Originally published on Oct. 17, 1995 Moderator (Speaker): Thanks for joining us for tonight’s chat with Steely Dan co-founders and rock legends Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. The duo is responsible for some of the greatest rock songs of all-time. Their new CD, recorded live on tour, is Alive In America. Please help us welcome DONALD FAGEN and […]
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The Return of Steely Dan
Originally published on Oct. 1, 1995 By Mojo Magazine Once upon a time, they were the odd couple in rock. They wrote songs that featured knuckle-knotting chords and brain-twisting lyrics. They welded jazz and rock into an alloy so smooth and shiny it was impossible to tell where the one ended and the other began. […]
Interview with Walter Becker on America Online
OnlineHost: He hooked up with Donald Fagen to form Steely Dan. That was twenty-odd years ago. Their first album Can’t Buy a Thrill quickly went gold. The group went on to record a total of seven commercially successful and critically acclaimed albums which included Pretzel Logic (1974), Aja (1977), and Gaucho (1979) as well as numerous hit singles. OnlineHost: About 1980 or so, Steely Dan […]
Steely Dan (Half of It, That Is) Strikes Back
By Jon Pareles The New York Times Fifteen years later, we find out who put the edge into Steely Dan. It was Walter Becker, who played bass and guitar and left the lead vocals to his songwriting partner, Donald Fagen. On his first solo album, 11 Tracks of Whack, Becker brings back everything fans cherished […]
Press release from Walter Becker’s 11 Tracks of Whack
Born in New York City in 1950. Mr. Becker makes his debut as a music lover while huddled in the back seat of his father’s cream and flesh colored Ford Fairlane. As it hurtles down the Henry Hudson Parkway, he watches the advertising billboards slide by and is hypnotized by the rhythmic swooshing of the […]
A Pleasant but Not Powerful Hit Parade
By Chuck Crisafulli Los Angeles Times DEVORE, California — The records of Steely Dan are triumphs of studio technique and jazzy craftsmanship, and there’s probably no better way to test high-end stereo equipment than to crank up Aja or Countdown to Ecstasy. Their music becomes more problematic in live settings though, and in a pair of […]
The Reinventing of Walter Becker
Steely Dan’s resident reticent artist sings his own songs on a new solo album, 11 Tracks of Whack.’ He performs tonight at the Blockbuster Pavilion in Devore. By Chris Willman Los Angeles Times After more than two decades in the public eye, formerly close-mouthed Steely Dan co-founder Walter Becker put himself into the public ear […]
Classic of the Week: ‘The Nightowl’
By Jon Matsumoto Los Angeles Times Adjectives like warm and nostalgic rarely are applied to the cynical and bittersweet music of Steely Dan. But they certainly describe the moods evoked by 1982’s The Nightfly, the first solo album by the cryptic band’s singer, Donald Fagen. Working apart from the barbed sensibilities of his Steely Dan partner Walter Becker, Fagen fashioned […]
Steely Dan’s Silence is Broken
By Larry Katz Boston Herald Walter Becker is no longer Steely Dan’s silent partner. “My inner child is screaming like a banshee,” he says. That’s because his adult self is singing onstage with Steely Dan and on a first solo album, “11 Tracks of Whack,” which lands in stores Sept. 27. The seldom-heard-from Becker’s emergence […]
Reunion Moves Step by Step
By J. D. Considine Baltimore Sun Walter Becker still remembers what happened when word first got around that he and Donald Fagen were writing songs together again. This was 1986, just six years after the two had called it quits for Steely Dan, and already, the interest in a reunion album was enormous. “We had […]
