![]() Writes Dave Marsh: “In this world of tales more trustworthy than their tellers, its virtues shouldn't be so quickly dismissed. “Maggie May” is listed as Number 256 in The Heart Of Rock & Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. “If you listen to “Maggie May,” there's no crash cymbals because he didn't use any.” “He used to turn up with just his snare, a bass drum, and sometimes a high hat,” Stewart says. Mickey Waller's drumming, highly praised over the years, was laid down with only the sparest essentials. That's one thing I pride myself on, coming up with melody lines for the instrumentals.” Of playing with Jackson and other musicians, Stewart recalls: “In the studio I would just whistle the parts for them to play. Stewart found mandolin player Ray Jackson, whose playing lent the song one of its hallmark signatures, in a London restaurant playing romance songs from the thirties. Stewart recalls: “The whole thing didn't last more than thirty-five seconds.” It seems he was looking for a way to sneak in to an annual weekend long Jazz Festival on the grounds of the Beaulieu House in Hampshire, England in 1961 when a “well built older woman” pulled him into her tent. ![]() The lyric is based on an experience in Stewart's youth. ![]() Some guys have all the luck,” Stewart wrote in the liner notes to the Storyteller set. “If it wasn't for a diligent DJ in Cleveland who flipped it over, I would still be digging graves. The 74-year-old told fans about a nostalgic visit to the village where he lost his virginity aged 16, and eventually inspired his 1971 number one hit 'Maggie May'. Still, it was not released as a single, but tucked away as a B-side to “Reason To Believe,” from the same album. Rod Stewart has made a pilgrimage back to the place where a woman who inspired 'Maggie May' took his virginity. It was added because the album seemed too short without it. Although it has gone on to become one of his most successful and enduring songs, it was almost left off Every Picture Tells A Story because its theme – a young man corrupted by an older, more experienced woman – was considered too maudlin. No one, including Rod Stewart, saw the potential of “Maggie May” as a single. “Maggie May” also hit Number One on the Billboard pop chart. I think that says it all.Writers: Rod Stewart and Martin QuittentonĮvery Picture Tells A Story (Mercury, 1971)Įvery Picture Tells A Story shot to Number One in Britain and America simultaneously, the first record to do so. But I don’t remember any of the Venture Scouts doing an imitation of Do Ya Think I’m Sexy. Sure, he became one of the bestselling artists of all time. Somewhere along the line, while making that Atlantic crossing, a little bit of soul was sold in pursuit of the great American dream. I can’t remember in which order it’s not important. So where did it all go wrong? A few years after Maggie May, Rod parted company with the Faces, moved to America, and moved in with Britt Ekland. He had even – very briefly – been a member of the Kinks in a pre-fame lineup. After a brief time with Brentford FC, he had busked around Europe, and played with Long John Baldry’s Hoochie Coochie Men, Steampacket, whose members included Brian Auger and Julie Driscoll, a band called Shotgun Express, which also featured Mick Fleetwood and Peter Green, and the Jeff Beck Group. There was the equally poignant and affectionate You Wear It Well, a year after Maggie May, and almost as big a hit and an excellent cover of Bob Dylan’s Mama, You Been on My Mind in the same vein.Īnd he had paid his dues. (Catch the late John Peel miming with a mandolin on this Top of the Pops clip, by the way.) Or is it the swirling organ, or melancholy mandolin, that keeps you hanging on towards the end? There was also the matey comradeship with Ronnie Wood, Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones of the Faces, the footballs and scarves, and glorious, ramshackle live appearances that appealed to a lot of blokes my age. But “you made a first-class fool out of me” – well, I kidded myself that rang true, at the time. What is it about that song? A mood of end-of-summer rueful regret, mingled with rite of passage reminiscence? It came out, with his version of Tim Hardin’s Reason to Believe as a double A-side, in September 1971 I had just broken up with a girl who was admittedly nothing like woman-of-the-world Maggie.
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