Icon's First 7 Songs FAILED…Then a DJ Randomly Played His B-Side…Hit #1 OVERNIGHT!-Professor of Rock 

Poll: What is your pick for the greatest DEBUT Record of all time?

When I first heard Maggie may, I was hooked by the mandolin part. Probably one of the reasons I learned mandolin.

I was in junior high when this song was a hit. In our music class, on Fridays, we could sing popular songs and the words were projected onto the movie screen to sing along. Every week, TC, the class clown, would ask if we could sing this song. And every week, our very strait laced Catholic music teacher would turn red and say, “ohhh, nooo!” We’d all sit there dying at her embarrassment. TC recently passed from cancer, but whenever I hear this song I say a little prayer for him. RIP, TC.

"Maggie May" was the song that was number 1 when I was born, to be replaced the following weekend by "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves". Rod Stewart songs were favorite sing-along songs for my fellow Student Senators and me when we would go to the pub after our meetings on Wednesday evenings in the early 1990s, including "Maggie May" and "You're In My Heart (The Final Acclaim)". Such good times...

Graduated in 1971 from high school. Loved singing this song . Bought many of his albums.

The mandolin on "Maggie May" still gives me chills after all these years. I'm 61 now.

At 9 years old, when this song was being played on many LA stations. I got a good laugh at the lyrics, "All you did was wreck my bed, and in the morning, kick me in the head". Made my parents laugh also when I repeated the lyrics. Great song.

3 or 4 channels on tv ? Yeah I remember that in my childhood! And that’s why HBO was so popular in the 80s decade !

I mentioned this as the 😊greatest B Side song ever when u asked that question. So glad you covered it. I was a 7th grader at a little school in Missouri where, across from the high school, was a dairy queen but not a real Dairy Queen called the D&L. There was a jukebox in the place, maybe and after school, or ball practice, and I remember listening to this over and over, the rhythm and melody so charming. I’ve known it by heart as well, had no idea what it was about. Well done.

Yes, Adam your parents definitely raised you on great music!!

Rod Stewart's was the first concert I attended. Back in '75.

I glad you did this review. I remember this on the radio. I loved the mandolin and its flow. This was my first concert. It still resides in my music library to this day. 1971 was a great year for music. I was 10/11, and I grew up.

I was a gravedigger at a pet cemetery before I was even a teenager. I buried Joe Bonanno’s dog and he and his men tipped me very well. It was about $750 and I had plenty of cash to play video games and buy 45s and cassettes! 🖖🏼

So, prof rock, love your upbringing...raised my son on so-called oldies, really just classics😊 he danced at his wedding to September by EW&F. He lives Motown and 70s music. Do you recall in the 70s, a terrific magazine that published lyrics of all the hit songs...i worked at 15 and bought that magazine every month. It deserves a mention for us 70s kids. So fantastic, yes it had editorial issues...but helped us understand the real lyrics with a few issues. What a story!

My best friend and I were 14 when Maggie May was released we would sit on my veranda and play it again and again for hours on this small suitcase like turntable we loved it so much.Happy memories.

Guessed it. This one was fairly easy because I happened to have already been a fan of Tim Hardin's 'Reason to Believe', which is also one of the songs in my own repertoire. 😊

I love that little beatles tune...i never noticed the connection before! Prett cool. I know that wasn't the point of the video, but i love connecting unintended musical dots.

As soon as I hear that intro with those layered acoustic guitars I immediately think of the Pennsylvania countryside ☺️

The soring mandolin was the songs whole appeal for me.

Song reminds me of the late 70's cruisin the Badlands..good times

I love this channel an the great info, so many insights into my own musical youth, fascinating , love your endurance to dive deeply into our musical past.

Every Picture Tells a Story is his best rocker

"Maggie May" is certainly one of the greatest songs that Rod Stewart ever recorded.

on the Ktel 8 track I had it said Rod Stewart-Stay with me .Not Faces Stay with me

Great video! have a question, can you do a story about the Royal Albert Hall “One Night Only” that Rod does the duet with “Amy Belle” I don’t want to talk about it. This seems to be the highest viewed video of all of Rod Stewart’s videos on RU-vid. Nearly a billion views. The story about her is amazing how she was found and was a street performer. I believe she also wrote a song for Miley Cyrus too. Anyway love all your work! The whole concert was fabulous by the way with many other performers joining him on stage.

Great video, as always. Growing up, I would spend some part of summertime in Long Island, at my Uncles house. I remember as a 10 to 13 year old (inner city kid) playing a legit "Faces", Rod Stewart pinball machine at his home. Eventually, I took ownership but was not smart to hold onto. Still a bad decision. Cheers 🍻...

My 2 older sisters and I “pooled our money” and bought a K-Tel album “believe in music”. Waited the 6-8 weeks for delivery 😂. I don’t remember what song(s) my sisters were after when we bought it, (maybe “Go Away Little Girl” by Donny Osmond) but “Maggie May” was on there with 19 other hits! By the original artists! LOL - it was the first time I’d heard it, and it became ingrained as only early records from childhood can - when you have allllll day to drop the needle. KTel used to put a wide variety of stuff on those compilations, I think “Believe In Music” was particularly diverse. From Donny Osmond to Slade to 5 Man Electrical Band to Cher to Argent… and of course, Rod Stewart.

My dog’s name is Maggie and I have to occasionally tell her to wake up.

I’ve always loved this song, but it’s always sounded like a demo to me. I imagine the solo being finished and the player grinning like Christopher Guest in Spinal Tap that he actually played it correctly. There was also a lot of Mandolin in Mad Man Across the Watet album. My favourite Part Elton John album.

1973 Summer festival in a bike stadium in Frankfurt , Faces closed the first night .

the blur version on ruby tracks is good too

Thanks Dad

It’s fascinating that so many great songs were initially held in outright contempt or disregard by the artists themselves or the suits at their respective record companies. Thank the lord for all those stubborn DJs who knew a thing or two about music 🎶.

"Iris" mandolin was Tim Pierce with a neat back story.

I've never really liked the song, Maggie May. I do really like the mandolin playing.

I think we all have a failed romance back in our past where we wished we'd "never seen your face".

He played the harmonica on my boy lollipop

Love this song. I highly doubt there were many loose women hanging out at Jazz festivals 😂🤷

Maggie May wouldn't be the same or as big a hit without Ray Jackson. He should have been given a lot more credit and a lot more money

I saw Rod in concert about '78. He had someone behind the speaker towers tossing soccer balls that he would trap, dribble around the stage, and then kick into the crowd. Someone told me that he was a football (soccer) pro in England before doing music. Is that correct?

Adam, Thanks for helping keep alive the classic hits and stories. Casey Kasem would be happy to know you continue his tradition of telling the stories behind the hits.

Saw him in Vegas in 1988. Makeup for a canceled show He did 3 hours Played everything he ever recorded . Very engaged with the audience. Fabulous

Professor (Adam) I'm 64, my wife is 60, and I would just like to tell you how much we enjoy your channel. Even if it's a song or band we may not like, or isn't our particular "cup of tea", it's always enlightening, entertaining, and educating, three things that make it successful. I have turned many people on to your channel, and they all come back saying "Wow! Thank you so much for introducing me to the professor of rock!" You've certainly found your niche my friend! One music loving little boy from a small town can, and is, changing the world! Bravo!

Don't forget Steve Winwood used the mandolin for 'Back in the Highlife'

As i am now an older woman, I often think of that line from Maggie May "When the morning sun is in your face it really shows your age." Thanks Rod, haha. My dear friend played lead guitar with Rod for dozens of years. I was fortunate enough to go to every show that passed through Detroit. Rod still puts on a hell of a show even though his voice suffered from thyroid cancer. He recorded the great American classics during his recovery but seems to have almost reached the same level he would have been at if not for the surgery. Although I appreciate his talent and tenacity I still love him with Jeff Beck the most. Thanks P.O.R.

The mandolin work on Maggie May really did raise that song into the emotional stratosphere. It drew a melancholy from the tune that everyone felt.

"The morning sun when it hits your face really shows your age." - The best insult of the rock era.

Maggie May is fraught with a range of emotions, grief, anger, fear, disappointment, self doubt, sorrow and sadness so deep. 1971 was a tumultuous year. I graduated from 8th grade in June & my mom died in August. I had been in a foster home separated from my brothers and sisters since 1963. My dad had passed in 1969 and the devastation and desolation and depression permeated my bones. My heart was completely broken and at age 12, I learned what loss really meant. His loss colored my entire life. Songs in 1969 that I always remember are Love Grows Where My Rosemary Goes, by Edison Lighthouse, Don't Cry Daddy, by Elvis Presley & a myriad of others. I would hide an old tube radio under my pillow and listen to WLS & WCFL & WVON. The Jackson 5, The Temptations, Dianna Ross & the Supremes, James Brown & Bobby Sherman! Lol! Gary Puckett & the Union Gap, CCR, The Guess Who, The Grass Roots, There was In My Midnight Confession, Neil Diamond's Hot August Night, Sweet Caroline, Cracklin' Rosie, Spirit in the Sky, Build Me Up, Buttercup! Patches, and of course...The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, and so many others. FM radio wasn't a thing back then, at least not yet. It was about to be. Eight Tracks but I was a kid, I didn't have a car. A transistor radio was considered cool & we would all gather in a friends bedroom to listen to the latest 45 we had saved up our milk money to buy at the Jewel Foodstore at 86th & Pulaski on the Southwest Side of Chicago. A year later and boys entered our lives and stayed. We moved to the garage or backyard and the guys started following us instead of the other way around. The day after Christmas of 1969, I got the call that my dad had passed the night before. Whatever my life had been to that point, the hope of one day reuniting with my mom and dad and brothers and sisters, that dream shattered. I slowly realized that life was not ever going to work out the way I'd hoped. Not long after, my mom's death in 1971 was the final nail in the coffin of my very brief and painful childhood. Music was my only solace. It is odd that the Summer of 1970, I fell in love for the very first time. I'll never forget those blue eyes meeting mine over a basketball in the alley. We both grabbed it at the same time and it was electrifying. Both of us knew at the very same time. Tommy James & the Shondells..."I Think We're Alone Now" will forever be the song I fell in love to. It was Maggie Mae that was playing when I made the decision to leave my friends and life in Chicago behind me to try & get to know my family or what was left of it at an orphanage in the suburbs. It was another mistake in a life full of them. They did't know me, I didn't know them. I wanted to know them, but they couldn't have cared less. I kept trying, but honestly, you can fool yourself for a lifetime when you want something as badly as I wanted a family. The entire atmosphere that fall as I tried to settle in to a new life at the orphanage will forever play in my mind with Maggie Mae and Carol King's Tapestry playing as the backdrop. There was also James Taylor, Sweet Baby James, Carly Simon's You're So Vain, BJ Thomas, Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head. A little later and The Chi-Lites were added to the lineup...Oh Girl...There was Everybody Plays the Fool Sometimes.... and of course, Bread's Guitar Man (awesome), The Long & Winding Road, Jackson Brown, Doctor My Eyes, Linda Ronstadt and not too much later, The Eagles. There was a few strange ones, "McArthur Park." What was it about anyway? I Got a Brand New Pair of Roller Skates (You got a Brand New Key) Paradise, Put Up a Parking Lot, Dobie Gray, Drift Away, Lean on Me, Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song, Those Were the Days, Leaving on a Jet Plane, John Denver or was it the Mamas and the Papas? The Loving Spoonful, The Hollys, The Turtles! Imagine Me & You (So Happy Together). Geez, you openef the floodgates Professor. Sorry for the rant. I absolutely loved Rod Stuart back in the day. Not just Maggie Mae though. Reason to Believe hit my heart really hard. It was difficult to find it on the radio though. When I was at the orphanage, I was amazed to discover (and delighted) that kids were allowed to have their own stereos! Not just the record players we gathered around in the garage, but PIONEER Speakers and Albums, not just 45s! It was a fantastic time to come of age lisltening to all of these bands, some which were already legends and on their way out, like The Beatles, and then their was The Who, and the Rock Opera Tommy and Quadraphenia. Cream and Deep Purple, Santana, Black Sabbath. Wow, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, The Bee Gees, Elton John, Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix! Double tragedy there. I could go on and on. All of this great music got me through my childhood. While I cried to so many of these songs, I also go high to a lot of them. Now I look back and feel nostalgic. A burning wish to go back there, turn back time and just be a spectator to my own life as I was forced to live it for a time. Sorry for the rant. I'm sure there won''t be many who read this whole dessertation, but hey, anybody who did, thanks and I hope Maggie Mae brought you some of the comfort it eventually brought to me. I always knew the song was about sex, even as a naive 14 year old. I didn't know it was about THAT part of it though! I just thought that this older woman was getting it on with a young kid who didn't mind at all, but knew it was time to be moving on. Musical awakening was amazing, but sexual awakenings were still years away. There's a soundtrack for that too...

I was in my High school gym class on the weight scale when it came on for the first time. Because of that song I have remembered my weight from that day and because of that I have tried to stay at that weight all my life. I was 155 at 17 and now at 67 I'm 160. Thanks Maggie.

Prof, no one takes me back to my youth like you. Really enjoy the stories of songs and artists from the late 60's and 70's. Thanks for your hard work.

Reason to Believe is a great song. Every Picture Tells A Story doesn't have a bad track, but Maggie May is clearly the best. I love playing this album in its entirety.

That mandolin makes this song.

In 1971, I was an 18 year old soldier, stationed in Virginia, when first heard Maggie May. I became a Rod Stewart fan, on the spot. 52 years later, nearly to the day, I listened, with misty eyes, as he sang Maggie May, in concert, in Reno, Nevada. ❤

Nobody here mentioning "the first cut is the deepest" among their favorite Rod Stewart songs. 😢

Every time I hear this song I flash back to the first time I heard it: I was 15, in the backseat of a car with my girlfriend Linda and her friend Judy, along with Judy's boyfriend Eugene who was up in the front seat, as we were being driven back by Judy's mom from a day trip we took up some mountain in Northwest Oregon during the summer of 1971. The warm afternoon sun was shining through the car window, and as we drove down the mountainside Maggie May came on the radio and Judy's mom turned it up. It's one of the fondest memories of my teenage years :⁠-⁠)

"Every Picture Tells a Story" album is one of my favorite albums of all time! Mandolin Winds is incredible!

Seals and Crofts used mandolin quite a bit in their music: Hummingbird, Summer Breeze, We Will Never Pass This Way Again, etc.

I was in first grade when this was on the radio. My grandpa used to drive us to school. He hated anything to do with hippies and rock music, but he always sang along to Maggie May when we were in the car. He also made an exception for Neil Young's Heart of Gold.

I’m 70 and the first song from rod stewart that I heard and loved was Maggie may

Maggie May dominated the air waves in 71. You couldn’t go an hour without hearing it on one station or another. Simpler times.

I never knew that this song was autobiographical. Rod was my dearly departed mother's favourite singer.

I was 23. She was 38. Met her at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club watching Kenny Burell. Got her number. I called her and we hooked up. Best night of my young life. We ravished each other all night long. The next morning I was ready to propose marriage. She rushed me out the door and said she had a situation with someone else. And so it goes. For all I know I could have a kid in London. I'm 60 now, so she would be 75. But I am still in love with her. Ah memories.

Amazing how much energy Rod Stewart had during his concerts back in the day. He would literally sprint from one end of the stage to the other repeatedly for 2 hours... You can see that soccer training in him for sure!

Maggie Mae playing full blast while dancing on the porch with my 3 kids on a rainy afternoon! Best memory ever

"Do ya Think I'm Sexy" was my introduction to Rod Stewart right around the time I was going through my version thereof. Maggie May was one that had to grow on me, and it certainly has.

AS a 10 year old in 1971, all this music just blows me away because I still love it and the memories attached to it are never-ending. What a time to grow up - especially as a music lover! And yes, I've made music an important part of raising our kids - my wife's father, in fact, was in the Wrecking Crew, so her life in LA vs me in PA, was very much surrounded by music and musicians!

Rod 😮 Maggie May was such a Staple in the early 70's 😮

I remember when this song came out in 1971. It was instantly likable and refreshingly original! Such a feel good song, it takes me back!

My name is Margaret "Maggie" (not May), and I cannot tell you how many times parts of this song have been sung to me. As a young woman boys would say the only part of the song that really fit me was the mandolin solo. Because I love the mandolin and the way it's played in Maggie May, I always took that as the sweetest possible compliment. I have watched one of Rod's rare interviews where he was asked if the woman who inspired the song was the only older woman he was ever with. Rod just smiled and said he could not answer that question.

My girlfriend and I went by ourselves to see Rod the bod in San Diego... about 1979. Floor seats..he was amazing

No one sounds like Rod. The most distinctive and unique sounding singing voice I've ever heard.

I love his music! Thanks so much for spotlighting him! No one talks about him any more. His music has a genuinely unique sound simply because his voice was so different than anyone else’s. Such a great talent!

I was born in 1966 so the songs from the late 60s and early70s got imrpinted in my brain. i recognize most of them almost instantly when I hear them. My mom also loved Rod and would sing his songs whenever they come on the radio. I bought her the big box set of Rod singing classic songs for Christmas the year it came out. Listening to your program just now brought back somee GOOD memories which I need since she passed away on April 5th. Music has such power!

one of the greatest songs ever! “All ya did was wreck my bed,& in the morning kick me head. . .You stole my heart, but I love ya anyway” rock n roll gold! Bobbie Ritchie ROCKED this when he opened The LCA in Detroit in 2018, about the best live cover I saw!

Maggie May was SO overplayed that I just got sick of it.

One of the first songs I remember hearing when I got my first transistor radio!!

Maggie May was the very first song I heard from Rod the Mod and this was back when I was in elementary school. Been a big fan ever since. Such a marvelous song🤘😎🤙

Maggie May feels so timeless. Another Great job Professor!

The mandolin is an instrument I always liked. Maggie May and Young Turks are my favorites from Rod. You covered this before.

I was in high school when Maggie May was such a big hit. Our school bus driver would play rock on the radio. I think Maggie May was his favorite because every time that station played it the driver would turn the volume way up, with everyone on the bus singing loud with it. Thanks for jogging my memory.

Loved the video abt Sir Rod and the back story about Maggie May. My favorite part, however, was your beautiful words about your parents. Warmed my ❤. 🥹

I got divorced in 86. Before I met my now husband...I dated younger men for a time. I often thought of this song (morning light really showing my age). When I was 56 I think, a 21 year old was soooo persistent with the whole flirtation and come-ons...I said (after trying many other ways to say no) I actually yelled, I'M NOT GOING TO BE YOUR MAGGIE MAY! He had no clue whatsoever. I just had to SMH and walk away. Wry laugh escaping as I walk. Yup I'm friggen old. 😊😅😂

I’ll never forget the first time I heard this song. I was in the 10th grade and everyone was singing it! That was the autumn of 1971. Very nostalgic ☺️

Late 60s early 70s, great time for the mandolin in popular music !

Nice tribute to your parents! You're a good son! 👍🏼

"Maggie May" and "Hotel California" - the two most overplayed songs on classic rock radio stations. LOL - but I still love 'em. I didn't really discover Rod Stewart until his 80's hits. It was then that I started noticing his older hits - this song included, and I found that I really liked them. So many great tunes!

I'd say that Maggie May is Rod's best song as a solo artist, and within a group it would be hands down Stay With Me...also about an unknown woman named Rita.

" If I listened long enough to you, I'd find a way to believe that it's all true.. Knowing- that you lied, Straight-faced ,while I cried. Still I look to find a reason to believe.."

In 1971, I was 11. My dad passed in March of that year. I spent many hours listening to my AM only radio. Maggie was/is my favorite. I didn't know the meaning. It was Rod's voice that did it for me. My daughter calls him her "real" father. My husband really doesn't like Rod but he took me to a concert in 2007. Rod was AMAZING! Thanks Rod for keeping this lonely, sad youngster company through a very dark time!

This song brings back so many "good" memories. When it first came out in the Summer of 1971 [late?], I was in the last throes of my stint in Vietnam. Being there, I know I didn't hear it very often --- not until I returned Stateside. When I returned in September, I remember hearing it more frequently which I liked. After "moving" to my permanent base in Las Vegas in October, 1971, I had fallen in love with this song. It became a "comfort song" on the radio when I bought my 1964 Buick [Skylark] and would drive it twice a month (weekends) to Los Angeles and back. I know KHJ 93.5 AM radio station in Los Angeles played it a lot --- which was still not enough for me to listen to.

This song has always had a special place in my heart, I've loved it since I first heard it decades ago. Coincidentally - at my birthday party a couple weeks ago, a friend caught a video clip of myself and my fellow musicians playing an acoustic rendition of - you guessed it - 'Maggie May.' Playing on the song were musical mates from my first band all the way to my current band, spanning over 50 years of my own musical career, all making beautiful music together. It was awesome. What a great song, great memories.

Unless you were smart enough to keep your old physical media, you can't hear most of the original great cuts anymore. Everything gets remastered and made too perfect. I'm betting if you stream Maggie Mae today it's been remastered in the last few years. I don't even wanna check.

This was touching and beautiful my friend. Teared up. Maggie May has teared me up in the past as well. Great memories….

What an incredible and unique voice. What a library of great songs he has. Rockin' Rod.

Maggie May is a gem, BUT Reason to Believe and Sailing are my two Rod Favs, You Wear it Well ain't bad either LOVED Rod in the 70's!!!

My friends and I singing it together, we knew every word. Did that with so many songs.. what a time to be young and into music, still know and love those Girls, we're all 64 this year 😂😂

I bought two tickets to the very first concert for me and my high school girlfriend in 1976. It was at the War Memorial in Rochester NY. Blue Oyster Cult opened up for Rod Stewart and Faces with the great Ron Wood playing lead guitar. The whole show was awesome, and I still can hear a lot of it in my timeless soul almost 48 years ago.

Stay With Me, Hand Bags & Glad Rags, & Maggie, a holy trinity of rock n roll saloon songs! Rod fing rules!! Been waitin for this one Prof!!!

I know much about music, all genres, because I am passionate about music and always have been, but I had no idea about the true story behind this song. I don't mean that as patting myself on the back but as a means of saying thank you for deepening an already considerable musical education. Love this channel!

Rod's material has always been outstanding. I like his Small Faces / Faces material as well.