Bacharach a subject on BBC's Mastermind

[Sara D]

Did anyone else here from the UK see BBC TV's Mastermind last Friday evening? One of the five contestants took 'The Life and Music of Burt Bacharach' as their specialist subject and had 90 seconds to answer about a dozen questions. Sadly the young(ish) man in question didn't exactly cover himself in glory, getting only 6 questions right. I'll get all the details of the Q's & A's and post them here later, unless someone else beats me to it.

[An Enormous BB Fan]

Without having seen the questions, let me say that I feel that I will have no problem getting all the answers correct. And, if I can't, I'd consider myself a total failure. I'm looking forward to you posting the questions. Let's all just write down the answers and keep them to ourselves versus posting them so all can see. That would spoil it (perhaps). Then, when you give the answers, we can all say how many right we got.

[Sara D]

I've very slightly shortened a few of the questions. The contestant's wrong answers are in brackets after the questions:

1) In what city was BB born? - Kansas
2) What was the title of the first song that BB wrote, a collaboration with a fellow student while at university in Montreal? - Night Plane to Heaven
3) What basketball team did BB tour North Africa with as the interval act in the late 50s? - Harlem Globetrotters
4) Whom did BB colaborate with for the title song of 'The Blob'? - Mack David
5) What famous NY building did BB first meet Hal David? - The Brill Building
6) What BB/HD song did Dionne Warwick first record as a demo and which became a UK hit in '63 for the Merseybeats? - It's Love that really Counts
7) What was the title of the album he co-wrote with Elvis Costello in '98? - Painted from Memory
8) Between '58 & '62 he toured extensively as MD for which actress/singer? - Marlene Dietrich
9) Which producer did B&D collaborate with on the 1968 Broadway musical, 'Promises, Promises'? - David Merrick
10) 'Baby It's You' was recorded by which girl group in '61? - The Shirelles
11) On what track from BB's 2005 album 'At This Time' did Rufus Wainright feature as lead vocalist? - Go Ask Shakespeare
12) What commercial and critical flop from 1973 marked the temporary end of B&D's partnership? - Lost Horizon
13) What B&D song lost out to 'Born Free' at the 1966 Academy Awards? - Alfie

I essentially knew all of the above but In the pressure cooker atmosphere of the TV studio and with the severe time limit (90 seconds to answer as many questions as possible) I think I might have stumbled on a few, namely 2, 3 & 6, the ones that needed some thought. The contestant got 4, 6, 9, 11 & 13 wrong and answered "pass" on 3 & 5.

[nowmedical]

Hello Sara, I will watch this on BBC I-player tonight. But tell me you're wrong - surely he didn't get question 13 wrong???!!!!

[Sara D]

He did indeed get question 13 wrong, although I think by that time his concentration was in tatters. His answer to that and a few of the other questions showed that his knowledge of BB's career was sketchy at best and I should imagine that everyone who visits this forum knows that the song he thought lost out to 'Born Free' at the '66 Academy Awards was never written for a film. Returning to the concentration aspect of this quick-fire questioning format, his answer to the 'Promises, Promises' question merely showed that he didn't listen to the question properly and was probably still thinking about one or two of the earlier wrong answers, something you see all the time on this show.

[An Enormous BB Fan]

Well, that's what I get for thinking I'm so good. I do not know all the answers to these questions. (I said earlier that I can't imagine not getting all the answers correctly.)

Here is what I do not know (numbers in parentheses are the question numbers):

(2). I do not know (nor ever remember even reading about) what the title of Burt's first song is.
(3). I do not know what basketball team Burt travelled with. But I'm guessing I know the answer just based on the fact that I know a very famous basketball team that travelled the world in those days.
(4). Without looking it up, I'm not 100% sure who wrote the lyric to "The Blob".

I know all the others. So I would get 10 out of 13. (Well, that's if I'm wrong about the basketball team, but I'm pretty sure that I'm not wrong -- so I'd probably get 11 out of 13.) But I figured that I would have done better, actually... being such an enormous BB fan and all!

And thank you, Sara D, for posting all the questions. That was fun!

P.s. Who did better than me?

[Sara D]

I've now added the contestant's wrongs answers in brackets after the questions in the post above.

Yes, the name of the basketball team is the obvious one.

[Rio]

Would have given the wrong answer to the Merseybeats question. Wasn't sure, though.

Would not have anwered qn 2.
For the likely answer:
http://www.bacharachonline.com/bacharach_bio.html

[BachtoBacharach]

Interesting to note that the question about the Dionne Warwick-Merseybeats tune is wrong if the question is referring to the tune I am thinking about. Warwick never recorded that tune (and I won't mention the name of the tune) as a DEMO...at the time it was recorded in February 1963, it was intended to be commecially released...she had just hit with her first smash and why would she continue to do demos? After she reached #5 R&B and #21 Pop with Don' t Make Me Over in the US in December 1962, she did not record demos any longer for Bacharach or anyone else...although there were demos "in the can" that Bacharach had not pitched to any other singers or record companies. The tune was comercially released at a B side in the USA in 1963 and in 1964 became a US hit for a UK songbird, although it failed to chart in the UK. Now if this is not the tune I am thinking about...never mind!

[Sara D]

The question doesn't state that DW recorded the demo in '63, merely that the Merseybeats had their UK hit with the song that year. According to Serene Dominick's book DW's demo was recorded in '62.

[pljms]

Regarding question No.6, legend has it that when Florence Greenberg heard Dionne Warwick's demo she said, "Hate the song, love the singer", or something similar. No, it's never been a favourite of mine either and whether it's sung by the Shirelles or the Merseybeats it always sounds insipid. The Merseybeats' hit version in the UK of 'Wishin' and Hopin' was far superior.

[BachtoBacharach]

Well, I was thinking of Wishin' and Hopin' but obviously that is wrong although that was recorded by the Merseybeats...Dionne's demo of the tune referred to in the question has never been one of my favorite Bacharach tunes either but I do like Dionne's original demo better than any other version...it's a tune not reminiscent of Bacharach at all. It's still better than "The Love of a Boy"...a dreadful song in any version including Dionne's demo version.

[Sara D]

I'm sure eveyone here knows all the correct answers by now but I've added them to the questions posted above.