Maggie may

[Dray]

Enjoyed the home page story about the mandolin player
who played Maggie May for Rod Stewart. I recently ordered
the book "20 Easy Songs for Mandolin" by Hal Leonard for
the main reason of learning the song Maggie May included
in the book. I only read tab, and when I received the book
today it's in standard notation. What a bummer, and I
don't read standard notation. Is there a book or course
that decribes learing standard notation as easy as possible?

Thanks
DRay

[mandolirius]

Yeah, it was interesting to find out who that was and the story behind the solo. It's odd it was such an obscure bit of info considering that it really is the most recognizable mandolin solo, at least in North America. When people find out I play mandolin, more often than not, they'll mention "Maggie May" or at least Rod Stewart. It's funny that some people thought it was Rod the Mod playing it. I mean, I would have guessed Paul McCartney.

[swampstomper]

Well, this is a perfect opportunity/motivation to learn standard notation!! There are lots of threads here about that. According to the mandolinist it was a simple part in open position so there shouldn't be any problem figuring out fingerings, assuming the transcription is correct.

[JayFray]

Hey Dray,
I just got Debora Chen's book Standard Notation for the Tab-Addicted Mandolinist and its helping me towards freedom... Check it out, this is the review on the mandocafe:

http://www.mandolincafe.com/news/pub...ns_00679.shtml

[GTG]

I enjoyed the story too. I went to Youtube to have a listen to the tune and remind myself what the mando solo sounded like. Afterwards, I was kinda surprised that Ray claimed he never managed to duplicate the sound he got, because, well, I didn't think the tone was anything all that special - kind of thin and tinny to my ears, although perhaps appropriate for the simple melody line.

Being a typical angst-ridden teenager and not too interested in Rod Stewart, I think the first bit of mando playing I ever heard was probably Zeppelin's Battle of Evermore.

[mandolirius]

I enjoyed the story too. I went to Youtube to have a listen to the tune and remind myself what the mando solo sounded like.

Being a typical angst-ridden teenager and not too interested in Rod Stewart, I think the first bit of mando playing I ever heard was probably Zeppelin's Battle of Evermore.

I was thinking about that one. I mean, now that the most-listened to solo has been established, what's the second-most? It could be Battle of Evermore.

[Perry Babasin]

I was a big Rod Stewart fan (mostly with Jeff Beck and Small Faces) but I was also a big Lindisfarne fan and never knew the connection, that was pretty cool to hear the background story. I think the tone he was referring to was on the recorded version, I'm not sure what you saw on Youtube. Zeppelin's Evermore was also excellent but during this same time period Dave Swarbrick (mostly fiddle) with Fairport Convention, and Ry Cooder were doing some awesome, non-bluegrass, mando picking.

Thanks................. Perry

[jefflester]

I was thinking about that one. I mean, now that the most-listened to solo has been established, what's the second-most? It could be Battle of Evermore.

Another candidate would be "Losing My Religion." Battle of Evermore is not a song that's ever gotten much airplay, but the album has certainly been bought (and played) by many listeners over the years.

Of course "mandolin solo" could also be up for debate here.

[woodwizard]

Copperhead Road is one thats got quite a bit of air time.

[JeffD]

When I was sampling mandolins in NYC several months ago, the salesman took out a beautiful vintage Gibson white face A, and played Maggie May and Losing My Religion - stuff everyone would know.

[Martin Jonas]

I hadn't seen the discussion here when I started my own thread about the Ray Jackson/Maggie May story here, along with various Youtube links to Lindisfarne/Ray Jackson clips.

Martin

[Dray]

Thanks Guys, and I enjoyed the discussion.

DRay

[Martin Jonas]

I think the tone he was referring to was on the recorded version, I'm not sure what you saw on Youtube.

It wasn't my post, but I would think the Youtube clip referred to by GTG was this one, shown on BBC Top Of The Pops in 1971. The clip has Stewart and The Faces miming to the original studio recording, so the mando tone should be the same as on the album (although of course heavily compressed and degraded through both the original broadcast and then the Youtube-encoding). As a point of curiosity, this is the TOTP clip that has John Peel posing with a mandolin making a very perfunctory attempt at pretending he's playing Jackson's solo. As a matter of fact, the entire band is not very serious in pretending to play their instruments -- at one stage Ron Wood and the bass player are having a play fight off stage and rush back when they notice they missed the cue for the instrumental break, and during the mandolin break they kick a football around...

Martin

[GTG]

Yeah, I saw a couple of Youtube clips that were based off the studio recording - definitely not the best sound quality with YT, but really not that far off what you might hear on a car stereo (especially in 1971). I didn't mean to put down Jackson't solo, just didn't think the tone was special enough for anyone to go to great effort to replicate it.

[Elliot Luber]

Yeah. One of the great things about that solo is that it's not too hard to play. It's been encouraging beginning mandolin players for years. I mean when I learned violin as a child it was five years before I could play anything respectable, much less sound like the record.