documented source and the citation sits under each explanation, so nothing here rests on half-remembered liner notes.
30 of 228 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On 9 February 1964 the Beatles made their first live US television appearance on which program?
The Ed Sullivan Show
The broadcast is usually treated as the opening shot of the British Invasion; the band did a second Sullivan appearance from Florida a week later.
Q 02Roughly how many viewers watched the Beatles' February 1964 debut on Sullivan's show?
73 million
About 73 million viewers, roughly 45 percent of US television households, watched the 9 February 1964 broadcast; the audience record stood until The Fugitive's 1967 series finale.
Q 03Which song was the Beatles' first US number one, entering the Hot 100 at 45 in January 1964?
I Want to Hold Your Hand
'I Want to Hold Your Hand' was planned for a mid-January 1964 release, but radio play forced Capitol to rush it out on 26 December 1963; it topped the Hot 100 on 1 February 1964.
Q 04What was the Beatles' first hit single, released in late 1962 after they signed with EMI?
Love Me Do
'Love Me Do', released 5 October 1962, reached number 17 in the UK; the single used the 4 September take with Ringo Starr on drums, while the album take used session drummer Andy White.
Q 05The Beatles played their last commercial concert on 29 August 1966 at which venue?
Candlestick Park
Candlestick Park in San Francisco hosted the final ticketed Beatles concert on 29 August 1966; a year earlier they had opened a US tour before a record 55,600 at Shea Stadium.
Q 06Which pop artist designed the Sgt. Pepper cover with Jann Haworth?
Peter Blake
Hamilton would go on to design the plain white sleeve of the follow-up, The Beatles (the White Album).
Q 07What was the working title of 'Yesterday' before Paul McCartney wrote the lyrics?
Scrambled Eggs
McCartney sang 'Scrambled Eggs' as placeholder lyrics to the melody he dreamed; the finished 'Yesterday' used a string quartet and no other Beatles and has drawn more than 2,000 cover versions.
Q 08'Hey Jude' spent how many weeks at number one on the Hot 100 in 1968, tying the record?
9
'Hey Jude' held the Hot 100's top spot for 9 weeks in late 1968, tying the chart record; McCartney began it as 'Hey Jules' to comfort John Lennon's son Julian during his parents' split.
Q 09On 30 January 1969 the Beatles gave their final public performance from the roof of which building?
Apple Corps headquarters at 3 Savile Row
The unannounced lunchtime set on the roof of Apple Corps headquarters at 3 Savile Row was cut short by police after complaints about the noise.
Q 10Which album was the last the Beatles recorded, even though Let It Be came out later?
Abbey Road
Abbey Road, recorded mainly in summer 1969 and released that September, was the last album the Beatles made; Let It Be had been taped in January 1969 but was held up until May 1970.
Q 11Brian Jones named his new band after 'Rollin' Stone', a track on an LP by which bluesman?
Muddy Waters
Brian Jones took the name from 'Rollin' Stone', a Muddy Waters track on an LP lying on the floor while he was on the phone to Jazz News in 1962 booking the band's first gig.
Q 12Which 1965 single gave the Rolling Stones their first US number one?
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
'(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' topped the Hot 100 for four weeks in July 1965; Keith Richards said the fuzz-tone riff came to him in his sleep and he found it on his cassette recorder in the morning.
Q 13Which Ray Davies-written 1964 single was the Kinks' breakthrough, topping the UK chart?
Q 21Which act released the first version of 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine', in 1967?
Gladys Knight & the Pips
Gladys Knight & the Pips' version, released in September 1967, reached number two on the Hot 100; Whitfield and Strong had written it in 1966, and the Miracles and Marvin Gaye had already recorded shelved versions.
Q 22How many weeks did Marvin Gaye's 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine' top the Billboard pop chart from December 1968?
7
Berry Gordy had resisted releasing it as a single at all; it went on to overtake the Gladys Knight version as Motown's biggest seller to that point.
Q 23The Temptations' October 1968 hit 'Cloud Nine', produced by Norman Whitfield, pioneered which style?
Psychedelic soul
You Really Got Me
'You Really Got Me' topped the UK chart in September 1964; Dave Davies got its distorted guitar sound by slashing the speaker cone of his small Elpico amplifier with a razor blade.
Q 14Roger Daltrey's vocal on the Who's 'My Generation' (1965) is famous for what distinctive delivery?
An angry stutter
Daltrey's angry stutter on 'My Generation' was partly inspired by John Lee Hooker's 'Stuttering Blues'; the song, with its line 'Hope I die before I get old', reached number two in the UK in 1965.
Q 15Which guitarist joined Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce in the 1966 supergroup Cream?
Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton left John Mayall's Bluesbreakers to form Cream with Baker and Bruce in 1966; 'Sunshine of Your Love' became the trio's biggest US hit, reaching number five in 1968.
Q 16Led Zeppelin, formed in London by Jimmy Page after the Yardbirds folded, came together in which year?
1968
Page assembled the band in 1968 after the Yardbirds split that July; Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham briefly toured Scandinavia as the New Yardbirds to fulfil leftover bookings.
Q 17Berry Gordy founded Motown in 1959 in which US city, whose nickname it became?
Detroit
Detroit, the Motor City, gave the label its name, a blend of 'motor' and 'town'; the Hitsville U.S.A. house on West Grand Boulevard served as studio, office and Gordy's home.
Q 18Under what label name did Berry Gordy first found his company on 12 January 1959?
Tamla
The Tamla name lived on as the imprint for artists including Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson.
Q 19How many Hot 100 number ones did the Supremes score?
12
The Supremes scored 12 Hot 100 number ones between 1964 and 1969; the first arrived in August 1964, surprising the group, who were touring with Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars.
Q 20Little Stevie Wonder signed to Motown at what age?
11
Wonder was 11 when Berry Gordy signed him in 1961 as Little Stevie Wonder; his 1963 live single 'Fingertips' pushed the album Recorded Live: The 12 Year Old Genius to number one when he was 13.
'Cloud Nine' launched psychedelic soul at Motown, with wah-wah guitar and traded lead vocals; it won the label's first Grammy in 1969, months after David Ruffin had been fired from the group.
Q 24Aretha Franklin's 1967 'Respect' was a rearranged cover of a 1965 song by whom?
Otis Redding
Otis Redding wrote and recorded 'Respect' in 1965; Franklin's 1967 version flipped its plea into a demand, added the spelled-out chorus, and earned two Grammys in 1968.
Q 25What chart milestone did Redding's '(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay' achieve in 1968?
First posthumous US number one
It became the first posthumous US number one, topping the Hot 100 in March 1968; Redding had recorded it days before dying in a plane crash on 10 December 1967, the whistling reportedly a placeholder.
Q 26Aretha Franklin's career took off after she signed in 1966 with which record label?
Atlantic Records
Her earlier Columbia years had pushed her toward jazz and pop standards; at Atlantic she was recorded playing piano and singing gospel-rooted soul.
Q 27James Brown's free televised Boston Garden concert on 5 April 1968 was staged to keep the peace after which event?
Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination
City officials had wanted to cancel the show; broadcasting it live is credited with keeping Boston calm while other cities burned.
Q 28Which soul singer, shot dead in a Los Angeles motel in 1964, wrote 'A Change Is Gonna Come'?
Sam Cooke
Sam Cooke wrote 'A Change Is Gonna Come' in 1963, inspired partly by Dylan's 'Blowin' in the Wind'; Rolling Stone placed it at number 3 on its 2021 list of the 500 greatest songs.
Q 29The Jackson 5 formed in 1964 in which Indiana city?
Gary
The Jacksons grew up at 2300 Jackson Street in Gary, Indiana; after signing to Motown they became the first group whose first four singles all hit number one, starting with 'I Want You Back' in 1969.
Q 30At the Newport Folk Festival on 25 July 1965, Bob Dylan was booed by some fans for doing what?
Playing an electric set with a backing band
His backing band was drawn from the Paul Butterfield Blues Band; the Fender Stratocaster he played that night sold for $965,000 in 2013.