Yours Truly, Musical Maestro Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lewis Allan

"Strange Fruit", Allan's best known work, was originally written as a poem attacking the lynching of African Americans in the southern states of the US. It was only later set to music by Allan himself after other musicians had turned down the opportunity to do so.

The song, which "Time Magazine" named as song of the century, is best known for its rendition by Billie Holliday. Holliday claimed, in a ghostwritten autobiography, to have co-written the song with Allan but this claim has been refuted by a number of expert music writers who have stated that Allan was, indisputably, the sole author.

Answer: Velvet

Though velvet can be made from woven threads of many different fabrics, the traditional and best fabric for it to be made from is silk. The distinctive plush feel of velvet is achieved by the weaving together of short, even-length strands that are closely but evenly spaced.

Richard II not only asked for his body to be buried wrapped in velvet but insisted that all his clothes were made from the fabric. He believed that velvet was the only material suitable to touch the royal skin.

Answer: Sterling

The pound first came into being in the kingdom of Mercia in the 8th century AD, when King Offa began to coin silver pennies. 240 of these pennies weighed one pound in weight which is why the pre-decimal currency in the UK had 240 pennies to the pound. In 1158, a new coin was introduced by King Henry II called the Tealby penny. It was made from an alloy that contained 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper. This alloy became the standard for all English coinage and was known as sterling, supposedly after a previous Norman coin colloquially called steorling meaning "coin with a star".

Argentium is a modern sterling silver alloy with much of the copper replaced by germanium. Britannia silver was a standard alloy introduced for silver plates at the end of the 17th century by the English government. It contained 96% silver and was introduced in an attempt to stop the melting down of English coinage. The guinea was a gold standard coin introduced into England in the 17th century.

Answer: Andy Warhol

Warhol was a man who liked to make up stories about his past. What is beyond dispute, however, is that he was a revolutionary and highly influential artist in 1960s America. His vision, born of a love of silk screen printing and mass production, was not understood at first and his pop art creations were initially ridiculed. In 1962, as pop art began to become en vogue, Warhol's shows became sensations, and the rows upon rows of Coke bottles, Marilyn Monroes and soup cans became sought after works. By 2009, they were so sought after that one work, "Eight Elvises", sold at auction for $100 million.

Warhol died in 1987 after suffering a heart attack following gall bladder surgery.

Answer: Factory

Factory Records was formed by TV presenter Tony Wilson and band manager Alan Erasmus in 1978. Their first venture together was the formation of the Factory club where many of the label's future signings played early gigs. The label's first release was an EP featuring songs by bands who played at the club. The first album to be released was "Unknown Pleasures" by Joy Division in 1979.

The label was run in an unconventional manner, rejecting the idea of holding their artists to contracts and allowing the bands to own their own back catalogues. As a consequence, even the label's greatest successes, such as New Order's "Blue Monday" and the Hacienda nightclub, the centre of the acid house and Madchester phenomena, tended to lose money. Factory records was declared bankrupt in 1992.

Answer: Transformer

The first transformer, consisting of two unconnected wires coiled around an iron toroid, was believed to have been built by Michael Faraday, in 1831. It was part of an experiment by which Faraday would demonstrate his newly discovered entity, electromagnetic induction. The iron ring was placed between two bar magnets. As the ring was withdrawn from the magnetic field and broke the circuit, a spark was observed, thereby demonstrating that voltage had been induced.

The principle purpose of a transformer is to transform an input electromagnetic force (EMF or voltage) into either a higher or lower voltage. The most common kind of transformer is the laminated core transformer which is used to transform high voltage input from the mains into low voltages suitable for home electronic equipment.

Answer: Bowie

The Bowie knife is a fixed-blade knife with a distinctive curved clip point at the business end of the blade. The blade that James Bowie used in the Sandbar Fight was created by James Black from a design by Bowie's brother, Rezin. Curiously, it did not feature the clip point that identifies the modern knife that bears the name.

The Sandbar Fight took place following a duel between Samuel Wells III and Dr. Thomas Maddox. Though the duel ended with a cordial handshake after both men fired their guns but failed to hit each other, a brawl broke out between the supporters of both men. Bowie was hit in the hip by a shot (accidentally), had a pistol broken over his head, was shot at deliberately (though the shot missed) and stabbed in the chest. The man wielding the knife was Major Norris Wright. Sadly for him his knife was not a Bowie knife and failed to inflict fatal damage on Bowie. Bowie's knife, however, was put to greater effect. As Wright stood over his victim, Bowie pulled him onto the point of his knife, killing him.

For his troubles, Bowie was stabbed and shot one more time each after Wright's death but survived the ordeal. Not surprisingly, he became something of a hero after this episode.

Answer: Berlin

In June 1963, US President John F Kennedy visited Berlin, then separated into West Berlin, part of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), and East Berlin, capital of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). The divided city was a potent symbol of Cold War tensions with the forbidding Berlin Wall preventing citizens crossing from the Communist East to the democratic West (and vice versa). Kennedy gave a speech to demonstrate support for the isolated German citizens in West Berlin, situated approximately 170km to the east of the remainder of its country's borders.

The speech was deemed a hugely successful one in terms of its demonstration of solidarity amongst the Western powers in standing up to the Soviet bloc. The phrase that is best remembered from the speech came towards its conclusion;

"Two thousand years ago the proudest boast was 'civis Romanus sum'. Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is 'Ich bin ein Berliner.'"

Some twenty years after the delivery of the speech, an urban legend, possibly started by thriller writer Len Deighton, sprang up that Kennedy had made an embarrassing faux pas. What he had said was reported to have caused great humour amongst the crowd in Berlin, as 'Berliner' is a name given to a particular type of doughnut in some parts of Germany. However, it was not called that in Berlin, where it was known as 'Pfannkuchen', and Kennedy's words were an accurate translation of the meaning he intended to convey, so the urban myth fails to hold any water.

Answer: New York

The area that comprises New York state was first occupied by the peoples who were to become the Iroquois League, more than 500 years before the Dutch began to settle there. The Dutch established the New Netherland colony in the early 1600s after reports by Henry Hudson, then employed by the Dutch East India company, about the possibility of trade in furs in the area. The capital of the colony was established at New Amsterdam.

Within 40 years of the establishment of the colony, the competing colony of New England began to encroach upon the lands of New Netherland and conflict between the two motherlands spread. In 1664, New Amsterdam fell to the English and, although it was briefly regained, the 1674 Treaty of Westminster formally handed the entire New Netherland colony into English hands. New Amsterdam was renamed New York, in honour of the Duke of York, who had led the victorious troops in the overthrow of the colony.

New York City was the home to the Congress under the Articles of Confederation from 1785 to 1788 and then home to the first Congress under the Constitution from 1789 to 1790, after which time it moved to Philadelphia before settling in its permanent home, Washington D.C., in 1800.

Answer: Lou Reed

Lou Reed was born LEWIS ALLAN Reed in Brooklyn in 1942. He gained fame after forming The VELVET Underground with John Cale, STERLING Morrison and Mo Tucker. The band were managed by ANDY WARHOL and became a significant presence at Warhol's FACTORY studio where they mixed with other artists and rehearsed their material.

After Reed left The Velvet Underground in 1970, he released his first solo album, "TRANSFORMER", in 1972. The album, produced by David BOWIE, was critically acclaimed and contained the worldwide hit, "Walk on the Wild Side", which was based on characters encountered at Warhol's Factory studio. His follow-up to "Transformer" was "BERLIN", a concept album that recounted the love story between two junkies living in the city. In 1989, Reed recorded an album that was a critique of the city in which he was born and in which he lived for the majority of his life, "NEW YORK".