Rod Stewart has a closet full of hit songs, most of which have a decided rock-and-roll feel - particularly his 1971 classic Maggie May. Stewart admitted that he was dead set against the whole idea, that he couldn't imagine some of his songs with strings. But he admitted that the effect worked, bringing out the tender parts of the ballads.
Watch and make up your own mind. Note that Maggie does start out slow, but picks up nicely. And the video has some fun shots of Rod interacting with the musicians like he might onstage - which had to be a new experience for the Philharmonic.