Rockin' "Angels" Trivia Quiz

Answer: Bobby Vee

Booby Vee was from Fargo, North Dakota. He has had over 30 songs make it on to the Billboard Hot 100 charts, including 10 songs that made it to Top 20 status. This song was a cover of a song originally done by The Clovers way back in 1955. Vee's version made it to number six on the charts and jump started his recording career.

Other notable tunes by Vee include "Rubber Ball", "Take Good Care Of My Baby", and "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes". Two notes of interest. In February of 1959, after the tragic plane crash which took the lives of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper, Vee's group replaced Holly on the next stop on the tour. Also of note, a musician who briefly toured with his band went by the stage name of Elston Gunn a.k.a. Robert Zimmerman. Who is this? Bob Dylan.

Answer: The Crests

The Crests had a string of Top 20 hits from 1957 through 1959, one of which was the aforementioned "The Angels Listened In". Led by Johnny Maestro, this multi-racial group (which was unusual for that era), scored with hits like "Sixteen Candles", and "Step By Step". Maestro left the group in 1960, but resurfaced in 1968 with a new group called The Brooklyn Bridge.

They scored with the 1969 ballad "The Worst That Could Happen".

Answer: Curtis Lee

Curtis Lee started his career in 1959, and though he wrote and performed some quality music, his recordings failed to chart. In 1961, he recorded "Pretty Little Angel Eyes" with production help from Phil Spector. The song ended up as a number seven tune on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. Lee never again acheived this kind of success, and eventually quit the music business in the late 1960s.

Answer: Mark Dinning

All the listed artists sang songs about tragedies and death, by it was Dinning who recorded this song, written by his sister and her husband. The song was about a couple on a drive, whose vehicle gets stuck at a railroad crossing. The couple is initially safe, but the girl runs back to the car to get what is later revealed to be the singer's high school ring, (a sign of "going steady" in those days) and of course, the train comes.

Although morbid, it didn't stop the song from getting to the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in 1960.

Answer: Shelley Fabares

Shelley Fabares was a regular on "The Donna Reed Show", a popular family sitcom of the early days of television. She had her only Top 20 hit as a singer with this melody, but it was a good one. It went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, during a 15 week run. Doing backup vocals on the tune was a group called The Blossoms, led by the incomparable Darlene Love. Fabares continued on her acting career, and as recently as the early 1990s, she had a major role as "Christine Armstrong Fox" in the TV series "Coach".

Answer: Merilee Rush

Merilee Rush was the beneficiary of this tune composed by Chip Taylor (brother of actor Jon Voight), and she took the song right up the charts, peaking at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was originally offered to Connie Francis, but she turned it down, reportedly because the lyrics were too racy.

It was then offered to Evie Sands, who did record it, but the song was never released, since in the interim, her reocrd label went bankrupt. Well, one artist's loss is anothers gain. Rush actually won a Grammy for this song.

The song has been covered numerous time, by such artists as Dusty Springfield, Olivia Newton-John, Skeeter Davis, and Juice Newton among others.

Answer: The Vogues

It was The Vogues who took this song up the charts in 1968. Helms original version went to the number seven position on the charts in 1957. Eleven years later, in 1968, The Vogues, who had been riding a string of successes starting with "Five O'Clock World' in 1965, and continuing through the late 1960s, scored with this cover, also reaching number seven on the Billboard charts in 1968.

Answer: Hot

Hot was a Los Angles based trio of ladies who hit the scene with this song in 1977. They took the song all the way up to number six on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, but never were able to duplicate that success again.

Answer: Alan O'Day

Alan O'Day had been a successful songwriter for some time. He had written "Rock and Roll Heaven" for The Righteous Brothers, and "Angie Baby" for Helen Reddy, as well as a number of other tunes. The people in charge at his record label decided to form a susidiary label for their writers who were also performers.

It was out of this idea, that O'Day's song became a number one hit in the U.S. in 1977. O'Day never had another big hit for himself, but in the 1980s, started writing music for Jim Henson's "Muppet Babies" cartoon, and eventually wrote over 100 songs for that show.

Answer: Aerosmith

Steven Tyler and Aerosmith took their song "Angel" to the number three position on the Billboard charts in 1987. It was off the album called "Permanent Vacation". The song was also written by Tyler. The group started in Boston, Massachusetts in the early 1970s and continued to perform and be popular after almost 40 years.