Founding member of Steely Dan leaves behind a legacy of exquisite musicianship
In 1996, three years into Steely Dan’s resurgence as a touring band, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Tony Norman asked Donald Fagen and Walter Becker if it was difficult to think of themselves as Steely Dan after more than a decade spent as solo artists.
“It’s easier for us to think of ourselves as Don and Walter, or Walt and Don, and in some circumstances as ‘Hi, baby, I’m with Steely Dan.’ We go with whatever seems right at the moment and don’t worry about consistency.”
That was typical of the kind of answers you would get when you got on the line with the founding members of one of rock’s most slyly subversive bands.
“Walt,” as he called himself there, was forced to sit out the recent Classic East concert for an undisclosed illness. Mr. Becker, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame bassist-guitarist, died Sunday at 67, according to his official website. The cause of death was undisclosed.
For much of Steely Dan’s heyday, the team of Becker and Fagen was a glorious sound and a picture somewhere on the album package. The group, which debuted in 1972, four years after the two musicians met at Bard College, played just one concert in Pittsburgh during the 1970s. It was at the Civic Arena on April 17, 1974, a few months after the release of their third album, “Pretzel Logic.”
At the time, the Dan was a legit “band” with Jeff “Skunk” Baxter and Denny Dias handling the exquisite guitar solos, and Michael McDonald helping the stage shy Mr. Fagen on the vocals.
In describing Steely Dan’s sound, Mr. Becker, a native of New York City who was raised on the blues, told Rolling Stone in 1974, “I’m not interested in a rock/jazz fusion. That kind of marriage has so far only come up with ponderous results. We play rock ’n’ roll, but we swing when we play. We want that ongoing flow, that lightness, that forward rush of jazz.”
It soon would be limited to the studio, as the duo, like the Beatles a decade before, decided to cease touring, sending the Baxter/McDonald combo to the Doobie Brothers. The subsequent album, 1975’s “Katy Lied,” led with the track, “Black Friday,” that featured Mr. Becker’s first guitar solo on a Steely Dan album. Among the other guitarists to appear on it were Mr. Dias, Rick Derringer, Elliott Randall and Larry Carlton.
The albums only got better from there, with 1976’s “The Royal Scam,” followed by the record considered to be the height of Dan’s mastery, 1977’s “Aja,” dominating radio that year with the songs “Peg,” “Deacon Blues” and “Josie” and selling over 5 million copies.
They made one more album together, 1980’s platinum “Gaucho,” before dissolving the partnership for more than a decade, due to a combination of legal tangles with record labels and personal problems in Mr. Becker’s life, including drug addiction and the overdose death of his girlfriend, for which he was sued for $17 million — a case settled outof court.
While Mr. Fagen continued his chart success with “The Nightfly,” Mr. Becker moved to Hawaii on the island of Maui and had success producing such artists as Rickie Lee Jones, Michael Franks and China Crisis, a new wave band of which he was credited as a member.
Mr. Becker and Mr. Fagen resumed their partnership in 1993 with a tour that included a sold-out stop Aug. 14 at the Star Lake Amphitheatre, where the Dan reproduced its studio sound with fine results and we were also treated to Mr. Becker’s offbeat sense of humor and dubious vocal stylings. They could also be heard one year later on his first solo album,“11 Tracks of Whack.”
By this point, touring obviously agreed with the duo, who returned in 1996 and then again in 2000, the year they released “Two Against Nature,” their first album in 20 years and one that earned them a Grammy, no doubt for their long body of work.
In all, Steely Dan would play seven shows here, returning to Star Lake in 2006 and 2016 and also playing a more intimate show at the Benedum in 2014.
In that 1996 interview with the PG, the duo was asked what the secret was to their enduring partnership.
“Someone has to bail Walter out of his ‘much maligned solo career.’ He’s got no one else to turn to,” Mr. Fagen said.
“Who else am I going to turn to?” Mr. Becker replied. “First of all, a lot of people who’ve worked with us are dead now and none are coming back. Those of us still living have to lean in together and help ourselves through the struggle.”
In a tribute Mr. Fagen released Sunday, he wrote that Mr. Becker “was smart as a whip, an excellent guitarist and a great songwriter. He was cynical about human nature, including his own, and hysterically funny.”
He added, “I intend to keep the music we created together alive as long as I can with the Steely Dan band.”