FEATURE:
Glamour Profession
IN THIS PHOTO: Steely Dan (Walter Becker (left) and Donald Fagen) in 1995/PHOTO CREDIT: Lynn Goldsmith
Bringing Steely Dan to the New Generation
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I will keep this relatively brief…
IN THIS PHOTO: Steely Dan (L-R: Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter, Denny Dias, Donald Fagen, Jim Hodder, and Walter Becker) pose in Coldwater Canyon on 22nd September, 1972 in Los Angeles, California/PHOTO CREDIT: Ed Caraeff
but I am of the opinion that Steely Dan remain one of the most underrated acts ever. Consisting Walter Becker (guitars, bass and backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards and lead vocals), the duo were the core of the group, and they worked with a cast of different musicians through their career. The blend of eclectic genres and the incredible musicianship, combined with stunning production and memorable songs, are reasons why Steely Dan should be considered one of the greatest groups/duos ever. Blending in humorous and cryptic (and sometimes caustic) lyrics, they were definitely a lot different to other groups of the Seventies. Founded in 1972, they broke up in 1981, but then returned in 1993. They continued to tour extensively, and 2000’s Two Against Nature arrived twenty years after Gaucho. Steely Dan released Everything Must Go in 2003, and they were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. With over forty-million album sales to their names, it is amazing to think how many people have not heard of Steely Dan! I guess their lack of glamour and yearning for the spotlight is a reason why some missed the band. Steely Dan stopped touring in 1974 to become a studio-only band, and I don’t think any of their songs were ever turned into a music video! I cannot think of any act like that today. Steely Dan, for so many reasons, are the epitome of cool, in the fact that they never followed their contemporaries in terms of promotion and their sound.
The real reason why I wanted to do this feature is because today (3rd September) marks three years since the world lost Walter Becker from esophageal cancer. Becker would have been seventy this year, and it such a shame that he and Donald Fagen will never tour again (there are some good videos of their previous tours). Fagen has continued to tour under the Steely Dan name, and I hope he does for many years – though the very big hole that Becker has left is noticeable and can never be replaced. Obviously, there will never be another Steely Dan album, so the chance to bring new fans in through fresh material is not an option. In November, it will be forty years since Gaucho’s release, and there have been numerous best ofs/greatest hits packages through the years – the best, The Very Best of Steely Dan: Reelin' In the Years, was released in 1985 and 1987 (there were two compilations with the same name and the exact same cover for some reason!). One does hear Steely Dan on the radio but, for the most part, I think their best-known songs are played. One hears a lot of Dirty Work, Do It Again, and Reelin’ in the Years from their remarkable debut, Can’t Buy a Thrill of 1972; occasionally we might hear My Old School from Countdown to Ecstasy (1973); Rikki Don’t Lose That Number from Pretzel Logic (1974); Peg, and Josie from Aja (1977), and maybe Hey Nineteen from Gaucho (1980).
Although Steely Dan have not exactly left a huge archive or live performances and B-sides, so much of their material has not been played and is hardly known. I have talked before how there are very few documentaries dedicated to Steely Dan – this excellent Classic Albums documentary about Aja is must-see. Apart from a couple of their studio albums, it is hard to get hold of a decent copy of the remainder of their albums, and one has to ferret on auction sites and Amazon to get copies of their studio albums second-hand – often they can cost you a small fortune! There is an excellent Steely Dan book by Brian Sweet, but that is about it! I know Steely Dan are not as big as some artists from the Seventies, and their music didn’t necessarily have the commercial edge of many of their peers. Instead, we got this group who were committed to feel and providing the best sonic experiment. Rather than throwing out easy choruses and soundalike songs, each Steely Dan album is unique and bursting with life, layers, and nuance! I grew up round Steely Dan’s music, and I was intrigued from the very start. I have sort of gone over this in other Steely Dan features, but I want to reiterate a couple of points regarding their legacy and why there has been a real lack of retrospective examinations and documentaries.
Like me, I know so many young listeners would fall for Steely Dan, and I have argued why we need a new documentary out into the world. I discovered Steely Dan through vinyl copies of their albums and compilation C.D.s, and I know anyone can get all of their albums on streaming services. Being such studio perfectionists, I think the best way to indoctrinate a generation of new listeners is to make their albums readily available on vinyl. I have mused before why there have not been reissues of the records. Three years after the untimely passing of Walter Becker, I thought someone by now would have either re-released the albums on vinyl, or there would have been an effort to at least remaster Can’t Buy a Thrill. Aja is the only album one can easily access, and it is a real bear trying to get an affordable, good-quality copy of the other albums. It is a shame, as I do not think Steely Dan’s music is a remnant of a past time or was cool once and sounds dated now. If anything, their music sounds sharper and more amazing in 2020 than when I was listening to them back in the 1990s. They are one of the few bands/artists in history who put out filler-free albums time and time again.
One cannot really call Steely Dan a singles band, as they are a classic albums band, in the sense that every track is essential, and they were not consciously writing particular songs to get a lot of airplay and fame – maybe there was a bit of that on Can’t Buy a Thrill but, when David Palmer’s (who was their lead singer on that album) blue-eyed Soul voice took the group in the wrong direction, he was surplus to requirements by the second album! Some of their songs have a radio-friendly tone, but I think Steely Dan were much more about the quality of their albums and put out singles as a formality. As so many artists of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties are seeing their albums remastered and are subject to retrospection, that seems to have passed Steely Dan by. It would be a shame if their music were overlooked by young listeners, as I don’t think the group have a particular demographic. Yes, there is some smart and sophisticated songwriting, but Walter Becker and Donald Fagen were never writing for the hipsters or an elite demographic. Similarly, one cannot call them Jazz-Rock or label them easily as, on every album, they were bringing in elements of other styles. I hope there are some tributes to Walter Becker today, as I can scarcely believe it has been three years since he died, but the importance and power of Steely Dan’s music remains. One can get carried away and say there should be a Steely Dan musical (which would be great), or a T.V. show that uses their songs in the story (another good idea). I think a radio documentary is long-overdue, and one would welcome the remastering of all their studio albums, alongside the essential greatest hits package – and live albums for that matter! With news that the long-lost song from Gaucho, The Second Arrangement, has been discovered, I wonder whether that will see the light of day and, in the process, set off a chain of restoration and retrospection – I sure hope so! It is a shame if the years rolled on and Steely Dan’s music was left as it is now and not opened out and reexplored. Even if they are not completely your bag, one cannot deny that they have…
IN THIS PHOTO: Walter Becker and Donald Fagen with their two Grammys for Two Against Nature in 2001/PHOTO CREDIT: Sam Mircovich/Reuters
SUCH an important legacy.