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This Neil Diamond trivia quiz has 60 free questions with answers and runs the whole career, from a Brooklyn kid on a fencing scholarship cutting class to pitch songs on Tin Pan Alley to the sequined showman selling out the Greek Theatre and the Winter Garden. There are questions on the $50-a-week songwriting job, the Monkees hit that made him famous before he was, the debut single he later realised was about himself, his first US number one, the live album that ruled the Australian charts for 29 weeks, the Streisand duet born of a radio mash-up, the film that won him the first-ever Worst Actor Razzie, and the E.T. song that nearly got him sued. It also covers Fenway Park's eighth-inning ritual, England fans at Euro 2020, the Rick Rubin albums, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Parkinson's announcement, the Broadway musical A Beautiful Noise and the songs that became bigger for UB40 and Urge Overkill than they were for him. Every answer has been checked against Diamond's Wikipedia biography and the pages for his songs, albums and films, and each explanation adds one detail worth remembering.
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Q 01Neil Diamond was born in 1941 in which New York City borough?
Brooklyn
All four of his grandparents were immigrants, from Poland and from Kyiv, which is the story behind his song 'America'.
Q 02Which future superstar was in the Erasmus Hall High School chorus with Diamond?
Barbra Streisand
He said they weren't close then: 'We were two poor kids in Brooklyn. We hung out in the front of Erasmus High and smoked cigarettes.'
Q 03Which chess grandmaster was also in Diamond's class at Erasmus Hall?
Bobby Fischer
Fischer was born in 1943, two years after Diamond, and became US champion at 14.
Q 04As a boy Diamond spent four years in which Western city while his father was stationed there?
Cheyenne, Wyoming
The family otherwise moved between several homes in Brooklyn before settling in Brighton Beach in 1956.
Q 05Which folk singer's summer-camp performance made the 16-year-old Diamond realise he could write songs?
Pete Seeger
He got a guitar back in Brooklyn, took lessons and 'almost immediately began to write songs'.
Q 06Diamond attended New York University on a scholarship for which sport?
Fencing
He was on the 1960 NCAA championship team but spent his time cutting class to pitch songs on Tin Pan Alley.
Q 07Diamond dropped out of NYU ten credits short of a degree for a 16-week songwriting job paying how much a week?
$50
Sunbeam Music didn't rehire him when the 16 weeks were up, and he spent years living on 35 cents a day of food.
Q 08Diamond's first success as a songwriter, 'Sunday and Me' in 1965, was a hit for which group?
Jay and the Americans
He was working out of the Brill Building at the time; the Monkees came calling the following year.
Q 09Which Diamond-written song was a seven-week US number one for the Monkees and went gold within two days?
I'm a Believer
He wrote it for himself, but the Monkees version came out first and made him famous as a songwriter instead; he also gave them 'A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You'.
Q 10What was Diamond's debut single as a recording artist, released in April 1966?
Solitary Man
Decades later, after 'four years of Freudian analysis', he realised he had written it about himself.
Q 11Diamond's first hits were released on which label, run by Bert Berns as a subsidiary of Atlantic?
Bang Records
The relationship soured over royalties and 'Shilo', and after years of lawsuits he bought back his master tapes in 1977.
Q 12Early on, Diamond opened for which band, whose guitarist shocked him by smashing his instrument?
The Who
He also opened for Herman's Hermits, a considerably gentler experience.
Q 13Which 1967 Neil Diamond song became better known through Urge Overkill's Pulp Fiction cover?
Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon
Diamond's original reached No. 10; Cliff Richard and the Biddu Orchestra had also covered it before Tarantino got there.
Q 21England fans adopted a Diamond song after the Wembley DJ played it after a Euro 2020 win over whom?
Germany
'Three Lions' co-writer Frank Skinner conceded it 'went slightly better than Three Lions in the post-match sing-song'.
Q 22Diamond's classic 1972 live double album was recorded at which Los Angeles venue?
The Greek Theatre
He added a quadraphonic sound system for the ten-show run, backed by a 35-piece string section.
Q 23What is the title of that 1972 live album, which many consider his best work?
Hot August Night
Critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it 'the ultimate Neil Diamond record'; a 2008 Madison Square Garden sequel added '/NYC' to the name.
Q 14Which Diamond ballad from 1967 topped the US chart in 1988 in a reggae version by UB40?
Red Red Wine
Diamond's own single had stalled at No. 62 after his old label added a choir without asking him.
Q 15Which 1970 single was Diamond's first US number one?
Cracklin' Rosie
The backing band was LA's Wrecking Crew, and the title is said to come from a cheap Canadian sparkling wine.
Q 16Diamond's 1972 number one 'Song Sung Blue' was inspired by a piano concerto by which composer?
Mozart
The slow movement of Piano Concerto No. 21 was the seed; the song lost both its Grammy nominations to Roberta Flack.
Q 17In 2014, Neil Diamond said 'Sweet Caroline' was really written for whom?
His then-wife Marcia
He needed a three-syllable name to fit the melody, and it took him about an hour in a Memphis hotel to finish.
Q 18Which Diamond song have the Boston Red Sox played at every Fenway Park home game since 1997?
Sweet Caroline
The Sydney Swans, the New York Rangers and Pitt football adopted it too, and in 2019 the Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry.
Q 19At Fenway Park the singalong happens between the top and bottom of which inning?
8th
Diamond used the 2008 singalong to announce, on the big screen, that he'd play the ballpark that August.
Q 20Diamond made a surprise appearance to sing at Fenway in April 2013 after what event?
The Boston Marathon bombing
He followed it with the single 'Freedom Song (They'll Never Take Us Down)', with all proceeds to One Fund Boston and the Wounded Warrior Project.
Q 24In which country, said to have the most Diamond fans per capita, did the 1972 live album spend 29 weeks at number one?
Australia
It stayed in that country's top 20 for two years, and his 1976 comeback tour there was broadcast to 36 TV outlets.
Q 25At which Broadway theatre did Diamond play 20 sold-out nights in 1972, the first rock-era star to headline there?
The Winter Garden
The house hadn't staged a one-man show since Al Jolson in the 1930s; afterwards Diamond stopped touring for four years to be with his son.
Q 26Diamond won a Grammy and Golden Globe for scoring which 1973 film, whose album out-grossed it?
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
He and author Richard Bach both sued the director, Diamond for 'butchering' his score; the album still reached No. 2.
Q 27Which member of The Band produced Diamond's 1976 studio album?
Robbie Robertson
The pair co-wrote 'Dry Your Eyes', which is why Diamond turns up among the guests at The Band's farewell concert.
Q 28Diamond performed 'Dry Your Eyes' at which 1976 farewell concert filmed by Scorsese?
The Last Waltz
He joined everyone onstage at the end for Bob Dylan's 'I Shall Be Released'.
Q 29Why did Diamond start wearing colourful beaded shirts on stage in the 1970s?
So fans could see him without binoculars
Bill Whitten designed and made them for him from the 1970s until around 2007.
Q 30Which Las Vegas hotel paid Diamond $650,000 to open its new Theater for the Performing Arts in July 1976?
The Aladdin
Elizabeth Taylor and Chevy Chase were in the opening-night crowd, and he began with a story about an ex who'd dumped him too soon.