My Maria (1973)

Performer: B.W. Stevenson                                  Writers: B.W. Stevenson & Daniel Moore
Highest US Chart Position: #9                              Label: RCA Records
Musicians: B.W. Stevenson, Larry Carlton, Larry Muhoberac, Joe Osborn and Jim Gordon

In terms of popular music, the summers from 1973 through 1976 were the most influential on me. For one thing, this was the period when I really became conscious of pop music within the context of becoming a musician myself. For another, summertime allowed me the luxury of immersing myself in the songs in a way I couldn’t during the school year. And finally, I had the money to be able to purchase the music that resonated with me and began to formulate my own musical taste. One of the lasting influences on me in that very first summer of my musical awakening in 1973 was “My Maria” by B.W. Stevenson. The song is ostensibly a country song, but fits neatly into that category perfected by The Eagles in their early career: country rock. Stevenson was from Dallas, Texas and, after a stint in the Air Force, began playing music professionally. He eventually worked his way to Los Angeles and was signed to a record deal with RCA in 1971. While his first album went nowhere, the music community in Austin lured him back and he played regularly in the area for the next year. When RCA brought him back to L.A. to work with session musicians on his second album it did no better than the first.

Co-composer on this song, Danny Moore, had written an earlier song called “Shambala,” which Stevenson recorded as part of the sessions for his third album, My Maria. When the company released the song as a single it slowly began climbing the charts. But when record executives at ABC heard the song they rushed Three Dog Night into the studio to cover it and that version quickly surpassed Stevenson’s version in the charts and eventually reached number three. For his next single Stevenson decided to collaborate with Moore and came up with the biggest hit of his career. Though Stevenson always felt he had written much better songs it is a powerful tune that has a soaring chorus and a compelling rhythm track that prominently features Stevenson’s acoustic guitar. The song opens with his guitar and the distinctive sound of the cabasa before launching into the verse. Stevenson’s voice is deep and burnished but he has a great upper range and a commanding delivery. Drummer Jim Gordon plays rim-clicks on the snare through the first half of the verse, and his drumming is a major component of the song’s overall impact, from his fills to the use of the bell on the ride cymbal at the end of the verses. The background vocals are especially good as well, and the production values are solid.

The lyrics, though brief at only two verses, are intriguing. There’s a bittersweet quality to the story that has the narrator apparently coming back to see Maria, a woman whose memory alone has helped him through some rough times. And though not expressed directly, as it is in a song like Ronnie Milsap’s “Smokey Mountain Rain,” there’s an inescapable feeling in the chord progression that perhaps she may not still be there. The song was released in July 1973 with “August Evening Lady” on the B-side and hit the number nine spot on the singles chart in late September. Throughout his career, record executives continued to attempt to recapture the crossover magic that he had achieved in this hit by teaming him with studio musicians and L.A. songwriters. But Stevenson was a country artist at heart and it wasn’t until the eighties that he finally extricated himself from the L.A. music scene and began to perform and record the way he had always wanted to. But in 1988 he fell ill and never awakened from the heart operation he underwent to replace a valve lost to endocarditis. His final album was titled Rainbow Down the Road and, while a fitting epitaph to a wonderful singer-songwriter, it is also a tragic reminder of what was lost. Fortunately his haunting performance of “My Maria” will live on forever.