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?

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

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

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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. ❤

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.

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 :⁠-⁠)

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.

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!

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

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!

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.

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...

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!

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.