Rod stewart biography videos maggie may

In the summer of '71, when I was just sixteen, Rod Stewart's "Maggie May" dominated the airwaves with a vengeance, capturing the hearts and minds of many, including mine. Its raw, honest lyrics and catchy tune made it an unforgettable hit that summer.

As a sixteen-year-old, the theme of the song jumped out front and center: younger man/older woman. I mean, I wasn’t experienced with women, but I could certainly tell what Rod was talking about, and it sent my imagination swirling.

The song was written by Rod Stewart and Martin Quittenton and is included on Rod’s album, “Every Picture Tells a Story.” If you’re familiar with the album version, there’s a short 30-second solo guitar intro titled “Henry,” written by Quittenton. “Maggie May” hit number one on Cashbox as well as spending five weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, and was named Billboard’s number 2 song of 1971.

So, yeah, Rod Stewart and his song were a big deal. Funny thing, though, is that “Maggie May” was initially released as the B-side of the single, with Tim Hardin’s “Reason to Believe” as the A-side. But when radio stations began playing the B-side, “Maggie May” became the more popular song by far. It remains one of Rod Stewart’s best-known songs.

Now that we’re 50+ years in the future,

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Maggie May

1971 single by Rod Stewart

This article is about the Rod Stewart song. For the musically unrelated folk song also known as "Maggie Mae", see Maggie May (folk song). For other uses, see Maggie May (disambiguation).

"Maggie May" is a song cowritten by singer Rod Stewart and Martin Quittenton, performed by Stewart for his album Every Picture Tells a Story, released in 1971. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked it number 130 in The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.^[3] In 2017, the Mercury Records single was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.^[4]

Background

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"Maggie May" expresses the ambivalence and contradictory emotions of a boy involved in a relationship with an older woman and was written from Stewart's own experience. In the January 2007 issue of Q magazine, Stewart recalled: "Maggie May was a true story, about the first woman I had sex with, at the 1961 Beaulieu Jazz Festival."^[5][6] The woman's name was not "Maggie May"; Stewart has stated that the name was taken from "an old Liverpudlian song about a prostitute".^[6]

The song was recorded in just two takes in one session. Drummer Micky Waller often arrived at recording sessions with the expectation that a drum kit would be provided and, for "Maggi