Who plays mandolin on the Rod Stewart classic ‘Maggie May’?
He had already risen to relative fame as part of the Jeff Beck Group, this was further solidified when he joined the Small Faces alongside Ronnie Wood, but Rod Stewart was catapulted to true rock superstardom in 1971 with his single ‘Maggie May’.
A song written from a chastening early sexual experience became his signature hit and arguably one that he never managed to surpass in music terms. Although we might never know the real woman behind the song’s titular character, we do know that Stewart needed some help from fellow Faces member Ronnie Wood and folk guitarist Martin Quittenton to finish its composition.
It’s Quittenton’s courtly acoustic solo that introduces the full version of the track, while Wood’s supple lead part sparkles during two wordless middle eighths. Then, there’s Ian McLagan’s Hammond organ which fleshes out its sound with a rich tapestry of loose counter-melodic chords reminiscent of Dylan’s early electric records, particularly ‘Positively Fourth Street’.
The cherry on the cake, though, is the coda, fingerpicked on a mandolin. Its uniqueness adds a level of definitive magic to the iconic track. Following Wood’s second solo break, which is stuck between Micky Waller’s formulaic drum beats, this instrumental changeup lends amazing extra emotional weight to the final minute of the song. It brings into sonic focus the bittersweet sentiments of a young lover who feels used and neglected by his older sexual partner.
The more archaic or European sentiments attached to a mandolin conjure up an almost Shakespearean romanticism to the song. Beyond the tone, its singular timbre whisks your mind off to scenes from Roman Holiday or some orange grove in the South of Spain, where seemingly a mulleted rock singer is frolicking.
This mandolin part was the work of a specialist musician from the English traditional folk act Lindisfarne. Stewart had originally drafted him in to play on the song ‘Mandolin Wind’ from his debut album Every Picture Tells a Story. However, he soon came up with a hook that worked for both the opening and closing bars of ‘Maggie May’, for which he believes he should have been given a songwriting co-credit. While Wood played the opening instrumental lines on a twelve-string guitar, the end of the song was pure mandolin.
Who was this mandolin specialist, then?
On the liner notes for Every Picture Tells a Story, Rod Stewart wrote, “The mandolin was played by the mandolin player in Lindisfarne. The name slips my mind.” That name was Ray Jackson, and Stewart won’t be forgetting it in a hurry since Jackson threatened to sue him for songwriting royalties in 2003.
“When you walk away from the session, you get your cash in your hand, and you get your musicians’ union fee,” Jackson later told the BBC, explaining he received “£15 at the time” for the song. That’s the equivalent of about £270 in 2025/2026. And Stewart not even bothering to mention him by name in the liner notes, when a simple check wouldn’t have taken long, further soured the taste for Jackson.
When ‘Maggie May’ became a global smash, the Lindisfarne strummer was snubbed for Stewart’s appearance on British music chart show Top of the Pops, with DJ John Peel miming the mandolin in his place. “I was a bit disappointed,” he admitted. But he’s proud of his part in the song’s legacy all the same. “It’s quite strange,” he added. “It still knocks you sideways when you hear it after all these years.”
It carries a sort of serene beauty, tapping into the nostalgia of youth, and it would never have been the same song without Jackson’s wistful orchestration on the most romantic of instruments.
