I mean, I know what happened to Rod Stewart. I just can't figure out how he went from being a blues-rock screamer to a tepid crooner singing watered-down pop on adult contemporary radio. I look at an artist like Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant: although he's not screeching out "Whole Lotta Love" like a banshee anymore, he's at least doing some interesting stuff with roots rock and folk. He's sure as hell not groaning his way through Cole Porter songs or recording some tripe that sounds like it was pulled from Celine Dion's scrap heap.
That's why it almost hurts hearing a song like "Maggie May" from 1971's Every Picture Tells a Story. Even though the song isn't a barnburner like some of his work with the band Faces, its rustic folk-rock still has spirit and raw soul.
"Maggie May" is kind of a curious song because it doesn't really have a chorus. It's just string of really well-wrought verses and bridges that tell the story of a doomed May-December romance—purportedly an autobiographical account of a relationship Stewart had with an older woman at the age of 16.
Despite featuring a scorching vocal performance by Stewart and some fine playing by his backing band—especially Ronnie Wood's restless bassline and that famous mandolin line, played by session musician Ray Jackson, his record label thought it "lacked a melody" and regarded it as filler. It was relegated to the B-side of his "Reason to Believe" single, until DJs flipped it and turned it into a #1 hit on both sides of the Atlantic.
No comments:
Post a Comment