Ess-capees Trivia Quiz

Answer: Simon

This was a big hit in 1968 for the 1910 Fruitgum Company which, along with Ohio Express' "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy" and the Lemon Pipers' "Green Tambourine", triggered a resurgence in "bubblegum pop". 1910's drummer, Floyd Marcus, revealed in an interview that "there was so much 'serious' music around at the time.

The Vietnam War was going on, the drug culture was growing and bands like Led Zeppelin were starting to take music down a heavier path. We decided that there was a neglected market out there and that we could fill it. Accordingly, songs such as "Simon Says", "1,2,3 Red Light" and "May I Take a Giant Step" became instantly successful".

Answer: Sam

Marc Bolan, the front man for T.Rex pays homage in this song to a range of people who had both supported and inspired him on his journey to this point. Taken from the 1972 album "The Slider", the titular "Sam" is supposed to be his manager Tony Secunda. Tony is obviously important;
"Telegram Sam, you my main man"
and his assistant, Sid Walker, is Jungle-face Jake.
There is a claim that Bolan's use of the phrase "main man" brought it into popular culture but I could not find any evidence to support this.

Answer: Spencer

Northern Ireland's David McWilliams released 14 studio albums in a career that ran from 1967 until his passing in 2002, and he will only be remembered as the guy that sang this song. The track was originally slotted to be the b-side to his 1967 single "Harlem Lady". One critic was drawn to remark that "Harlem Lady" was a "quality tune" but "Pearly Spencer" was a "remarkable record".

The song received considerable airplay on Radio Caroline - a pirate radio station with links to McWilliams' manager Phil Solomon - and was heavily advertised throughout the UK.

The problem was that the BBC refused to play the track because of Solomon's link to Radio Caroline and, consequently, the song flopped in Great Britain. The joke at the time was that McWilliams had his face plastered across the London buses but he, himself, couldn't scrape up the fare to ride them. Fortunately for McWilliams the song became a massive hit across mainland Europe.

Answer: Sydney

Paul Kelly's ability to tell stories about the every-man and the every-day and turn it into something fascinating is uncanny. It is a quality that makes his songs both endearing and enduring. In 1991 he released "Comedy", which presented us with a double album of 18 folk oriented and beautifully crafted little vignettes.

In "Sydney From a 747" he presents the theme of spontaneity with an urge to suddenly jump up and get on board a plane and be somewhere else. Kelly's simple yet attractive vocals carry the song along with a hint of sly wistfulness.

He is ably supported here by his band, The Messengers, and Ian Simpson on banjo. He also gives a nod within the song to Jimmie Dale Gilmore and his 1972 single "Dallas (From a DC-9)", the inspirations behind this effort.

Answer: Steve

There are a number of songs that bear the title "Steve McQueen", that Hollywood superstar with the cool persona and those piercing blue eyes. Here's three; Brian Fallon on his 2016 album "Painkillers" dreams of racing around in a Mustang colored in British racing green (just like Steve McQueen).

The Automatic, in 2008, dreamt of their "Great Escape" from their hometown of Cowbridge. Before either of these, in 2002, Sheryl Crow professed that she had to fly and needed a fast machine with which to do it.

This song earned her a Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance and her film clip showed her recreating Steve McQueen movie scenes from the car chase in "Bullit" (1968) to the motorcycle pursuit in "The Great Escape" (1963).

Answer: Sawyer

With its lyrics loosely based on Mark Twain's character from the novel "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" (1876) this track can be found on the 1981 album "Moving Pictures" by Canadian band Rush. Neal Peart confirmed in a 1985 newsletter that the song was a collaboration between he and Canadian poet Pye Dubois. "Here Pye paints a portrait of a 'modern day rebel' striding wide-eyed through the world". Peart then advises that he slightly altered the theme to incorporate a reconciliation between the boy and the man within.

Answer: Sunny

At the time of writing this track The Kinks were in the doldrums - stardom had come quickly and they were battling to adapt, it was causing a rise in tensions amongst members, their management team was weak, their workload was bringing them down and they had lawsuits pending. To add salt to their wounds they were suffocated by the British progressive tax system. Ray Davies took all of these frustrations and poured them all into this number, in the process calling "Mother England" a "big fat mama";
"Ah, save me, save me, save me from this squeeze
I got a big fat mama trying to break me".
The song was released in 1966. It would reach number one in the UK and fourteen on Billboard's Hot 100 in the US. Wonder if that helped their tax headaches or added to them.

Answer: Stan

When Slade released their 1974 album "Old, New, Borrowed and Blue" it had closed a gap of almost two years since their previous studio album, 1972's chart topping, foot stomping, anthem filled belter that was "Slayed". Listening to the more recent album's opening three tracks - "Just a Little Bit", "When the Lights Are Out" and "My Town" - and you'd have sworn that nothing had changed in the ensuing years. That same old "thunderclap" was hammering at your speakers and your eardrums.

Then the album changes.

The tender "Miles Out to Sea" seems to open a new door and in steps the piano driven "My Friend Stan" to hold centre stage. The song became the second single from the album and it settled at number two on the UK Singles charts. The song, however, was merely the prelude to the highlight of the album - the oh-so gentle "Everyday", a swaying little sing-a-long that was guaranteed to have everyone at a stadium waving their scarves and making U2 jealous.

Answer: Samson

The shadow of Bob Dylan and his ability to write oblique lyrics and songs of protest hung heavily over the early works of Procol Harum. This was, no doubt, fanned by their own oblique penmanship in their single "A Whiter Shade of Pale", one of those rare singles whose sales have exceeded ten million copies. That same spectre would again rear its head with the release of "As Strong as Samson", a 1974 track that appears on the album "Exotic Birds and Fruits". With an opening line that informs us "Psychiatrists and lawyers destroying mankind" the band launches into an attack on the Establishment that almost channels Dylan's 1963 classic "Masters of War".

The song continues to point spears until it reaches a cataclysmic conclusion with "fighting the war for the end of the world".

Answer: Sid

"There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you'll be free if you truly wish to be"... so sings Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka in the 1971 film "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". Forty six years later and Mark Foster, of Foster the People, channels that classic piece of film as he segues into a spoken piece midway through the band's song "Loyal Like Sid and Nancy". "A world of pure imagination, take a look and you'll see/into your imagination..." For Foster the People this proved to be a difficult song to put together.

There was the task of taking strong political subject matter and delivering it in a way that did not sound like a fanatic on a soapbox. Then how do you deliver a delicate song with a title that includes the names of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. Vicious, a former member of the outrageous punk rock band The Sex Pistols, who had a stormy and, ultimately, fatal relationship with his girlfriend (Spungen).