Soul Music Trivia
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60 free Soul Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This soul music trivia quiz covers the genre from its gospel-and-R&B roots in the 1950s to the neo soul revival of the 1990s. The easy questions are the ones any record collector knows: who is the Queen of Soul, who is the Godfather, which label Berry Gordy started with an $800 loan, where Stax was based, and which song was a posthumous number one for Otis Redding. From there it moves into the labels and studios that defined regional sounds, from Hitsville U.S.A. and the Funk Brothers to Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Muscle Shoals, Philadelphia International and Hi Records. The hard end covers the details behind the hits: whose idea it was to spell out R-E-S-P-E-C-T, who wrote the song in the first place, who was crowned King of Rock 'n' Soul in Baltimore, which record shop coined the phrase northern soul, who named neo soul, and how Stevie Wonder became the youngest solo artist to top the Hot 100. There are also questions on Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, Solomon Burke and Wilson Pickett. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the genre, its labels and its artists, and each question links to the page that establishes it. Fifty questions, free, with an explanation after every answer.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which duo had a 1967 smash on Stax with "Soul Man", later covered by the Blues Brothers?
Sam & Dave
Sam & Dave's hit got its title when co-writer Isaac Hayes saw TV news of the 1967 Detroit riots, where writing "soul" on a Black-owned shop was said to spare it from being burned.
Q 02Which singer, nicknamed Mr. Excitement, launched his solo career with 1957's "Reet Petite"?
Jackie Wilson
Jackie Wilson suffered a heart attack on stage during a 1975 show and never recovered, remaining semi-comatose until his death in 1984.
Q 03Which nickname was given to James Brown?
The Godfather of Soul
The Godfather of Soul had real clout: the night after Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in 1968, Boston televised his concert live to keep people indoors, and the city stayed largely calm.
Q 04Sam Cooke was lead singer of which gospel group before controversially going secular?
The Soul Stirrers
The Soul Stirrers had a devout gospel following, so Cooke released his first pop single, "Lovable", under the alias Dale Cook in the hope of not alienating it.
Q 05Sam Cooke's 1957 recording of which song launched his pop career?
You Send Me
You Send Me was disliked by the owner of Specialty, the label behind Cooke's gospel records, so it came out on the new Keen label and knocked Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock" off number one.
Q 06Sam Cooke died in 1964 after being shot by whom?
A motel manager
A motel manager, Bertha Franklin, shot him at the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles and said it was self-defence; the killing was ruled justifiable homicide, though what happened that night is still disputed.
Q 07Motown was founded in 1959 with a family loan of how much?
$800
$800 came from a savings fund that the founder's whole family paid into, and the label it launched became one of America's most successful Black-owned businesses.
Q 08Which record-label founder was a professional boxer before turning to songwriting?
Berry Gordy
Berry Gordy quit the ring and later worked on a car assembly line, an experience he credited with teaching him how to turn out hit records at Motown.
Q 09Motown's original Detroit headquarters and studio, at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, was known as what?
Hitsville U.S.A.
Hitsville U.S.A. survived because the founder's sister Esther stayed in Detroit when Motown left for Los Angeles in 1972; she preserved the house and opened it as the Motown Museum in 1985.
Q 10Motown's house band, largely uncredited until a 2002 documentary, was known as what?
The Funk Brothers
The Funk Brothers went uncredited on Motown records until 1971, when Marvin Gaye listed their names on the sleeve of What's Going On; a year later the label left for Los Angeles and the band broke up.
Q 11Which Motown songwriting team wrote "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)"?
Holland-Dozier-Holland
Holland-Dozier-Holland walked out of Motown in 1968 after battling its boss over royalties, then set up their own rival labels, Invictus and Hot Wax, while the two sides sued each other.
Q 12Which American group topped the Hot 100 twelve times in the 1960s?
The Supremes
The Supremes went three years at Motown without a hit before "Where Did Our Love Go" began a run of five straight number ones in 1964.
Q 13Which group's first four Motown singles all reached number one on the Hot 100?
The Jackson 5
Q 21"(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" was begun on a houseboat in which California town?
Sausalito
Sausalito is where concert promoter Bill Graham lent the singer a houseboat, and the ships he watched rolling in and out again went straight into the opening lines.
Q 22"(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" made chart history in 1968 as the Hot 100's first what?
Posthumous number one
Posthumous number one: the single came out a month after its singer died in a plane crash, only three days after he had recorded it.
Q 23Who wrote and first recorded "Respect", before Aretha Franklin's 1967 version made it hers?
Otis Redding
The Jackson 5 did it in 1970 with songs from "I Want You Back" to "I'll Be There", helped by a publicity story, invented by the label, that Diana Ross had discovered the brothers.
Q 14In 1963, 13-year-old Stevie Wonder topped the Hot 100 with which live recording?
Fingertips
Fingertips was taped at a Chicago show, and when he bounded back for an unplanned encore the next act's bass player, already on stage, can be heard asking "What key?"
Q 15Which 1976 Stevie Wonder album gave him a third Album of the Year Grammy in four years?
Songs in the Key of Life
Songs in the Key of Life followed wins for Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale; in the one year between, winner Paul Simon thanked Wonder from the stage for not releasing an album.
Q 16Smokey Robinson led which Motown group from its 1955 origins until 1972?
The Miracles
The Miracles got their first Hot 100 number one almost by accident: "The Tears of a Clown" was a three-year-old album track until a British single release topped the UK chart in 1970 and Motown followed suit.
Q 17Which family group had 1970s Stax hits with "Respect Yourself" and "I'll Take You There"?
The Staple Singers
The Staple Singers began as a church gospel act, led by Mavis Staples's guitarist father "Pops", and did not top the pop and R&B charts until "I'll Take You There" in 1972.
Q 18Stax took its name from founders Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, who were related how?
Brother and sister
Brother and sister: she mortgaged her house so they could buy a tape recorder, and they built the new name from their surnames when another Satellite Records threatened to sue over the old one.
Q 19Stax's racially integrated house band, whose 1962 instrumental hit was "Green Onions", was called what?
Booker T. & the M.G.'s
Booker T. & the M.G.'s cut the tune as a throwaway B-side after a session with another singer fell through and left them jamming in the studio; Booker T. Jones was 17.
Q 20Which Stax house-band guitarist co-wrote "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" with the singer who recorded it?
Steve Cropper
Steve Cropper also mixed the record, dubbing in the seagulls and crashing waves heard behind the vocal from a sound-effects tape.
Otis Redding took it in good humour, saying once he had heard her version that the girl had taken his song away from him.
Q 24Aretha Franklin stood in for an ailing Luciano Pavarotti at the 1998 Grammys to sing which aria?
Nessun dorma
Nessun dorma was not new to her: she had sung it at a gala honouring Pavarotti two nights earlier, so when he pulled out after the show had begun she agreed on the spot to go on.
Q 25Which singer-songwriter co-wrote Aretha Franklin's 1967 hit "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman"?
Carole King
Carole King and her husband Gerry Goffin wrote it after producer Jerry Wexler called out the title idea from a passing car in New York; they gave him a co-writing credit in thanks.
Q 26Aretha Franklin won the first eight Grammys ever awarded in which category?
Best Female R&B Vocal Performance
Best Female R&B Vocal Performance was new in 1968, and nobody but Franklin took it home until Natalie Cole ended the run with "This Will Be"; Franklin's final tally was eleven.
Q 27Which British singer had a transatlantic hit with "Son of a Preacher Man", a song written with Aretha Franklin in mind?
Dusty Springfield
Dusty Springfield got there first: Franklin, a preacher's daughter herself, recorded the song only after it had been a hit, and the film Pulp Fiction brought it back in 1994.
Q 28Solomon Burke's 1962 soul ballad "Cry to Me" is heard in which 1987 film?
Dirty Dancing
Dirty Dancing revived a record by a man of many trades: a boy preacher who trained as a mortician, Burke also sold popcorn and sandwiches to his audiences and to fellow musicians on tour.
Q 29Solomon Burke performed in a crown and cape to match which title?
King of Rock 'n' Soul
King of Rock 'n' Soul was a role he played to the hilt: he once hired a little person to hide beneath the cape, so that when he shrugged it off it seemed to leave the stage by itself.
Q 30Which 1965 breakthrough hit did Wilson Pickett record at the Stax studio in Memphis?
In the Midnight Hour
In the Midnight Hour got its lurching beat when producer Jerry Wexler danced the Jerk around the studio to show the band what he wanted; Pickett had co-written the song at the nearby Lorraine Motel.