Fever Dreaming Trivia Quiz

Answer: Europe

For Irish born singer Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Alone Again (Naturally)" (1972), was his only American number one hit. Considering the subject matter, a rather depressing tale of a young man with suicidal tendencies, that's been left at the altar and contemplating the death of his parents, it is remarkable that it did as well as it did. I will put that down to the sheer artistry of O'Sullivan. The song did extremely well for O'Sullivan, earning him three Grammy nominations and becoming the second best selling single in the United States in 1972, only beaten by Don McLean's "American Pie".

O'Sullivan proved to be an adept songwriter and had released twenty studio albums by 2022. Without doubt his strongest and most creative period was the early to mid 1970s, during which time he had several songs reach the top ten on the UK charts and three on Billboards' Hot 100.

Answer: Europe

"Hooked on a Feeling" was written Mark James, who'd also written and recorded "Suspicious Minds" (1968). His version of the latter, flopped but topped the Billboard Hot 100 the following year after it had been recorded by Elvis Presley. The original version of "Hooked on a Feeling" was a hit for B.J. Thomas in 1968.

Blue Swede were a Swedish band who'd reached number one with the song in their own country in 1973. They were inspired to record it after hearing a version by UK singer Jonathon King. King had incorporated the chant "Ooonga-chaka Ooonga-chaka..." at the beginning of the track and this intrigued Blue Swede, whose version featured a more aggressive rendering of it.

As to how it became a hit across the globe, legend has it that a few recordings of Blue Swede's version had filtered through to the US in 1974. A Connecticut woman played the disc at her record store. It soon appeared on a local radio station before spreading across the States. The record would reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100, making Blue Swede the first Swedish band to achieve that distinction; ironically, that same week, ABBA, who would follow them, were winning the Eurovision Song Contest with "Waterloo".

Answer: Europe

"Venus" was the song that opened the doors internationally for the Dutch group Shocking Blue who, along with Golden Earring, were considered the most successful band from The Netherlands of the 1970s. With this in mind, it's a little strange then that the song, which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in February of 1970 and in nine countries around the world, failed to reach the top of the Dutch charts.

"Venus" however, has been covered numerous times over the years though perhaps, the most notable was by the British girl group Bananarama, who also topped the Billboard Hot 100 with their version, released in 1986. This then makes "Venus" one of those rare songs to have topped those charts on two separate occasions.

Answer: Europe

Silver Convention were a German Euro disco group made up of female session musicians who released five studio albums between 1975 and 1978. They scored two massive hits in the United States, the first with "Fly, Robin, Fly", which went to number one in 1975 and their follow up "Get Up and Boogie" to number two the following year. By reaching top spot of the Billboard Hot 100, they became the second German act to do so, with the first being Bert Kaempfert with "Wonderland by Night" in 1961.

"Fly, Robin, Fly" would win the group a Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance, though, technically there are lyrics in the song, albeit only six words. It would also be the first song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 charts with a bird species in the title, after "Rockin' Robin", both Bobby Day's 1958 version and Michael Jackson's 1972 cover, stalled at number two.

Answer: North America

There is a great piece of folklore that accompanies this song. Canadian band The Guess Who, which featured the talents of Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings, created the bones of this song while playing a gig in Ontario. The string on Bachman's guitar broke, which meant that the show stopped while Randy replaced the errant string. While he worked away, the rest of the band had moved off stage.

Without a tuner to work with, Bachman decided to use Cummings' electric piano, hitting both the E and the B keys to produce a reference point. In Bachman's own words... "suddenly I'm playing a riff in front of this audience that I don't want to forget and, I have no choice, I have to keep playing it". By this time, Gary Peterson, the band's drummer had drifted into the audience. He realized what was happening, jumped up on stage and started playing. This drew out bass player Jim Kale and he also joined in on the impromptu jam. When Burton Cummings wandered onto the stage to see what was happening Bachman pleaded with him to grab a microphone and sing the first thing that came into his mind. He belted out "American woman, stay away from me...".

This happy accident created a song that took the band to number one on Billboards' Hot 100 and broke them out in that country. It also meant that they were the first Canadian band to top that Billboard chart (Note the distinction - band, not artist. The first artist was Paul Anka with his song "Lonely Boy" in 1959). Ironically, Bachman would leave the band just prior to the song's peak on the charts; however, the second Canadian band to top Billboards' Hot 100, would be Bachman's next band, the Bachman-Turner Overdrive and their hit "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" (1974).

Answer: North America

Looking Glass' lead singer Elliot Lurie's high school sweetheart, a lass by the name of Randy, was the inspiration behind this song. It was one that the band had to record several times before they nailed it and then it was only released as the b-side to the single "Don't It Make You Feel Good" (1972). The single bombed. That is until Washington DC DJ, Harv Moore, cottoned onto "Brandy" and turned it into a crusade, placing the song on a one-hour rotation for two days. In his words "the switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree". The impetus that he'd generated forced the label Epic to re-issue "Brandy" as a single (this time with "One by One" on the flipside) and it stormed up the US charts.

A couple of interesting footnotes arise from this. First, the following year, Brandy became one of the most popular girl's names in the United States. The second is that earlier that year (1972), Scott English released a completely different single, also called "Brandy", however it didn't chart in the States but hovered just outside the top ten in the UK. Barry Manilow would cover the song two years later, changing the name to "Mandy" to avoid confusion with the Looking Glass hit.

Answer: North America

It is unusual to hear a song about infidelity being recorded from the perspective of the cheating parties, usually it's another 'somebody done me wrong' wailing from the one that's been hurt. Yet, coming from the pens of the prolific Gamble and Huff team, best known for developing the Philadelphia soul sound, in collaboration with Cary Gilbert, this evolved into one of the best love songs of the 1970s.

Recorded originally by Billy Paul the song would knock off Helen Reddy from the number one spot in December of 1972 and it would earn Billy a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance. The song would be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2018.

If you listen carefully, there is a sneaky little hint as to what the song is about, thrown in during the intro to the song... a saxophone wails out the first line of Doris Day's 1953 hit "Secret Love".

Answer: North America

There was a documentary directed by Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni in 2019 called "Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind" in which the singer reveals that this song was written about a tumultuous relationship he was having with a lady named Cathy Smith, while his marriage was falling apart. If that name, Cathy Smith, is familiar, you may remember her as the lady who was convicted of providing actor John Belushi with a lethal dose of heroin and sent to jail.

Lightfoot was a troubled soul whose life was dotted with infidelities (on his part), tormented relationships and alcohol, and these were usually reflected within his songs. Read the lyrics to songs such as "If You Could Read My Mind" (1970) and "Sundown" (1974) and you will find anguish and a haunted conscience. Even his song "Carefree Highway" which, despite its breezy title, endeavours to deal with an escape from a relationship. All three songs would reach the top ten of Billboard's Hot 100.

Answer: Australia

Released in 1971, this would become the first of many songs that the Bee Gees would shoot to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 charts. The official writing credits for the song were attributed to Barry and Robin Gibb but, interestingly, on their compilation album "The Ultimate Bee Gees", released in 2009 to commemorate the band's 50th anniversary, Maurice is finally given credit as a co-writer.

In an interview for the 2009 book "The Bee Gees: Tales of the Brothers Gibb" (by Andrew Hughes), Barry intimated that part of their early song writing method was to try and copy another singer's style or create a song that would suit that singer's style. The thinking was that the singer may hear the song and think to themselves... "that would suit me nicely" and cover it. This song was originally written with the popular crooner Andy Williams in mind. Andy Williams did exactly what the brothers had hoped he'd do... he covered the song on his 28th studio album "You've Got a Friend" later in 1971.

Answer: Australia

"I Honestly Love You" went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for Olivia Newton-John in 1974 and it won her Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance.

The statistics aside, the most interesting feature of this number is the differing perceptions or perspectives derived by the two most important people involved with the song - the singer, Olivia, and one of the song's writers, Jeff Barry. In her 2019 memoir, Olivia discloses that she fell in love with the song the moment she'd read the lyric "I love you... I honestly love you". In her eyes it was such a simple and genuine gesture. No lies, just the sheer purity of "I honestly love you".

Jeff Barry who'd previously enjoyed chart success as a writer with "Sugar Sugar" (1968), "Da Doo Ron Ron" (1963), "Be My Baby" (1963) and "River Deep, Mountain High" (1966), co-wrote the song with Peter Allen. In Paul Zollo's book, "More Songwriters on Songwriting" (2016) Barry expresses a different viewpoint, one that was no where near as innocent as Newton-John's. From his perspective, everybody used the line "I love you" but no one says "I 'honestly' love you". He saw the latter as a sly pick-up line that was promoting "I'm not trying to sleep with you" but it was also a line that would make a girl melt if she heard it, and say "Well, can we just do it once?"

As a footnote to this, Peter Allen wanted the song for himself and was not happy about allowing Olivia to perform it. He did, however, concede that Olivia's version was far superior to anything he would have recorded. The upshot for him was that the song took off and so too did his recognition and reputation as a songwriter.

Answer: Australia

1978 will go down as the "Year of the Gibb" - the Gibb brothers that is. Between the Bee Gees and Andy Gibb, they dominated the early part of that year, with a number of songs sitting at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. In all, they were at the top for 24 of the first 31 weeks of the year.

For Andy, the one that was never (really) seen as a Bee Gee, "(Love is) Thicker Than Water" was the second of three consecutive singles to reach the number one spot. It was sandwiched between "I Just Want to be Your Everything" in 1977 and, later in 1978, "Shadow Dancing". In reaching number one, "Love is..." deposed "Staying Alive" (the Bee Gees) from top spot. However, his brothers returned the favour when they followed with "Night Fever".

An interesting footnote here; Barry Gibb co-wrote "(Love is) Thicker Than Water" with Andy. This meant that Barry's name would appear as the writer of four consecutive number one songs on the Billboard Hot 100. Following the three mentioned above, the Gibb composed song, "If I Can't Have You", recorded by Yvonne Elliman, reached the top of those charts.

Answer: Australia

Ray Burton has done a number of things during his musical career. A one-time member of Australian doo-wop group, The Delltones, he was a founding member of the jazz fusion outfit Ayers Rock, worked as a session musician with Billy Joel, wrote advertising jingles and had some moderate success with the solo single "Too Hard to Handle" (1978). However, without doubt, the biggest imprint he made in his career was co-writing "I Am Woman" with Helen Reddy in 1971.

The song was what is, in the industry, called a 'sleeper'. By that it means that it sat as an obscure track on an album and didn't do anything for a period of time. The album in question was Reddy's debut release "I Don't Know How to Love Him" (1971). Burton had joined a meeting that Helen had been having with a group of women with strong opinions on feminism and their rights as women. Helen indicated that she needed a couple of songs to act as fillers for the disc and wasn't sure what to do. Burton instructed her to write something that she was passionate about and that he would create a melody for it. A week later she handed him a notebook page containing a piece that was part prose and part poetry and dedicated to feminism. Twelve hours later Burton provided her with a completed product.

Reddy had admitted that she didn't like the final version and, for a year and a half it remained a neglected track on the LP and could very well have been forgotten about. That is until it was heard by movie producer Mike Frankovitch who wanted to use the song in his upcoming comedy "Stand Up and Be Counted" (1972). Reddy agreed to let him use it, but one of her conditions was that she re-record it first.

With the release of the film the song found a new life. Radio picked it up, the label released it as a single and it climbed steadily to the number one spot on Billboard's Hot 100. The song would become an anthem for the feminist movement and made Reddy the first Australian "born" artist to top those US charts. For the record, as an Australian act, the Bee Gees were the first to achieve that distinction but the brothers were not born in Australia.