Signature Songs 02: Rock & Roll Hall of Famers 1 Quiz

Answer: The Grateful Dead

Robert Hunter, Jerry Garcia's primary lyricist made the statement about "Friend of the Devil" "that was the closest we've come to what may be a classic song."

In 1970, the Grateful Dead released two now seminal, classic albums: "Workingman's Dead" and "American Beauty". The second track on "American Beauty" is "Friend of the Devil", a song about an outlaw trailed by both Satan and a law enforcement agency. Garcia and Dawson wrote the music and Hunter wrote the lyrics.

Both Bob Dylan and Tom Petty has covered the song numerous times in concert. Dylan has officially released a live version of the song back in the late 1990s.

The following artists were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994:
1. The Animals
2. The Band
3. Duane Eddy
4. The Grateful Dead
5. Elton John
6. John Lennon
7. Bob Marley
8. Rod Stewart

Answer: Bob Dylan

Rolling Stone Magazine voted the song its number one song in its Top 500 Songs of all time list. Originally over twenty pages long, Dylan condensed the song to a few verses. Greil Marcus wrote an entire book about the song.

The song was Dylan's most successful Billboard Top 100 single, charting at Number Two. Dylan has never had a Number One Hit on the Billboard Top 100. "Lay, Lady, Lay" was his last Top Ten hit, which charted in 1969.

Originally the song was conceived as a waltz. Famously, Al Kooper, who had never played organ, improvised the organ riff which is a very identifiable part of the song. When they were listening to the playback during the original sessions, Dylan was so happy with Kooper's playing he insisted the organ be lifted up in the mix.

The track has been covered by numerous other artists, including The Rolling Stones in 1995 on a live album "Stripped" and Jimi Hendrix.

The song is also rather famous for being six minutes long and garnering significant radio play, at a time when most songs were two to three minutes at most. The song challenged the commercial format, paving the way for longer songs and also album oriented radio to come into being fruition.

Dylan said this regarding the song:

"It was ten pages long. It wasn't called anything, just a rhythm thing on paper all about my steady hatred directed at some point that was honest. In the end it wasn't hatred, it was telling someone something they didn't know, telling them they were lucky. Revenge, that's a better word. I had never thought of it as a song, until one day I was at the piano, and on the paper it was singing, 'How does it feel?' in a slow motion pace, in the utmost of slow motion."

Bruce Springsteen said the following, when inducting Dylan in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988: "The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind ... The way that Elvis freed your body, Dylan freed your mind, and showed us that because the music was physical did not mean it was anti-intellect. He had the vision and talent to make a pop song so that it contained the whole world. He invented a new way a pop singer could sound, broke through the limitations of what a recording could achieve, and he changed the face of rock'n'roll for ever and ever "

Paul McCartney had the following statement: ""It seemed to go on and on forever. It was just beautiful ... He showed all of us that it was possible to go a little further."

Frank Zappa was actually depressed by the recording. He said: "When I heard 'Like a Rolling Stone', I wanted to quit the music business, because I felt: 'If this wins and it does what it's supposed to do, I don't need to do anything else ... ' But it didn't do anything. It sold but nobody responded to it in the way that they should have."

Elvis Costello said in 2003 ""What a shocking thing to live in a world where there was Manfred Mann and the Supremes and Engelbert Humperdinck and here comes 'Like a Rolling Stone'."

Paul Rothchild, The Doors' producer, said "What I realized when I was sitting there is that one of US-one of the so-called Village hipsters-was making music that could compete with THEM-the Beatles, and the Stones, and the Dave Clark Five-without sacrificing any of the integrity of folk music or the power of rock'n'roll."

The following artists were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988:
1. The Beach Boys
2. The Beatles
3. The Drifters
4. Bob Dylan
5. The Supremes

Answer: Bruce Springsteen

Released on June 4, 1984, "Born in the U.S.A." was Springsteen's seventh studio album. The title cut became a massive hit. "Born in the U.S.A." is a song about a disgruntled Viet Nam vet and the turmoils that the Viet Nam war had on American society. Reagan's campaign famously co-opted the song during Reagan's 1984 presidential bid, mistaking its anthemic chorus for a rallying cry of patriotism when in reality the song was a severe indictment against America.

In Hammonton, New Jersey, on September 19, 1984, Reagan said the following: "America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts; it rests in the message of hope in songs so many young Americans admire: New Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen. And helping you make those dreams come true is what this job of mine is all about."

Two days later, Springsteen made this statement during a Pittsburg concert regarding Reagan mentioning him by name: "The President was mentioning my name the other day, and I kinda got to wondering what his favorite album musta been. I don't think it was the Nebraska album. I don't think he's been listening to this one." He then played "Johnny 99", an unemployed auto worker who is driven to murder.

Springsteen originally wrote and recorded "Born in the U.S.A." for the "Nebraska" album. The track was initially entitled "Viet Nam". The track was to be the title song for a film Paul Schrader considered making called "Born in the U. S. A." Springsteen recorded the song during the Nebraska sessions (which also featured two other "Born in the U.S.A." songs, "Working on the Highway" and "Downbound Train"). Springsteen originally wanted to release a stripped down version of the song on that same album, but did not include the song due its thematic differences with the rest of "Nebraska". Springsteen would later release the "Nebraska" version of "Born in the U. S. A.", played as a stark acoustic folk song rather than the famous anthem-sounding studio recording, on the 1998 outtakes collection "Tracks" and the 1999 sample from "Tracks" entitled "18 Tracks".

Springsteen said the song was "a working-class man" [suffering a] "spiritual crisis, in which man is left lost...It's like he has nothing left to tie him into society anymore. He's isolated from the government. Isolated from his family...to the point where nothing makes sense."

The following artists were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999:
1. Billy Joel
2. Curtis Mayfield
3. Paul McCartney
4. Del Shannon
5. Dusty Springfield
6. Bruce Springsteen
7. The Staple Singers

Answer: Johnny Cash

Cash wrote the song after seeing the movie "Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison". The song is actually based on Gordon Jenkin's 1953 song "Crescent City Blues". Cash based both the melody and many of the actual lyrics of "Folsom Prison Blues" on Jenkin's composition, without getting permission.

When the song became a big hit due to Cash's live album "At Folsom Prison" in 1968, Jenkins sued Cash and was awarded a settlement.

The song has been covered numerous times. Charley Pride scored a number one hit with a cover version in 1966. Dylan recorded the song during the famed Basement Tapes sessions with the Band in 1967. He also recorded the song with Cash in 1969. When he was touring with the Grateful Dead in 1987, Dylan and the Dead rehearsed the song. Dylan has also performed the songs numerous times during the Neverending Tour, although none of his versions have been released commercially.

The following artists were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992:
1. Bobby "Blue" Bland
2. Booker T. and the MG's
3. Johnny Cash
4. Jimi Hendrix Experience
5. Isley Brothers
6. Sam and Dave
7. The Yardbirds

Answer: Kiss

Neil Bogart, president of Casablanca Records which was Kiss's label, insisted the band record an anthem because their studio album "Hotter Than Hell" had stalled on the chats, not living up to Bogart's sales expectations. The song was partially inspired by the Slade single "Cum On Feel the Noize".

Paul Stanley wrote the chorus, and Gene Simmons, borrowing parts of a previous song he had previously composed called "Drive Me Wild", authored the verses.

The song and one other was recorded as their "Hotter Than Hell" tour was ending and not during the recording sessions proper for "Dressed to Kill", which is the album "Rock and Roll All Nite" appeared on.

This is the only group not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Answer: The Beatles

The Beatles produced an enormous body of work for only being active seven years, and based on chart success and pop culture impact several of their songs could be considered "signature songs". Indeed, I would probably make the argument that The Beatles were the signature band of the 1960s, and the closest thing to rock and roll royalty as there ever will be. "Yesterday", their 1965 song from the album "Help!", is one of the most covered songs ever written.

Paul wrote "Hey Jude" for John's son Julian, while John and his wife were getting a divorce. "Hey Jude" was The Beatles' first single for their Apple Records. The song was also the longest single to ever top the British Charts at the time of its release in August 1968.

The Beatles have a lot of songs still played on the radio, decades after their demise as a band. "Hey Jude" actually features a harsh expletive buried in the mix, but still clearly audible and can be heard on the radio.

John can be heard, if you listen closely, to say "Got the wrong chord" seconds before. Then, around the 2:58 mark, Paul yells the "expletive" due to the bad chord.

John Lennon said "'Paul hit a clunker on the piano and said a naughty word, but I insisted we leave it in, buried just low enough so that it can barely be heard. Most people won't ever spot it...but we'll know it's there."

The following artists were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988:
1. The Beach Boys
2. The Beatles
3. The Drifters
4. Bob Dylan
5. The Supremes

Answer: ABBA

"Dancing Queen" is the 1976 single from the Swedish group Abba. The recording reached Number One on several different music charts in over thirteen countries. The single was from the 1976 album "Arrival", which also featured another famous song regarding the breakup and dissolution of a relationship entitled "Knowing Me, Knowing you"

Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad (the two As in "Abba") share lead vocals. Like almost all of Abba's material, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus are the principal composers of the song. They also collaborated with and Stig Anderson on this track as well. Originally entitled "Boogaloo", Benny and Bjorn took inspiration from George McCrae's "Rock Your Baby" and based the drumming on Dr John's 1972 album "Dr. John's Gumbo".

Strangely enough, "Dancing Queen" was Abba's only Number One hit on the Billboard Top 100 in the United States. The famous "Mamma Mia! The Musical", which is based solely off Abba music, features the song as well.

The following artists were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010:
1. ABBA
2. Genesis
3. Jimmy Cliff
4. The Hollies
5. The Stooges

Answer: Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson released "Thriller" in 1982. Like The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper", so much has been written about Michael Jackson's "Thriller" there's not really much left to say. The album is the most successful in history, selling over one million albums a week during its peak commercial period in 1982 and 1983. In 2009, "Thriller" was the fourteenth best selling album of the year. The album features contributions from Eddie Van Halen (guitar solo on "Beat It"), a duet with Paul McCartney on "This Girl is Mine", and a memorable spoken word contribution by Vincent Price on the title cut.

Quincy Jones, Jackson's producer, approached Rod Temperton, who wrote the title cut "Off the Wall" for Jackson's 1979 album, asking him to come up with the title to the next project.

Temperton said the following: "Originally, when I did my Thriller demo, I called it Starlight. Quincy said to me, 'You managed to come up with a title for the last album, see what you can do for this album.' I said, 'Oh great,' so I went back to the hotel, wrote two or three hundred titles, and came up with the title 'Midnight Man'. The next morning, I woke up, and I just said this word... Something in my head just said, this is the title. You could visualise it on the top of the Billboard charts. You could see the merchandising for this one word, how it jumped off the page as 'Thriller'."

In 1982, Jackson and Jones recorded the song over a period of eight weeks. Bruce Swedien, the person responsible for mixing "Thriller", commented on how instrumental Jones was to the whole recording process:

When we started 'Thriller', the first day at Westlake, we were all there and Quincy [Jones, the producer] walked in followed by me and Michael and Rod Temperton and some of the other people. Quincy turned to us and he said, 'OK guys, we're here to save the recording industry.' Now that's a pretty big responsibility - but he meant it. And that's why those albums, and especially 'Thriller', sound so incredible. The basic thing is, everybody who was involved gave 150 per cent ... Quincy's like a director of a movie and I'm like a director of photography, and it's Quincy's job to cast [it]. Quincy can find the people and he gives us the inspiration to do what we do."

Michael Jackson and John Landis made the famous "Thriller" music video. Landis is famous for such films as "National Lampoon's Animal House", "The Blues Brothers", "An American Werewolf in London", "Trading Places", "Coming to America", and "The Stupids".

Conceived more as a short film than a music video, the video famously features Jackson and a large ensemble of zombies dancing on a choreographed dance routine and a script that resembles cheesy 1950s horror films. Jackson's co-star as the female lead was the Playboy Centerfold Ola Ray. The video has been inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2009, the only music video to ever be added to that famed registry.

Michael Jackson made the following statement regarding the video in 1999: "My idea was to make this short film with conversation ... in the beginning - I like having a beginning and a middle and an ending, which would follow a story. I'm very much involved in complete making and creating of the piece. It has to be, you know, my soul. Usually, you know, it's an interpretation of the music. [...] It was a delicate thing to work on because I remember my original approach was, 'How do you make zombies and monsters dance without it being comical?' So I said, 'We have to do just the right kind of movement so it doesn't become something that you laugh at.' But it just has to take it to another level. So I got in a room with [choreographer] Michael Peters, and he and I together kind of imagined how these zombies move by making faces in the mirror. I used to come to rehearsal sometimes with monster makeup on, and I loved doing that. So he and I collaborated and we both choreographed the piece and I thought it should start like that kind of thing and go into this jazzy kind of step, you know. Kind of gruesome things like that, not too much ballet or whatever."

Another famous song from "Thriller" is "Billy Jean". "Billy Jean" has long been one of the staple songs from the early 1980s. However, though massively popular, Quincy Jones, Jackson's producer, vehemently disliked "Billie Jean", and did not think it was strong enough to be on the album. Jackson insisted the track be on the album, and the rest is history. Jackson said: "A musician knows hit material. Everything has to feel in place. It fulfills you and it makes you feel good. That's how I felt about 'Billie Jean'. I knew it was going to be big when I was writing it."

"Billie Jean" became one of the biggest hits of 1983. Bruce Swedien mixed the song ninety one times before Jackson was satisfied.

Throughout the years since its release, "Thriller" and the Eagles compilation album "Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975) have held the title as the top selling album in music history.

The following artists were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001:
1. Aerosmith
2. Solomon Burke
3. The Flamingos
4. Michael Jackson
5. Queen
6. Paul Simon
7. Steely Dan
8. Ritchie Valens

Answer: The Doors

In 1967, The Doors released their self-titled debut that includes "Break On Through", "Light My Fire", and the Oedipal epic "The End".

One of the most highly acclaimed debuts in rock history, The Doors burst onto the scene with the strongest album of their career. "The Doors" proved to be the launching pad for the band's brief career. The first single from the debut was "Break On Through". "Break on Through (To the Other Side)", now considered a classic rock song, was a bomb on the single charts. It wouldn't be until The Doors released "Light My Fire" that the band became well known. The track went to Number One for three weeks on the Billboard Top 100.

Robbie Krieger, the band's guitarist, wrote the song. Over seven minutes long, the single was much too long for contemporary radio of the 1960s. Electra, the band's label, issued a single version which clocked in at just under three minutes, with almost all the lengthy instrumental section that occurs in the middle of the recording removed.

Due to the success of the single, The Doors performed the song live on The Ed Sullivan Show. Sullivan's producers asked The Doors to change the line "girl we couldn't get much higher" due to possible drug references, which the band acquiesced too and actually rehearsed the song with a different line. During the live performance, however, Morrison sang the original line. Due to singing the original line, they were told they would never be back on the Ed Sullivan Show again, and the seven episode deal The Doors were negotiating fell fail through.

In 1968, Buick offered the band #75,000 to use the song in a Buick advertisement. The band agreed minus Morrison agreed. Morrison was in London at the time and could not be reached. When Morrison heard about the deal, he called Buick and canceled the deal, and according to some biographers at that point lost faith in Manzarek, Densmore, and Kreiger.

Within five years of recording "The Doors", James Douglas Morrison would die in Paris in 1971 at the age of twenty seven. What great music!

For those who love random imagery in lyrics and poetry, you can't get much better than the line "Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine". I even wrote an (unpublishable) book of short stories with that title back in the late 1990s.

The following artists were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993:
1. Ruth Brown
2. Cream
3. Creedence Clearwater Revival
4. The Doors
5. Etta James
6. Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers
7. Van Morrison
8. Sly and the Family Stone

Answer: Led Zeppelin

Having released three albums (two in 1969 and one in 1970), Led Zeppelin began writing material for their fourth studio album, an untitled album released in 1971. Although referred to as "Zoso", "Four Runes", and "Led Zeppelin IV",Led Zeppelin's album is officially untitled. There are eight songs on the album, including "Stairway to Heaven", which, along with the 1975 "Physical Graffiti" song "Kashmir", is probably Zeppelin's most famous song. Although never released as a single, "Stairway to Heaven" proved to be an enormous success, as is the rest of the album as well.

The following artists were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995:
1. The Allman Brothers Band
2. Al Green
3. Janis Joplin
4. Led Zeppelin
5. Martha and the Vandellas
6. Neil Young
7. Frank Zappa
Page and Plant wrote the song in 1970 when Page and Plant were together in "Bron-Yr-Aur", a scenic remote cottage in the country of Wales.

The song is also famous for supposedly featuring backward masking. When playing the song backward, there are purportedly several Satanic messages embedded in the music that, according to some critics, present subliminal evil messages to the people listening to the music.

Here are several quotations from the band regarding the song's history.

Page said regarding the song's initial composition: "I had these pieces, these guitar pieces, that I wanted to put together. I had a whole idea of a piece of music that I really wanted to try and present to everybody and try and come to terms with. Bit difficult really, because it started on acoustic, and as you know it goes through to the electric parts. But we had various run-throughs [at Headley Grange] where I was playing the acoustic guitar and jumping up and picking up the electric guitar. Robert was sitting in the corner, or rather leaning against the wall, and as I was routining the rest of the band with this idea and this piece, he was just writing. And all of a sudden he got up and started singing, along with another run-through, and he must have had 80% of the words there ... I had these sections, and I knew what order they were going to go in, but it was just a matter of getting everybody to feel comfortable with each gear shift that was going to be coming."

John Paul Jones, the band's bassist, remembers when the song was presented to him. "Page and Plant would come back from the Welsh mountains with the guitar intro and verse. I literally heard it in front of a roaring fire in a country manor house! I picked up a bass recorder and played a run-down riff which gave us an intro, then I moved into a piano for the next section, dubbing on the guitars"

The song is also famous for Page's blistering solo. Sound engineer Andy Johns revealed the following information about recording that famous solo: "I remember Jimmy had a little bit of trouble with the solo on "Stairway to Heaven"... [H]e hadn't completely figured it out. Nowadays you sometimes spend a whole day doing one thing. Back then, we never did that. We never spent a very long time recording anything. I remember sitting in the control room with Jimmy, he's standing there next to me and he'd done quite a few passes and it wasn't going anywhere. I could see he was getting a bit paranoid and so I was getting paranoid. I turned around and said "You're making me paranoid!" And he said, "No, you're making me paranoid!" It was a silly circle of paranoia. Then bang! On the next take or two he ripped it out."

In a 1977 interview, Page enlarged on the song's composition history. "I do have the original tape that was running at the time we ran down "Stairway To Heaven" completely with the band. I'd worked it all out already the night before with John Paul Jones, written down the changes and things. All this time we were all living in a house and keeping pretty regular hours together, so the next day we started running it down. There was only one place where there was a slight rerun. For some unknown reason Bonzo couldn't get the timing right on the twelve-string part before the solo. Other than that it flowed very quickly"

Page also said "...crystallized the essence of the band. It had everything there and showed the band at its best... as a band, as a unit. Not talking about solos or anything, it had everything there. We were careful never to release it as a single. It was a milestone for us. Every musician wants to do something of lasting quality, something which will hold up for a long time and I guess we did it with "Stairway".[16] [Pete] Townshend probably thought that he got it with Tommy. I don't know whether I have the ability to come up with more. I have to do a lot of hard work before I can get anywhere near those stages of consistent, total brilliance.

The wonderful thing about "Stairway" is the fact that just about everybody has got their own individual interpretation to it, and actually what it meant to them at their point of life. And that's what's so great about it. Over the passage of years people come to me with all manner of stories about what it meant to them at certain points of their lives. About how it's got them through some really tragic circumstances ... Because it's an extremely positive song, it's such a positive energy, and, you know, people have got married to [the song]."

Plant has also made the following statements regarding the lyrics of "Stairway to Heaven:

"My hand was writing out the words, 'There's a lady is sure [sic], all that glitters is gold, and she's buying a stairway to heaven'. I just sat there and looked at them and almost leapt out of my seat." Plant's own explanation of the lyrics was that it "was some cynical aside about a woman getting everything she wanted all the time without giving back any thought or consideration. The first line begins with that cynical sweep of the hand ... and it softened up after that.

It (the song)was done very quickly. It took a little working out, but it was a fluid, unnaturally easy track. It was almost as if-uh oh-it just had to be gotten out at the time. There was something pushing it saying, 'You guys are okay, but if you want to do something timeless, here's a wedding song for you.'"