More Lead Singers and their Backing Bands Quiz

Answer: The Modern Lovers

"Quirky" is a word that could be used for some of the songs of Jonathan Richman. (Look no farther than "Abominable Snowman In The Market" for evidence).
Born in Massachusetts in 1951, in 1972 he formed The Modern Lovers and they became known as a garage rock band. Their 1977 single "Roadrunner" was critically acclaimed - Rolling Stone Magazine put it at number 274 in their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It was also a number 11 in the UK singles charts.

Answer: The Pacemakers

Altogether now:
"Walk on, walk on, with hope in your hearts
And you'll never walk alone..."
Just a couple of lines from "You'll Never Walk Alone", which was the third successive UK number one singles hit for Gerry and The Pacemakers in the early 1960s. The other two were "How Do You Do It", and "I Like It". Formed in Liverpool, the group were contemporaries of the Beatles, and sometime rivals. In 1964, "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" was a UK number six and reached number four in the US Billboard charts. Later that year, "Ferry Cross the Mersey" reached the UK, US, and Australian top ten. Unlike the Beatles, though, they could not sustain the hits and disbanded in 1966.

Answer: The Range

Bruce Hornsy and The Range formed in 1984 and two years later took "The Way It Is" to the top of the Billboard singles charts. "Mandolin Rain" and "The Valley Road" (Billboard number four and five respectively) were to be other top ten singles.

Answer: The Coconuts

Kid Creole - birth name, Thomas August Darnell Browder - hailed from New York City. He played in a couple of bands and had a solo career, adapting the nickname 'King Creole' from the 1980 movies of the same name, which starred Elvis Presley. He joined up with the Coconuts - a trio of attractive female singers - in that same year.

While success in the Billboards charts eluded them, they had several numbers reach the top 30 of the US Club Play charts. "Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy" was a UK pop charts number two in 1982.

The original Coconuts departed in the early 1990s, but Kid Creole continued to record, perform and appear in movies with new backing singers.

Answer: The Union Gap

Noted for their gimmick of wearing Union Army outfits, Gary Puckett and The Union Gap formed in 1967. Five Billboard top ten places followed in the next seven years. "Young Girl" and "Lady Willpower" each reached number two in the Billboard charts. "Young Girl" was a UK number one.

Answer: The Attractions

Elvis Costello, birth name Declan Patrick MacManus, was born in Liverpool and formed The Attractions in the late 1970s. They were at the pinnacle of the post-punk movement. Costello's intelligent writing style lifted their songs away from their punk contemporaries.

Their biggest UK hit was "Oliver's Army", which reached number two in the single charts. In the USA, in 1989 "Veronica" and "The Other Side of Summer" were Modern Rocks Tracks chart toppers.

Answer: The Mainliners

Big Tom and The Mainliners were a successful 'Country and Irish" show band that first played in 1966 and performed on and off for many years thereafter. (Big Tom was, in reality, Thomas McBride, and left the band in 1975 to form Big Tom and the Travellers). With the Mainliners, he enjoyed six Irish top ten singles and toured extensively in Ireland and the UK.

The original 'Mainliners' name was said to refer to railroad tracks, and not the method that heroin addicts used to inject their drug.

Answer: The News

Formed in San Francisco in 1979, Huey Lewis and The News achieved commercial success that included 19 top ten singles. Their first US Billboard number one was "The Power of Love" in 1985. (No, stop thinking about Whitney Houston, or even Arlo Guthrie - same title, different songs.) "Stuck with You" in 1986 and "Jacob's Ladder" the following year were also Billboard chart-toppers.

Answer: The Cookies

Marcie and The Cookies were active in their native Australia in the 1960s. They comprised lead singer Marcie Jones and sisters Beverley Cook, Margaret Cook, and Wendy Cook. While they only released two singles, "All Or Nothing" and "White Christmas", they toured extensively in Australia and the Far East and had regular Australian TV spots.

Answer: The Rodeo

Formed in Seattle in 2005, Brent Amaker and the Rodeo were ostensibly into country music - members even dressed in black as a reference to Johnny Cash. With influences from David Bowie, the punk rockers Devo and dancing girls on stage, it added up to some eclectic concert appearances. Four albums were released by 2013, without much chart success.