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. Still, it was not released as a single, but tucked away as a B-side to “Reason To Believe,” from the same album. 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. singles chart for its own five-week stay there.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. 2, 1971, the single - officially credited as "Maggie May"/"Reason to Believe" - topped the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks straight. In due time, everyone was following his lead, and on Oct. On a whim, he flipped the single over to play "Maggie May," and the phone lines lit up. Nonetheless, it was relegated to the B-side of lead single "Reason to Believe" and would've stayed there if not for disc jockey Murray Soul of Cleveland, OH-based station WMMS. "Nobody liked it, the criticism being that it had no melody," Stewart noted in Storyteller. "Maggie May" is a classic today, but it didn't seem that way at the time. "Mickey Waller turned up with only half a drum kit," Stewart recalled in the liner notes to the Storytellerbox set, "and had to borrow the rest from the other bands in the studio." It was Waller who made the sessions so memorable. The session featured a murderer's row of talent: Quittenton, who kicked off the track with a stirring acoustic solo (known as "Henry") two of Rod's Faces bandmates, Ronnie Wood on bass and Ian McLagan on hammond organ Ray Jackson of folk-rock outfit Lindisfarme on mandolin ("The name slips my mind," cracked the liner notes) Peter Sears, later of Jefferson Starship, on celeste and session legend Mickey Waller (Jeff Beck Group) on drums. How much older, I can't tell you - but old enough to be highly disappointed by the brevity of the experience." The song came together in a jam with Steamhammer guitarist Martin Quittenton, when Stewart was inspired by the British folk tune "Maggie Mae," which had recently closed the first side of The Beatles' final album Let It Be. "And there on a secluded patch of grass, I lost my not-remotely-prized virginity with an older (and larger) woman who'd come on to me very strongly in the beer tent. I'd snuck in with some mates via an overflow sewage pipe," he wrote in his 2012 autobiography. "At 16, I went to the Beaulieu Jazz Festival in the New Forest. Astoundingly, the song is based on a true story: a decade prior, the British rocker was at a concert when one thing led to another. Recorded for Rod's third album Every Picture Tells a Story, "Maggie May" is the not-so-romantic tale of a schoolboy struggling after getting intimate with a considerably older woman.
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