Musically Left, Not Right or Wrong Quiz

Answer: Kurt Cobain

Kurt was lead singer for the group as well as primary song writer. Heroin addiction, ill health and the pressures of a public life no doubt contributed to his early death, which was officially recorded as suicide. He was married to musician Courtney Love and they have a daughter.

Answer: Robin Campbell

Robin is brother of ex-UB40 founding member Ali (another left-hander) and twin of current member and lead singer Duncan. Unfortunately the split was acrimonious and, despite over 70 million records sold, bankruptcy has affected most of them.

Answer: Elliot Easton

Elliot was lead guitarist and sang backing vocals for the group. After the group's break up in 1988, the New Cars (with Easton and Hawkes in their line-up) was formed. He was also in Creedence Clearwater Revisited (formed after the break up of Creedence Clearwater Revival) for a while.

Answer: Tony Iommi

Tony nearly gave up the guitar at age 17 after the loss of the tips of two fingers in an industrial accident. He carried on and became a founding member of the band Earth in 1968. Earth became Black Sabbath in 1969, to avoid confusion with another Earth band. The Black Sabbath name is said to come from a 1963 Boris Karloff horror film of the same name.

Answer: Jimi Hendrix

Paternal pressure saw Jimi playing right-handed although he was naturally left-handed. So he played a right-handed guitar restrung for left-handed playing. But when his father was around, he still had to play it right-handed and so learnt to play it with the strings upside down.

Answer: Paul McCartney

Paul initially struggled when playing the guitar right-handed. He only switched to left-handed playing after seeing a Slim Whitman poster and realising that he played left-handed. Slim Whitman is right-handed but played left-handed after he lost most of one finger on his left hand. Ringo Starr is said to have started off left-handed as a child, but he became ambidextrous but played with a right-handed drum kit so I have discounted him.

Answer: Bob Geldof

Bob Geldof started of with such varied work as being a slaughter man, road navvy, pea canner and music journalist. His music career began in 1975 as lead singer of the band, which he left in 1986. He is perhaps best known now for his anti-poverty work.

The band's name, The Boomtown Rats, is said to come from the name of a gang mentioned in Woody Guthrie's partially-autobiographical book "Bound for Glory", written in 1943 and re-released after the 1976 film of the same name.

Answer: Patrick Olive

The Hot Chocolate Band (soon changed to Hot Chocolate) was formed by Errol Brown in 1968, disbanding in 1986 to be reformed in 1992. Patrick started off on percussion but switched to base guitar and vocals.

Answer: Gerald Johnson

Gerald plays the bass guitar and has also made music with the Sweet Inspirations, Greg Allman, Dave Mason, Les Dudek, Crosby Stills and Nash, and The Pointer Sisters.

Answer: Phil Collins

Phil Collins is one of three artists to have achieved the milestone of selling over 100 million albums as a solo artist and also as part of a group. Paul McCartney (another left-hander) is another with Michael Jackson being the third.