With his distinctive throaty, almost scratchy-sounding voice, Stewart decided to take on some of the classic songs and make them his own with It Had to be You: The Great American Songbook (2002). A few years later, he released Unplugged and Seated (1993), which was recorded at MTV Unplugged concert and featured the hit "Have I Told You Lately." His remake of the Tom Waits song "Downtown Train" in 1989 received a lot of radio play. He ended the decade on a positive note, however. While 1981's Tonight I'm Yours went platinum, the albums that followed did not fare as well. The 1980s proved to be more challenging for Stewart. With 1978's Blondes Have More Fun, he had another smash hit single with "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" He also developed a reputation for his partying lifestyle and for dating numerous actresses and models. Stewart continued to have a slicker, more pop sound as the decade progressed. charts with "Tonight's the Night" from A Night on the Town. The next year, he reached the top of the U.S. Stewart moved to the United States in 1975. That same year, the Faces had a hit with the song "Stay With Me." Career Highlights Stewart also performed as a solo artist and scored his first big solo success with the album Every Picture Tells A Story, which featured the hit single "Maggie May" in 1971. Ron Wood was one of his bandmates and became a member of the Rolling Stones. In 1969, he joined what became known as the Faces. The group toured the United Kingdom and the United States and released two hit albums. In 1966, he joined the blues-influenced Jeff Beck Group and experienced his first taste of success. He worked a series of odd jobs, including working as a grave digger, before his singing career took off.ĭuring the 1960s, Stewart was a part of several different bands. Born into a working-class family, Stewart excelled at soccer. Roderick David Stewart was born on January 10, 1945, in London, England. He experienced a career lull during the 1980s and only had a few hits in the 1990s, but came back strong singing the classics in the 2000s, winning a Grammy Award for best traditional pop vocal album in 2004. Moving to the United States in 1975, Stewart's hit songs included "Tonight's the Night" (1976) and "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" (1978). Embarking on a solo career, "Maggie May" became his first hit single in 1971. What I learned is sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.Known for his signature raspy voice, British singer-songwriter Rod Stewart performed in several U.K. I figured it was best to listen to the guys who knew better. “I guess that's because the record company didn't believe in the song. "At first, I didn't think much of ‘Maggie May," Stewart told The Wall Street Journal in 2015. Radio, however, started to favor playing “Maggie May,” and before long, it not only topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic but, indeed, transformed Stewart – then still best known as the frontman for the Faces – onto a superstar in his own right. If you’re wondering why we’ve referenced both “Maggie May” and “Reason to Believe,” the Tim Hardin cover that Stewart recorded, well, that’s because – believe it or not – it was actually the latter song that was the A-side of this single. Written by Stewart, the song was – per a 2007 interview with its composer in Q Magazine –“more or less a true story about the first woman I had sex with, at the 1961 Beaulieu Jazz Festival.” No, he clarified, her name was not Maggie May: he admitted to swiping that name / title from an old Liverpudlian song about a prostitute, which can’t exactly be a great point of reference to discover if you’re the actual inspiration for the song. Aye, it was a pretty good few weeks for “Maggie May,” and it wasn’t half bad for Rod Stewart, either! 46 years ago this month, Rod Stewart began a five-week reign atop the Billboard Hot 100…and a week later he kicked off a five-week reign atop the UK Singles chart with the same song.
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