One of my earlier columns was on Classical Music in crosswords, and at that time I promised a follow-up column on Popular Music.  Rather than including puzzles from years past, I decided to check out the popular music references in a current month of crosswords from several of the more widely syndicated distributors (The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Tribune Syndicate and Timothy Parker's Universal group of puzzlemakers to name some of them).  Not unexpectedly, they all have an interest in the popular music field (ranging from 22 words and clues in USA Today to 55 in the Los Angeles Times puzzles for the month surveyed).

It hardly seems possible that a crossword survey from a few years ago focused almost exclusively on the 1930s and 1940s with popular music names such as LENA (Horne), ELLA (Fitzgerald), ANITA (O'Day), ARLO (Guthrie), IRENE (the "Goodnight" girl along with Dunne and Castle), STAN (Getz and Kenton), LES (Brown)  and ARTIE (Shaw).   Present day puzzles still include all of the above (especially the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times), but we are now finding it advisable to be familiar with popular performers from the 1950s, '60s and '70s as well.  It's not unusual to see names like ELO (Electric Light Orchestra), (Brian) ENO, SHA (Na Na), ETTA (James), REBA (McIntire), DIANA (Ross),EDIE (Brickell) and (Yoko) ONO included along with the earlier favorites.  Since the internet is especially informative about pop artists such as those listed above, just click on their high-lighted names to go to sites which tell us more about them.

For across-the-board popularity, however, we are not likely to see anyone match the collective affection shown by the cluemeisters for

ABBA... This "Swedish pop group", or the "Disco-era hitmakers from Sweden" as they have also been recently clued, are world-famous as the "'Fernando' singers" and the "'Dancing Queen' group".  I'm happy to report that my internet research has finally answered a major question about this group for me.  What does the name ABBA mean?  It turns out that it means Agnetha, Benny, Bjorn, Anni-Frid.  ABBA is a compilation of the first letters in each of the group members names.  Active as recording performers from the early 1970s through 1982, their international fame never seems to wane.  If you doubt me on that, just click on their picture to take you to the ABBALINK webpage which lists 601 sites in 28 countries all devoted to ABBA.  For interesting biographical information on ABBA, click HERE.
 

Still riding high in puzzles today is CATS, the "Andrew Lloyd Webber hit" which has been a "Broadway musical since 1982", but it is no longer the front runner it was just five years ago.  Eclipsing it with the clue writers of today is
 

EVITA...This "Lloyd Webber show" has a lead "role for Madonna and LuPone" (film and stage roles respectively).  It is the "'Don't Cry for Me, Argentina' musical" and the "'You Must Love Me' musical", and a part of its sudden popularity in crosswords may be that the movie EVITA is a "Madonna role".   It continues to thrill audiences throughout the world, and you can find out more about its phenomenal success by clicking on the EVITA logo included here.
 

IRENE...It might turn up as "Dunne or Castle" (actress Irene Dunne and dancer Irene Castle) and the New York Times will even test you with "actress Worth" for a clue, but more often than not it will be a nostalgic "Goodnight girl of song" or maybe just a simple "Goodnight girl?".  It's asking a lot of the "boomers on" generations to know what these clues are talking about, but the "Goodnight" references are to the folk song "Goodnight, Irene" first recorded in 1939 by folk singer Lead Belly (Huddy Ledbetter) and later to become the No. 1 hit of 1950 in a recording by Gordon Jenkins & The Weavers.  Click on his picture if you are interested in learning more about Lead Belly's very interesting background and click on his name to learn about his influence on other popular musicians.  If you are also interested in the song itself, you can read its lyrics by clicking on the high-lighted name of the song.
 

OPRY..."Grand Ole _ _ _ _" has been the time-honored clue for this "Grand Ole Nashville attraction" for many, many years, and it continues to be just as popular with the crossword composers who have provided the puzzles for my recent survey.  For a detailed history of the Grand Ole Opry over the past 70 years click on  the high-lighted OPRY at the beginning of this paragraph.
 

It seems pretty clear to me that in order to fill  in a crossword puzzle these days you need not only  know the popular music of the  early decades of the 20th century, but the latter ones as well.  In fact, I was recently amused by a New York Times crossword which included all of the following:

     "1957 Everly Brothers hit" for BYEBYELOVE
       "1964 Betty Everett hit" for SHOOPSHOOPSONG
       "1964 Beatles hit" for PLEASEPLEASEME
      "1990 Vanilla Ice hit" for ICEICEBABY
 

Among the thousands of websites about Crossword Puzzles, I've found two that are especially helpful both to the novice as well as the veteran puzzle solver.  You might enjoy checking them out.

If you are into online crosswords, and have a Java-powered browser, you might like to try Timothy Parker's Universal Crossword.  Just click on the logo below.

Copyright 1999 C. Schnebel
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