British bomb is defused in financial hub
WALTER BECKER, guitarist, bassist and co-founder of the rock group Steely Dan, has died at the age of 67.
His official website announced his death yesterday with no further details.
Donald Fagen released a statement in remembrance of his Steely Dan bandmate. Fagen said he intended to keep the music they created together alive as long as he could with the band.
Becker had missed performances earlier in the summer in Los Angeles and New York. Fagen later told that Becker was recovering from a procedure and hoped that he would be fine soon.
From Queens, New York, Becker met Fagen when they were students in 1967 and founded the band in 1972. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.
John Darnielle, founder of indie folk group The Mountain Goats, said: “Safe travels along the cosmos to Walter Becker: you changed my life.”
Hip hop artist Talib Kweli tweeted: “Thank you Mr. Becker for a lifetime of great music.”
Country music singer Wheeler Walker Jr added: “RIP Walter Becker. As a kid, I never thought I’d listen to Steely Dan. And yet I did. A lot.” BOMB DISPOSAL experts yesterday defused a huge Second World War bomb in the German financial capital Frankfurt that forced the evacuation of more than 60,000 residents.
Hospital patients and the elderly were among those affected in what was Germany’s biggest evacuation in recent history.
Similar operations are still common 72 years after the war ended. About 20,000 people were evacuated from the western city of Koblenz before specialists disarmed a 1,100lb US bomb on Saturday.
Construction workers found the 4,000lb British bomb in Frankfurt on Tuesday.
Officials ordered residents to evacuate their homes within a mile radius of the site in Germany’s financial capital.
Dozens of ambulances lined up early yesterday to pick up anyone unable to independently leave the danger zone.