Songstresses of the Seventies Trivia Quiz

Answer: Diana Ross

The woman who had the last U.S. "Billboard Hot 100" number one hit of the 1960s ("Someday We'll Be Together" as a member of the Supremes) also was the first woman to reach the top of the charts as a solo artist in the 1970s. "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" was written by Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson in 1966 and was first a hit for Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell in 1967. Diana Ross had four number one hits on the "Hot 100" charts during the 1970s: "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" in 1970, "Touch Me in the Morning" in 1973, "Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To)" in 1975, and "Love Hangover" in 1976.

Answer: Carole King

Carole King recorded a few songs in the 1950s and 1960s, but she had her main success in those decades as a songwriter with her then-husband Gerry Goffin, penning such songs as "Will You Love Me Tomorrow", "The Loco-Motion", "Take Good Care of My Baby", and "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman".

In 1971, she released her "Tapestry" album which topped the U.S. album charts for fifteen weeks and won four Grammys. "It's Too Late"/"I Feel the Earth Move" was a double A-sided single from the album and was her only U.S. "Billboard Hot 100" number one single in the decade although she did score several other number one singles on the U.S. Adult Contemporary charts.

Answer: Cher

The 1970s were good to Cher. She scored a couple of top ten hits as a member of Sonny and Cher ("All I Ever Need is You" and "A Cowboy's Work is Never Done"), and she had success as a solo artist with three number one "Hot 100" singles: "Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves" [sic] in 1971, "Half-Breed" in 1973, and "Dark Lady" in 1974.

She picked up a Grammy nomination for "Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves" but lost to Carole King.

Answer: Melanie

Melanie Safka's only "Billboard Hot 100" number one hit was "Brand New Key" aka "The Rollerskate Song". She also wrote the song, and it topped the charts in several countries around the world in 1971. She had an earlier top ten hit in the U.S. with "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)" in 1970, and although it only hit number six on the U.S. charts, it topped the charts in other countries such as Canada and the Netherlands.

Answer: Roberta Flack

Roberta Flack had "Billboard Hot 100" number one hits in three straight years in the 70s: "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" in 1972, "Killing Me Softly with His Song" in 1973, and "Feel Like Makin' Love" in 1974. "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" was written in 1957 as a folk song, but it was Flack's soulful recording of the song that was a hit and won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1973.

Besides her success as a solo artist, Flack also had a number of hit duets with Donny Hathaway during the 1970s including "The Closer I Get to You" which made it to number two on the "Billboard Hot 100" charts in 1978.

Answer: Helen Reddy

Australian songstress Helen Reddy also reached the top of the U.S. "Billboard Hot 100" charts in three consecutive years in the early 1970s: "I Am Woman" in 1972, "Delta Dawn" in 1973, and "Angie Baby" in 1974. Written by Reddy and Ray Burton, "I Am Woman" became one of the theme songs of the women's movement of the early 1970s. Reddy stated that the typical reaction from disc jockeys about the song was: "I can't stand this record! I hate this song.

But you know, it's a funny thing, my wife loves it!"

Answer: Vicki Lawrence

Although she released several singles in the 1970s, Vicki Lawrence's only hit song was 1973's "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia". Written by her then-husband Bobby Russell, Lawrence only recorded it because several other artists had turned it down, and she thought it was a good song.

Although Lawrence may have been a One-Hit Wonder in the music biz, she had a successful career as a comedian and actress, co-starring on "The Carol Burnett Show" from 1967 to 1978 and then starring in a spin-off series, "Mama's Family" from 1983 to 1990 (with a hiatus between season two and three).

Answer: Maureen McGovern

Maureen McGovern had a "Billboard Hot 100" number one hit with her first song - her 1973 version of "The Morning After", the theme from "The Poseidon Adventure". She hadn't performed the version heard in the film; her version was released two months after the song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1973.

The songwriters, Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn, also wrote the theme to another disaster film, "The Towering Inferno" called "We May Never Love Like This Again". McGovern performed the song in the film, and it also won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, but the song wasn't a hit, only reaching 83 on the "Billboard Hot 100" charts.

The same year, McGovern recorded "Nice to Be Around", the theme song to the 1973 film "Cinderella Liberty" which also received an Oscar nomination and which also failed to do well on the charts.

Answer: Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand released her first single back in the early 1960s, but she didn't top the "Billboard Hot 100" charts until 1974 with "The Way We Were" (her 1964 single "People" reached number one on the Adult Contemporary charts but only number six on the "Hot 100"). "The Way We Were" was written by Alan Bergman, Marilyn Bergman, and Marvin Hamlisch for the 1973 film of the same name, and it won the Academy Award for Best Song. Streisand also had a number one hit in 1977 with "Evergreen (Love Theme from 'A Star is Born')" which she co-wrote with Paul Williams and which earned her an Oscar for Best Original Song. Streisand also had two number one hits with duets: "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" with Neil Diamond in 1978 and "No More Tears (Enough is Enough)" with Donna Summer in 1979.

Answer: Olivia Newton-John

Olivia Newton-John actually had her first number one single in the U.S. on the Adult Contemporary charts in 1971 with her cover of Bob Dylan's "If Not For You", and she continued to do particularly well on those charts, scoring nine number one hits during the 1970s.

She first hit number one on the "Billboard Hot 100" in 1974 with "I Honestly Love You" and reached the top of the charts again in 1975 with "Have You Never Been Mellow". She had another number one hit in 1978 with "You're the One That I Want", a duet with John Travolta from the film "Grease".

Answer: Linda Ronstadt

One of the iconic female singers of the 1970s, Linda Ronstadt surprisingly only topped the "Billboard Hot 100" once with her 1975 cover of "You're No Good", a song first released in the 1960s by Dee Dee Warwick. Ronstadt's version was from her "Heart Like a Wheel" album, which received Grammy nominations for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance of the Year.

She won Grammys in the 1970s for Best Country Vocal Performance for the song "I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love With You)" from the same album and for her cover of Warren Zevon's "Hasten Down the Wind".

Answer: Minnie Riperton

"Lovin' You" was Minnie Riperton's only hit song on the "Billboard Hot 100", reaching number one in 1975. She had one other single make the charts the same year, "Inside My Love", but it only reached number 76 on the charts. Riperton wrote "Lovin' You" along with her husband Richard Rudolph, and the sweet song with birds chirping throughout was reportedly written as a distraction for their baby daughter, future "Saturday Night Live" cast member, Maya Rudolph.

Not long after the release of the song, Riperton was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she died from the disease a few years later at the age of 31.

Answer: Thelma Houston

One of the signature disco songs of the 1970s, "Don't Leave Me This Way" was Thelma Houston's only number one hit on the "Billboard Hot 100" and won the Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance in 1978. The song was first recorded by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes in 1975 but didn't make the "Hot 100"; a subsequent cover by the Communards in 1986 reached number one in the U.K. but only number forty in the U.S. "Don't Leave Me This Way" became associated with the AIDS epidemic after artists Nayland Blake and Ted Gott referenced the song in their artwork about the crisis.

Answer: Yvonne Elliman

Written by the Bee Gees, "If I Can't Have You" was recorded by Yvonne Elliman for the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack. The Bee Gees recorded their own version of the song which served as the B-side to their "Stayin' Alive" single. Elliman's version was the fourth single released from that soundtrack, with all of them hitting number one on the "Billboard Hot 100" ("How Deep is Your Love", "Stayin' Alive", and "Night Fever" were the others).

The 1978 single was Elliman's only number one hit, although she had several other singles that reached the charts, including "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from the "Jesus Christ Superstar" film in which she portrayed Mary Magdalene.

Answer: Donna Summer

The Queen of Disco, Donna Summer nearly had a "Billboard Hot 100" number one with her first single, 1975's "Love to Love You Baby", but the song peaked at number two. She had several songs reach the charts over the next few years, but it wasn't until 1978 that she hit number one with her disco remake of "MacArthur Park", which had originally been recorded by actor Richard Harris in 1968. Summer also had number one hits on the "Hot 100" in 1979 with "Hot Stuff" and "Bad Girls" and with "No More Tears (Enough is Enough)", a duet with Barbra Streisand.