60s Music
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224 free 60s Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
65 free 60s Music trivia questions with answers. The 1960s packed more change into ten years than any decade in pop history. It opened with the Twist and Roy Orbison and closed with Woodstock, Abbey Road and Altamont. In between came the British Invasion, Motown's hit factory, Dylan going electric, surf pop, Stax soul, psychedelia and the first supergroups. This quiz covers all of it. The questions range from easy (which show gave the Beatles their US TV debut) to genuinely tough (who improvised the organ riff on 'Like a Rolling Stone', what Motown was called for its first year). Expect chart records, real names, working titles, festival stories and the odd FBI investigation. It works as a warm-up for a pub quiz, a music-night round for a party, or a solo test of how much you really know about the decade. Every answer was checked against a documented source and the citation sits under each explanation, so nothing here rests on half-remembered liner notes.
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Q 01On 9 February 1964 the Beatles made their first live US television appearance on which program?
The Ed Sullivan Show
The Ed Sullivan Show drew a record 73 million viewers that night; Sullivan had grown keen to book the group after seeing fans mob London's airport for their return from Sweden.
Q 02During the Beatles' 1964 US television debut, which member's caption read 'Sorry girls, he's married'?
John Lennon
John Lennon had married Cynthia Powell in 1962, and manager Brian Epstein had asked the couple to keep it secret so that the group's female fans would not feel shut out.
Q 03Which song became the Beatles' first US number one, in February 1964?
I Want to Hold Your Hand
'I Want to Hold Your Hand' was planned for a mid-January 1964 release, but radio play forced Capitol to rush it out on 26 December 1963; it topped the Hot 100 on 1 February 1964.
Q 04What was the Beatles' first hit single, released in late 1962 after they signed with EMI?
Love Me Do
Love Me Do: producer George Martin brought in session drummer Andy White for a remake and handed newcomer Ringo Starr a tambourine, yet the first pressing used Ringo's take.
Q 05The Beatles played their last ticketed concert in August 1966 at which San Francisco venue?
Candlestick Park
Candlestick Park: knowing it would be the last, Paul McCartney asked press officer Tony Barrow to tape the show, and the cassette ran out during the final song.
Q 06Which pop artist designed the Beatles' Sgt Pepper album cover with Jann Haworth?
Peter Blake
Peter Blake staged it as the crowd at a park concert and asked each Beatle whom to invite; one member's most provocative requests were left off.
Q 07Which Beatles ballad had the working title 'Scrambled Eggs' until Paul McCartney wrote its lyrics?
Yesterday
Yesterday arrived, McCartney said, in a dream, and he played it to friends for weeks in case he had copied someone else's tune; the egg lyric was only a placeholder.
Q 08Which Beatles single did Paul McCartney begin writing to comfort a bandmate's son during his parents' split?
Hey Jude
Hey Jude started as 'Hey Jules', sung in the car as McCartney drove out to visit five-year-old Julian and his mother; he later swapped in the name Jude.
Q 09The Beatles gave their last public performance in 1969 from which building's roof?
Apple Corps headquarters at 3 Savile Row
The unannounced lunchtime set on the roof of Apple Corps headquarters at 3 Savile Row was cut short by police after complaints about the noise.
Q 10Which album was the last the Beatles recorded, even though Let It Be came out later?
Abbey Road
Abbey Road was nearly called Everest, after engineer Geoff Emerick's cigarettes, until the four balked at a Himalayan photo shoot and settled for the street outside the studio.
Q 11Brian Jones named his new band after 'Rollin' Stone', a track on an LP by which bluesman?
Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters's LP was lying on the floor when Jazz News asked Brian Jones on the phone for his band's name before its first gig in 1962; he read 'Rollin' Stone' off the track list.
Q 12Which 1965 single gave the Rolling Stones their first US number one?
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
'(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' topped the Hot 100 for four weeks in July 1965; Keith Richards said the fuzz-tone riff came to him in his sleep and he found it on his cassette recorder in the morning.
Q 13Which 1964 single was the Kinks' breakthrough, topping the UK chart?
You Really Got Me
Q 21Which act released the first version of 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine', in 1967?
Gladys Knight & the Pips
Gladys Knight & the Pips cut it as a gospel-style rocker and reached number two; the Miracles had recorded the song first, but Motown left their version in the vault.
Q 22The 1968 chart-topper 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine' opens which 1983 film with a Motown-heavy soundtrack?
The Big Chill
The Big Chill plays it as old friends learn of a death; Motown's boss had thought the recording no hit and sat on it for over a year, until radio DJs began airing the album track.
Q 23The Temptations' October 1968 hit 'Cloud Nine', produced by Norman Whitfield, pioneered which style?
Psychedelic soul
'You Really Got Me' got its distorted growl when the group's 17-year-old guitarist slashed the speaker cone of his amplifier with a razor blade.
Q 14Roger Daltrey's vocal on the Who's 'My Generation' (1965) is famous for what distinctive delivery?
An angry stutter
An angry stutter: one story has the group's manager telling Daltrey to sound like a mod on pills, and the BBC at first refused to play the record for fear of offending people who stutter.
Q 15Which guitarist joined Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce in the 1966 supergroup Cream?
Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton's trio was named for its members' 'cream of the crop' reputations, but internal friction broke it up in 1968 after little more than two years.
Q 16Led Zeppelin grew out of which band, whose 1968 split left Jimmy Page its name and tour dates?
The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds played their last gig in July 1968 with Scandinavian dates still booked, so Page built a new group to honour them and toured as the New Yardbirds before renaming it.
Q 17Berry Gordy founded Motown Records in 1959 in which US city?
Detroit
Detroit: Gordy had quit a Lincoln-Mercury assembly line there to write songs, and he launched the label with an $800 loan from his family.
Q 18Motown's founder launched his record company in January 1959 under which label name?
Tamla
Tamla was a second choice: Gordy wanted to call the label Tammy, after Debbie Reynolds's hit, but the name was already taken, so he altered it.
Q 19Who wrote the Supremes' first ten US chart-toppers?
Holland–Dozier–Holland
Holland–Dozier–Holland then left Motown in a dispute over royalties; 'Love Child' in 1968 was the group's first chart-topper without them.
Q 20Which live single made Little Stevie Wonder a chart-topper at 13?
Fingertips
Fingertips caught the musicians out: Wonder ran back for an unplanned encore as the next act's players were taking over, and a bassist can be heard shouting 'What key?'
Psychedelic soul reached Motown after the Temptations' Otis Williams urged Whitfield to try the Sly and the Family Stone sound; he called it a passing fancy, then delivered 'Cloud Nine' weeks later.
Q 24Aretha Franklin's 1967 'Respect' was a rearranged cover of a 1965 song by whom?
Otis Redding
Otis Redding wrote and recorded 'Respect' in 1965; Franklin's version flipped its plea into a demand and added the 'sock it to me' lines she worked up with her sister.
Q 25The first posthumous US number one, '(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay', famously fades out with what?
Whistling
Whistling takes the record out over the waves and gulls that guitarist Steve Cropper dubbed in when he finished the mix, after the singer's plane went down in December 1967.
Q 26Aretha Franklin's run of late-1960s soul hits began after she signed with which record label?
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records producer Jerry Wexler took her straight to FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to cut 'I Never Loved a Man', her first big hit after six frustrating years at Columbia.
Q 27James Brown's televised Boston concert in April 1968 was staged to keep the peace after which event?
Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination
Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination the day before had set off riots in other cities; officials wanted the show called off, but it was broadcast live instead and Boston stayed largely quiet as people watched at home.
Q 28Which soul singer, shot dead in a Los Angeles motel in 1964, wrote 'A Change Is Gonna Come'?
Sam Cooke
Sam Cooke wrote it after hearing Dylan's 'Blowin' in the Wind' and after he and his party were refused rooms at a whites-only motel in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1963, then arrested for disturbing the peace.
Q 29The Jackson 5 formed in the mid-1960s in which Indiana city?
Gary
Gary was a steel town where father Joe Jackson worked as a crane operator; he drilled his sons for hours after school until the group won a Motown contract.
Q 30At Newport in 1965, some folk fans booed Bob Dylan for doing what?
Playing an electric set with a backing band
Playing an electric set with a backing band lasted only three songs and about a quarter of an hour; Dylan then came back alone with an acoustic guitar for two more.