Neil Diamond Trivia
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This Neil Diamond trivia quiz has 54 free questions with answers and runs the whole career, from a Brooklyn kid on a fencing scholarship cutting class to pitch songs on Tin Pan Alley to the sequined showman selling out the Greek Theatre and the Winter Garden. There are questions on the $50-a-week songwriting job, the Monkees hit that made him famous before he was, the debut single he later realised was about himself, his first US number one, the live album that ruled the Australian charts for 29 weeks, the Streisand duet born of a radio mash-up, the film that won him the first-ever Worst Actor Razzie, and the E.T. song that nearly got him sued. It also covers Fenway Park's eighth-inning ritual, England fans at Euro 2020, the Rick Rubin albums, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Parkinson's announcement, the Broadway musical A Beautiful Noise and the songs that became bigger for UB40 and Urge Overkill than they were for him. Every answer has been checked against Diamond's Wikipedia biography and the pages for his songs, albums and films, and each explanation adds one detail worth remembering.
30 of 54 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Neil Diamond was born in 1941 in which New York City borough?
Brooklyn
Brooklyn: Diamond's parents ran a series of dry-goods stores and moved often, so he grew up in several different homes around the borough.
Q 02Which future superstar was in the Erasmus Hall High School chorus with Diamond?
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand met Diamond at Erasmus Hall, then moved to Manhattan after graduating to pursue singing and acting.
Q 03Which chess grandmaster also attended Erasmus Hall High School, Diamond's old school?
Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer won the US Championship at 14 and dropped out of Erasmus Hall at 16 to devote himself to chess.
Q 04As a boy, Neil Diamond lived for a time in which 'Cowboy State'?
Wyoming
Wyoming: the Diamond family moved to Cheyenne because his father was stationed there with the US Army.
Q 05Which folk singer's summer-camp performance made the 16-year-old Diamond realise he could write songs?
Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger performed at a summer camp in upstate New York where Diamond was a camper, and soon afterwards Diamond took guitar lessons and began writing songs.
Q 06Diamond attended New York University on a scholarship for which sport?
Fencing
Fencing earned him the scholarship, but in his final year he quit NYU for a songwriting job.
Q 07Which science-heavy career was Diamond studying for at NYU when he quit in his final year to write songs?
Medicine
Medicine was the plan, but the Sunbeam Music songwriting job he quit for lasted only 16 weeks before they let him go.
Q 08Diamond's first success as a songwriter, 'Sunday and Me' in 1965, was a hit for which group?
Jay and the Americans
Jay and the Americans took 'Sunday and Me' to No. 18 on the Hot 100 in 1965, and within months Diamond landed a record deal of his own.
Q 09Which Diamond-written song was a seven-week US number one for the Monkees and went gold within two days?
I'm a Believer
He wrote it for himself, but the Monkees version came out first and made him famous as a songwriter instead; he also gave them 'A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You'.
Q 10Which song, released in April 1966, was Diamond's first single after he signed with a new record label?
Solitary Man
Solitary Man was only a minor hit at first, but his old label reissued it in 1970 and it climbed to No. 21.
Q 11Diamond's first hits were released on which label, co-founded by producer Bert Berns?
Bang Records
Bang Records wouldn't release his song 'Shilo' as a single, one of the disputes that led him to leave for Uni Records.
Q 12Which comedian wrote the holiday song Diamond covered on his 2009 album A Cherry Cherry Christmas?
Adam Sandler
Adam Sandler's 'The Chanukah Song' made the album because, Diamond said, there are so many beautiful Christmas songs and so few Hanukkah songs.
Q 13Which 1967 Neil Diamond hit did Urge Overkill cover for the Pulp Fiction soundtrack?
Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon
Q 21England fans adopted a Diamond song after the Wembley DJ played it after a Euro 2020 win over whom?
Germany
Germany were beaten at Wembley, the DJ went with his gut, and England fans kept singing 'Sweet Caroline' through the rest of Euro 2020.
Q 22Diamond's classic 1972 live double album was recorded at which Los Angeles venue?
The Greek Theatre
The Greek Theatre became a home stage for him: he returned in 1976 for sold-out shows that produced his live album Love at the Greek and a TV special.
Q 23What is the title of that 1972 live album, which many consider his best work?
Hot August Night
Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it 'the ultimate Neil Diamond record'; a 2008 Madison Square Garden sequel added '/NYC' to the name.
Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon had reached No. 10 in 1967, and Urge Overkill's cover gave the song a second life when Pulp Fiction came out.
Q 14Which Diamond ballad from 1967 topped the US chart in 1988 in a reggae version by UB40?
Red Red Wine
Red Red Wine reached UB40 through Tony Tribe's 1969 reggae cover, and the band didn't realise Diamond had written it.
Q 15Diamond's 1993 covers album was titled Up on the Roof: Songs from which famous Manhattan building?
The Brill Building
The Brill Building was where Diamond started out as a songwriter, and the album went back to those roots with songs by Goffin and King, Leiber and Stoller and others.
Q 16Diamond's 1972 number one 'Song Sung Blue' was inspired by a piano concerto by which composer?
Mozart
Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 was the seed, and Diamond kept the song so plain he didn't write a bridge, never expecting the reaction it got.
Q 17In 2014, Neil Diamond said 'Sweet Caroline' was really written for whom?
His then-wife Marcia
His then-wife Marcia was the real subject, he said in 2014, but nothing rhymed with her name, so he reached for a three-syllable one instead.
Q 18Which 2001 animated film used Smash Mouth's cover of a Diamond song the Monkees first made famous?
Shrek
Shrek also opens with Smash Mouth's All Star, a song its makers first slotted in only as a placeholder before deciding to keep it.
Q 19In 2007, Diamond sang 'Sweet Caroline' at which woman's 50th birthday celebration?
Caroline Kennedy
Caroline Kennedy heard him reveal there that a magazine photo of her as a girl in riding gear, seen in a Memphis hotel, had inspired the song.
Q 20Diamond made a surprise appearance to sing at Fenway in April 2013 after what event?
The Boston Marathon bombing
The Boston Marathon bombing brought him to Fenway unannounced days later, and he pledged his royalties from the song's surge in sales to the victims' fund.
Q 24In which country did Diamond's 1972 live album spend 29 weeks at number one?
Australia
Australia was where he returned to live performing in 1976, ending his break from the stage with a tour there and in New Zealand.
Q 25At which Broadway theatre did Diamond play 20 sold-out nights in 1972, the first rock-era star to headline there?
The Winter Garden
The house hadn't staged a one-man show since Al Jolson in the 1930s; afterwards Diamond stopped touring for four years to be with his son.
Q 26Diamond won a Grammy and Golden Globe for scoring which 1973 film, whose album out-grossed it?
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Jonathan Livingston Seagull ended in court: Diamond and author Richard Bach sued director Hall Bartlett over changes to the story and the score.
Q 27Which member of The Band produced Diamond's 1976 studio album?
Robbie Robertson
Robbie Robertson also co-wrote the album's 'Dry Your Eyes' with Diamond and played guitar on the track.
Q 28In which Martin Scorsese music film does Diamond perform 'Dry Your Eyes'?
The Last Waltz
The Last Waltz filmed The Band's 1976 Thanksgiving farewell show, where Diamond also joined the all-star finale of Bob Dylan's 'I Shall Be Released'.
Q 29Which Las Vegas hotel had Diamond open its new Theatre for the Performing Arts in July 1976?
The Aladdin
The Aladdin was imploded in 1998, but its theatre was kept for the rebuilt resort, renamed Planet Hollywood in 2007.
Q 30Which song became a number-one duet in 1978 after radio DJs spliced together two solo recordings of it?
You Don't Bring Me Flowers
Diamond wrote the music with the Bergmans on lyrics; he and his old schoolmate performed it unannounced at the 1980 Grammys.