Down The Hatch or How One Drink Leads To Another! Quiz

Answer: Brazil

The song was written by Dick Miles and first recorded by Frank Sinatra in 1946. Many other artists have recorded it since including Louis Prima, Rosemary Clooney and The Muppets. It sends up the Brazilian coffee surplus where "Coffee beans grow by the millions" which had become so desperate that "A politician's daughter was accused of drinking water and fined a great big fifty dollar bill."

Answer: Peter Sarstedt

His biggest hit was "Where Do You Go To My lovely?" which was a UK number one hit and a minor hit in the States plus reaching the top of the charts in 14 other countries. "Frozen Orange Juice" came next and reached number 10. Peter comes from a musical family. Eden Kane (brother) had hits in the early 60s in the UK and his other brother, (Clive) Robin Sarstedt, had a hit in the UK in 1976 with the Hoagy Carmichael song "My Resistance is Low".

Answer: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Tommy Steele has had a career stretching from the mid 50s rock n' roll through musicals on the West End and Broadway, films, writing books and sculpture. This song was about the time he spent in the Merchant Navy before he began his showbiz career. The poem is by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and tells how an old seaman casts bad luck on his ship by shooting an albatross which was seen as a good luck talisman by the rest of the crew.

He is the only survivor of the journey. Coleridge was one of a group of Romantic poets at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries which also included Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth and Keats.

Answer: Sugar

The song was written in 1925 for the musical "No,No Nanette!" and has become a "standard". A film of the same name was made in 1950 starring Doris Day in which she revived it. Tommy Dorsey also made a notable Cha-Cha-Cha version which charted in 1958. As recently as 2005 it was used to back a TV advertising campaign for McVities biscuits.

Answer: Spike Jones

Written as a song for a movie called "Murder at the Vanities" in 1934 it was recorded at the time by Duke Ellington. This version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2007, however, the anarchic recording by Spike Jones and the City Slickers made in 1944 is the one which is best known and most played. Like most of their recordings it is suitably embellished with horns, bells whistles, bangs and silly voices!

Answer: Accidental electrocution

Claude Francois was a massive star in France, Europe and parts of Africa from the mid 60s until his untimely death in 1978. His tragic end came when he stood up in a full bath with wet hands to straighten a lightbulb. As Tommy Steele might have said "Flash, Bang, Wallop"! He had many hits with covers of American and British songs but also wrote songs of his own like this one which is about enjoying the present and forgetting tomorrow, which he undoubtedly did with a flamboyant lifestyle and stage persona. Possibly, though, his greatest contribution to popular music was writing "Comme d'habitude" in 1967 with Jacques Revaux.

This may not sound much but after Paul Anka had put new lyrics to it, it became "My Way".

Answer: Thin Lizzy and The Andrews Sisters

Thin Lizzy are an Irish rock band who were successful in the 1970s and charted in the UK with "Whiskey in the Jar" reaching number six (Number one in Ireland). It was based on an Irish folk song. Phil Lynott was the charismatic frontman of the band who died prematurely in 1986.

He was sometime son-in-law to entertainer and quiz show host Leslie Crowther. The Andrews Sisters were a tremendously successful singing group from the 30s through to the 50s who had many chart hits and appeared in films. They were inducted into The Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998. "Rum and Coca Cola" was based on a calypso and was a hit in 1945 reaching the top of the Billboard charts. Due to advertising regulations the lyrics were changed in Britain and there also followed a court case in the USA brought by the original writer's of the calypso for copyright infringement.

Answer: Mario Lanza

"The Student Prince" was a Sigmund Romberg operetta that ran on Broadway from December 1924 and was the longest running Broadway show of the 1920s at 608 performances. "The Drinking Song" with its rousing chorus of "Drink, Drink, Drink!" was especially popular as it was during Prohibition! Mario Lanza was to play the lead in the 1954 MGM film of the story but fell out with the studio after recording the songs. Edmund Purdom replaced him and was dubbed with Lanza's singing voice on the film soundtrack.

Answer: Australian

Slim Dusty sold more than 7 million albums and singles in Australia. "A Pub with no Beer" was the biggest selling Auatralian record up to that time (1957) and received a gold disc, the first and only 78rpm record to do so there. The song tells of the despair in travelling across the Outback and then finding you can't get a drink! "There's nothing so lonesome, morbid or drear as to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer". Slim Dusty released his one-hundredth album in 2000 and was given the honour of singing "Waltzing Matilda" at the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics 2000. Slim also received many awards for his services to country music in a career of more than 60 years.

Answer: Paul McCartney and Roger McGough

The Scaffold were John Gorman, Roger McGough and Mike McGear. The latter is Paul McCartney's brother and Roger McGough, along with Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, is one of the Liverpool poets who became popular from the 60s onwards. The Scaffold based their performances on a mixture of poetry, comic songs and sketches. "Lily the Pink" was written around a traditional song and went to number one in the UK charts in 1968.

It sold a million copies and was awarded a gold disc.