Tribute: Walter becker
1950 – 2017
renowned for being a very private individual, possibly the best way to pay tribute to Walter becker is through the work of the band he co-founded with bandmate Donald Fagen at the dawn of the 1970s
News of Walter Becker’s passing on 3 September, created shockwaves across the music world. There had been hints that he was ill – his absence from a couple of this summer’s Steely Dan gigs, Donald Fagen saying that his bandmate was undergoing a medical procedure and indicating that he would return any time soon. Sadly, this was not the case and when the news of Becker’s death broke fans and former colleagues were left stunned.
The history of Steely Dan is relatively well known – Becker and Fagen met at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York in 1967. The story goes that Fagen heard Becker practising in the college cafeteria. “I remember when I first saw Walter playing the guitar,” Fagen told Guitarist in an interview with both the Steelies in 2003. “I didn’t know a lot about blues, but I knew what Hubert Sumlin sounded like from listening to Muddy Waters records and I thought, ‘Hey, that sounds like Hubert Sumlin.’”
The duo formed an instant bond through a shared musical interest, particularly jazz. After leaving college – Becker graduating, Fagen dropping out – and a stint in Manhattan’s Brill Building as noviciate songwriters, the pair decided that their fortunes lay in a move to LA, the heart of the USA’s burgeoning entertainment scene, and Steely Dan launched itself into music history.
Guitarist’s interview was at the time of ninth and final album, Everything Must
Go and we looked back to the band’s early days and famously woeful touring.
“That mainly had to do with bad touring conditions,” Donald recalled. “I think in the 70s our touring band was very energetic and tried really hard, but I don’t know that we ever really achieved what we were trying to do sonically.”
“The bands that we have now are much more true to our intentions,” said Walter. “At the same time, there was an exciting train wreck quality to our 70s band that we don’t have the absolute moral courage to even approximate any more.”
As many cite The Dan as something of a jazz rock outfit, we took up the question of those jazz influences with Fagen and Becker. Might this side of the band’s range of influences be attributed to Donald? “Walter also has a jazz background. Neither of us, I think, are jazz quality musicians in that modern sense,” Donald told us. “Both of our techniques have improved over the years so that both of us can kinda get along playing jazz at this point. But because I play the piano, chords are my business so that may have something to do with it.” Was there an actual jazz guitar influence on Walter, though? The answer was intriguing, so we’ll print the exchange that followed verbatim: WB: “No, nah.” DF: “What about all those Grant Green records?” WB: “What Grant Green records?” DF: “[laughs] Never mind!” So who exactly were Walter’s guitar influences?
WB: “BB King, Hubert Sumlin, older type blues guitar playing like Delta style blues; Lightning Hopkins, Eric Clapton, guys who were derivative from that style also. There are a couple of guys who are really great guitar players like Otis Rush who play the guitar strung upside down and have the high string up at the top of the neck.” When Steely Dan was formed, Walter played bass, with the occasional foray into lead guitar – check out the solo on
Black Friday, for instance. Later on, for
Like Albert King…
WB: “Albert King also, yeah. When I first started playing I tried to simulate that; you can only really do it on the G string, but instead of bending by pushing the string up the neck I used to bend it by pulling it down and that gives you an incredible control over the string and it’s a cool way to do it.”
DF: “One of Walter’s bandmates was Randy California; didn’t he teach you some stuff on the guitar?”
WB: “Oh, definitely. I would say that he was the first guy I met who knew how to do that stuff and so I could sort of see how it was actually being done. He also knew, for example, that the guitar had to be set up with pretty light strings, which I didn’t know yet, and that the amp had to be turned up pretty loud to get some of those sounds.” DF: “We’re going back aways here.” WB: “Yeah, we’re talking about high school here.”