Rod Stewart - Maggie May

Roderick David "Rod" Stewart,(born 10 January 1945) is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England.

With his distinctive raspy singing voice, Stewart came to prominence in the late 1960s and early 1970s with The Jeff Beck Group and then Faces. He launched his solo career in 1969 with his debut album An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down (US: The Rod Stewart Album). His work with The Jeff Beck Group and Faces proved to be influential on the formation of the punk rock and heavy metal genres.

With his career in its fifth decade, Stewart has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best selling artists of all time. In the UK, he has garnered six consecutive number one albums, and his tally of 62 hit singles include 31 that reached the top 10, six of which gained the number one position.

He has had 16 top ten singles in the U.S, with four of these reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100. In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked him the 17th most successful artist on the "The Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists".He was voted at #33 in Q Magazine's list of the top 100 Greatest Singers of all time. In 1994, Stewart was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"Maggie May" is a song written by Rod Stewart and Martin Quittenton and recorded by Stewart in 1971 for his album Every Picture Tells a Story.

"Maggie May" expresses the ambivalence and contradictory emotions of a young man 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 more or less a true story, about the first woman I had sex with, at the Beaulieu Jazz Festival." The reference to returning to school in "late September" refers to the Michaelmas term, the first academic term of the academic year of many British and Irish universities.

It was initially released in the United Kingdom as the B-side of the single "Reason to Believe," but DJs became fonder of the B-side and, after two weeks on the charts, the song was reclassified, with "Maggie May" becoming the A-side. However, the single continued to be pressed with "Maggie May" as the B-side.

In October 1971, the song went to number one in the UK and simultaneously topped the charts in the United States. Every Picture Tells a Story achieved the same status at the same time, a feat achieved by only a handful of performers, most notably The Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel. The song also topped the charts in Australia for four weeks at the same time.

The song was Stewart's first substantial hit as a solo performer and launched his solo career. It remains one of his best-known songs.

The song re-entered the UK charts in December 1976, but only reached number 31.

Most versions of "Maggie May" (especially on some Rod Stewart compilations) incorporate a 30-second solo guitar intro, "Henry", composed by Martin Quittenton.

In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the song #130 on their list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.