Steely Dan on track

Sonicbond Publishing Limited

www.sonicbondpublishing.co.uk

Email: [email protected]

First Published in the United Kingdom 2020

First Published in the United States 2020

This digital edition 2022

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Copyright Jez Rowden 2019

ISBN 978-1-78952-043-9

The rights of Jez Rowden to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Sonicbond Publishing Limited

Printed and bound in England

Graphic design and typesetting: Full Moon Media

Acknowledgements

Firstly, I must extend a huge thank you to Stephen Lambe and all at Sonicbond for giving me the opportunity to write this book and more fully familiarise myself with a band that has resonated deeply with me for many years. It has been a fascinating journey, learning more about these wonderful songs and getting closer to the wickedly devious minds of the perpetrators. To that end, I must also offer my deepest appreciation to Donald Fagen and Walter Becker themselves, for going the extra mile and making these songs as good as they could be – the results achieved speak for themselves and are often extraordinary.

Big thanks to Roger Trenwith and Mel Allen for their insights on the draft manuscript, allowing for significant improvements to be made to the finished item you now hold, also to Kevan Furbank for his support.

Last – but certainly not least – to my long-suffering wife Paula (‘Dan-widow’ over many months) I offer my heartfelt love and thanks. During a particularly testing period for us, writing this book – for good or ill – has helped to keep me going, and I would never have got anywhere near finishing it without you. Love you lots x

This book is dedicated to Walter Carl Becker (1950-2017)

Contents

Foreword

Donald and Walter – The Early Years

The Birth of The Dan

Can’t Buy a Thrill (1972)

Countdown to Ecstasy (1973)

Pretzel Logic (1974)

Katy Lied (1975)

The Royal Scam (1976)

Aja (1977)

Gaucho (1980)

The Nightfly (1982) (Donald Fagen Solo)

Interregnum (1982-1993)

Kamakiriad (1993) (Donald Fagen Solo)

11 Tracks of Whack (1994) (Walter Becker Solo)

Alive in America (1995)

Two Against Nature (2000)

Plush TV Jazz-Rock Party (2000)

Everything Must Go (2003)

Morph the Cat (2006) (Donald Fagen Solo)

Circus Money (2008) (Walter Becker Solo)

Sunken Condos (2012) (Donald Fagen Solo)

Live 2013 – 2017, Becker’s Death & Beyond

Postscript

Appendices

Becker & Fagen’s Early Recordings: 1968-1971

You’ve Got to Walk It Like You Talk It or You’ll Lose That Beat (OST) (1971)

Official Compilations

20 Dan Deep Cuts

Bibliography & References

Foreword

‘Any major dude will tell you…’

It’s true. Anyone with a decent knowledge of popular music should be able to tell you that Steely Dan is one of the finest bands to emerge in the 1970s – or indeed at any time.

But is it a band? Yes. No.

Yes and No?

Initially at least, starting out as a traditional rock band, but always under the control of arch songwriting savants Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, as an outlet for their idiosyncratic songs. Despite having other band members on board in the early days, the weirdly dynamic and deviously ‘other’ nature of the duo’s songs were always at the heart of the matter. Becker and Fagen perpetually sought ways to present them in the best light, ultimately backing away from live performance to hone their studio work, with the help of some of the best session musicians around.

Band or not, I’ll often refer to Steely Dan as such within the body of this text. But if these things need to be sorted out at all, Steely Dan is an aesthetic, a way of doing things, a standard of excellence, a world view, a knowing wink and a muffled chuckle at the situations people continue to get themselves involved in. It is a trademark and one that has the word ‘Quality’ woven into it in immaculate stitching.

After several years of working to get their songs heard in their native New York, a series of fortunate breaks led Becker and Fagen to California and the formation of the band that was to become Steely Dan in 1972. The lucky breaks continued to make the band a massive hit with listeners – even if most of them were unaware of the depravity going on within the darkly comic yet smoothly upbeat songs.

The songs sparkled and fizzed, but with their penchant for jazz, R’n’B, soul and doo-wop, the pop songs they wrote were always going to be different; pop songs played by a rock band underpinned with jazz. The Groove was always where it was at for them, Fagen confirming that ‘when you get a groove going, time flies.’ Nothing interfered with The Groove, the result being some of the most rhythmically catchy songs ever written. Crucial to the success of the band were producer Gary Katz, who understood what they were trying to do, and engineer Roger Nichols, who added the fairy dust that made Dan albums sound like no one else, becoming legendary in the world of engineering.

There’s a quote in the booklet of the Citizen Steely Dan boxed collection that says that Steely Dan ‘were busy being the band of the ‘90s way back in the ‘70s’. I’d go further; Steely Dan is a band for all time, with a catalogue of songs that rank right up there with anyone – and I include the Beatles in that – a timeless body of work that will hopefully mesmerise and seduce for generations to come. If you’re unsure of the quality inherent within the Dan discography, I think it’s fair to say that you can drop the proverbial needle at any point within it and come up with gold. A remarkable achievement.

This book endeavours to look at the careers of rock ’n’ roll’s most successful outsiders, with specific consideration to the songs, not in an academic sense but with the unexcused enthusiasm of a fan, in the hope that it encourages more people to listen, or for those who know the songs to listen a little more deeply. You won’t regret it. We’ll look at all the Steely Dan albums and all the officially released songs, plus many unreleased recordings (available to hear online and well worth seeking out as they underline the quality even in songs they chose to discard). We’ll look at the early demo material recorded by Walter and Donald prior to forming Steely Dan, official live releases and solo albums (but not unreleased solo tracks). Compilations are covered briefly, but unofficial live recordings are omitted, as are cover versions played by the reconvened touring band in recent years.

The lyrics of Becker and Fagen are often inscrutable and open to interpretation – and many interpretations are available. The ones included here are the ones I favour; they are not meant to be in any way definitive so feel free to come up with your own.

With over 40 million album sales, numerous hit singles and an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, from humble beginnings many of the songs of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen have entered the wider consciousness, the single-minded determination of the pair and their wilful belief in their output helping them to achieve greater success than they could ever have imagined. However, I wonder how many listeners realise the depth of the intricate beauty and detail with which these songs are imbued? The hardcore Dan fanatics know, drawn into a bizarre world of lowlifes, scoundrels and illicit deeds, sharply at odds with the shining smoothness of the music.

Walter Becker and Donald Fagen: the coolest, baddest, funkiest mofos ever to surf The Groove.

Donald and Walter – The Early Years

Donald Jay Fagen was born in Passaic, New Jersey on 10 January 1948, moving to the suburb of Fair Lawn in 1958 and then to South Brunswick. ‘I think I lost faith in my parents’ judgment’, he said of his distaste for the suburbs, ‘it was probably the first time I realised I had my own view of life.’

He became interested in rock and R&B at around ten years old, his first record was Chuck Berry’s ‘Reelin’ and Rockin’’, quickly moving on to jazz via late-night radio stations. Fagen later stated that he liked the music, but even at that early stage, he saw jazz as an appealing ‘cultural alternative’. During the early 1960s, he saw and was inspired by many of the luminaries of the genre, including Count Basie’s band at Birdland: ‘When the whole band pumped out one of those thirteenth chords, you could feel the breeze on your face.’ He learnt piano, largely self-taught, but never wanted to be a singer. A few years later he became drawn to funk, soul, and Motown, all influences on his later work.

Fagen studied English Literature at the liberal Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson from 1965, meeting Walter Becker in 1967 after overhearing him playing guitar at a campus café and liking what he heard – ‘an authentic blues touch and feel, and a convincing vibrato’.

Walter Carl Becker was born on 20 February 1950 in Queens, New York. His parents separated when he was young, his mother moving back to her native England, and he lived with his father and grandmother in Eastchester. He started learning saxophone but moved to guitar under the influence of neighbour and future Spirit guitarist Randy California, whose mother taught Walter his first chords. He graduated from high school in 1967 before moving on to Bard College.

Becker and Fagen discovered mutual literary, cinematic and musical influences, and immediately began writing songs together. From the limited pool of musicians available at Bard they formed various bands, including The Leather Canary with fellow student Chevy Chase on drums (who later described the group as ‘a bad jazz band’), and enjoyed the beatnik lifestyle.

Becker flunked out of college in 1968 and they moved to Brooklyn to begin building a career as songwriters, prior to Fagen graduating in 1969. Hawking their wares around the Brill Building, starting at the top floor and working their way down, knocking on doors as they went, they had little initial success but eventually arrived at the fourth-floor office of Jay and the Americans, a pop band who had achieved success in the early ‘60s, including opening for both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones at their first US shows. There they met band founder Kenny Vance, who recalled that ‘Fagen was basically a nonentity in terms of social interaction. Walter was the front man, more of the spokesperson for the two of them.’ They didn’t have a tape so played some songs with Fagen at the office piano. Vance didn’t hear pop potential, but he knew there was something there – ‘It was like aliens had landed in the Brill Building’; the songs were different, quirky. He signed them to a publishing deal and hired them as sidemen for Jay and the Americans.

They arranged horns and strings for the Americans and spent about 18 months touring as bassist and keyboard man (under the pseudonyms Gus Mahler and Tristan Fabriani), amusing themselves by subtly mocking their employers whenever possible, and played on the group’s last Top 20 hit, ‘Walkin’ in the Rain’. Singer Jay Black dubbed them ‘the Manson and Starkweather of rock ‘n’ roll’ (after Charles Manson and spree-killer Charles Starkweather) and later remembered them as ‘cocksuckers who I may kick in the ass next time I see them’, although he admired their skills – ‘There are no finer songwriters in the country … If they don’t blow it by being assholes, they’ll be around for a long time.’

Becker shared Fagen’s jazz and soul influences and the pair also drew inspiration from Bob Dylan and The Band’s Music from Big Pink. Describing their influences, Becker later said, ‘I think we were trying to be as musically sophisticated as we could, and that wasn’t really a priority for a lot of people, and still isn’t. A lot of people want things to be as rootsy and gutsy as possible, which is very valid too … I think a lot of people were influenced by the same things we were. Old jazz records, classical ideas...’

Between 1968 and 1971 they wrote dozens of songs, 28 of which are known to have been recorded as lo-fi demos to promote their songwriting, a handful of these later reappearing in completed form on Steely Dan albums. In 1989, Becker noted that there were some ‘very very strange things and people didn’t react as favourably to them as we had hoped at the time. So, this gradually showed us that we perhaps had to tone down certain elements of what we were doing. And I think it was a maturing process, too. We were wise-ass college kids writing bizarre, somewhat grotesque things and gradually we moved away from that.’

In 1970, they achieved some success when Barbra Streisand recorded their ‘I Mean to Shine’ for her Barbra Joan Streisand album, released in August 1971. Producer Richard Perry changed the arrangement and some of the words, but it was their first professionally recorded song, Fagen playing Hammond organ for the session. You can certainly hear elements of Steely Dan in the chording, Fagen later saying, ‘Not a good song, but at least she recorded it.’

Also in 1970, in a deal orchestrated by Kenny Vance, Becker and Fagen were contracted to compose music for the soundtrack of low-budget comedy-drama film You’ve Got to Walk It Like You Talk It or You’ll Lose That Beat, written and directed by Peter Locke and featuring Richard Pryor in one of his earliest roles. Fagen and Becker had little good to say about these songs, considering them to be basic and underdeveloped. Becker confirmed, in typically direct fashion, ‘we did it for the money’, recording ‘however many minutes’ worth of dog meat is on the album’ for $250 each. Fagen has called their work for the soundtrack ‘nothing to be proud of.’

The early demo recordings and film soundtrack are important in the development of Becker and Fagen’s writing and are considered in the Appendices section of this book.

The Birth of The Dan

In 1971, Walter and Donald’s fortunes began to change. Gary Katz, a friend of Kenny Vance, took a producer job with ABC Dunhill Records in Los Angeles and insisted to his new employers that the duo be hired as staff songwriters. Based on the demos they’d recorded in New York, they were. In 1974, Katz told Rolling Stone, ‘for the first year after I heard their songs, I just couldn’t hear them. Then one day they hit me – wow.’ Becker and Fagen flew to California in November 1971; the trust in Katz would prove to be wise as he would produce all of their 1970s albums.

Growing up in Brooklyn, Katz also started in the music business via friends in Jay and the Americans. He got a job with Bobby Darin and then Avco, before a friend suggested that he write to Jay Lasker at ABC, who subsequently hired him. Katz worked with The Mamas & the Papas, Steppenwolf and Three Dog Night, and as an A&R man signed Jim Croce, Rufus (with Chaka Khan) and Jimmy Buffett.

Becker and Fagen were still under contract to Kenny Vance but, frustrated at the lack of progress, they starting insulting him at every opportunity, and it became obvious to Vance that the relationship could not continue. He, therefore, agreed to tear up the contract in exchange for half of the royalties from their first album. Becker and Fagen readily agreed.

As staff writers, Donald and Walter’s songs were never going to be a good fit for the artists on ABC’s roster. They secretly began to put together their own band, with Gary Katz as producer. They enlisted Denny Dias, who they had met in New York in 1970. They had also encountered Jeff Baxter, agreeing that if there was ever the opportunity to work together, they should get in touch. Baxter had worked with drummer Jim Hodder and recommended him.

A native New Yorker, guitarist Dias had placed an ad in The Village Voice in the summer of 1970: ‘Looking for keyboardist and bassist. Must have jazz chops! Assholes need not apply.’ Fagen and Becker responded, joined Dias’ band and ultimately took it over, starting to play their own songs and firing the rest of the band in the process. Jeff Baxter was born in Washington, DC, joining his first band at 11. In 1966 he met Jimi Hendrix and for a short period played bass in Hendrix’s Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, which also included Randy California. He subsequently played guitar in numerous bands, including Ultimate Spinach, picking up the ‘Skunk’ nickname during this period, the origin of which may have something to do with a friend’s front door and a burning need to urinate whilst intoxicated. New Yorker Jim Hodder played drums and sang with The Bead Game in Boston, where he got to know Baxter.

With Baxter, Hodder and Dias all relocating to Los Angeles, the band was nearly complete with Donald on keyboards and vocals and Walter on bass, but Fagen was not comfortable being lead singer. They struggled to find anyone else with the right feel for the music, at one point asking their new LA buddy Loudon Wainwright III to join (as Fagen noted in 2011, ‘because he’s smirky’), but he declined.

The new band signed to ABC Dunhill and David Palmer was hired as a second lead vocalist, mostly because of Fagen’s occasional stage fright and reluctance to sing in front of an audience, but also because the label believed that Fagen’s voice was not commercial enough. Originally from New Jersey, Palmer had been singing in bands since 1964 and was an acquaintance of Jim Hodder, who recommended him for the role.

Now all that was needed was a name. After going through long lists of possibilities, they eventually came up with Steely Dan. Fans of Beat Generation literature, Fagen and Becker sourced the name from a steam-powered dildo (‘Steely Dan III from Yokohama’) mentioned in William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. The name had first appeared in one of their early demos, ‘Soul Ram’, and they didn’t consider that it would last, as none of the other names they had come up with had. However, it stuck, much to their embarrassment in future years, although Walter ultimately conceded that they liked ‘the suggestion of a big guy named Steely Dan.’

Can’t Buy a Thrill (1972)

Personnel:

David Palmer: Lead & Backing Vocals

Donald Fagen: Keyboards, Lead & Backing Vocals

Walter Becker: Bass, Lead & Backing Vocals

Jeff Skunk Baxter: Guitar, Pedal Steel Guitar, Spoken Word

Denny Dias: Guitar, Electric Sitar

Jim Hodder: Drums & Percussion, Lead & Backing Vocals

Elliott Randall: Guitar

Jerome Richardson: Tenor Saxophone

Snooky Young: Flugelhorn

Victor Feldman: Percussion

Venetta Fields, Clydie King, Sherlie Matthews: Backing