By Jason P. Woodbury Special for the Republic PHOENIX — Among the more quixotic artists of the ’70s, songwriters Donald Fagen and Walter Becker blended boho jazz, soul, rock and funk with sneaky, biting lyrics, creating a string of complex, funny epics in the early ’70s. They quit playing shows in 1974, devoting themselves solely to […]
Archive | 2013-2017 RSS feed for this section
Steely Dan Thrills Phoenix Audience
By Ted Hansen Examiner.com When you’ve made a career of recording albums by surrounding yourself with some of the best musicians around, it only makes sense that when you hit the road to perform, you do the same. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, the two evil geniuses behind Steely Dan, stuck to that successful formula for Steely Dan’s […]
Steely Dan Essential Singles
By Ed Masley The Arizona Republic Jazz-loving soft-rock perfectionists Donald Fagen and Walter Becker topped some of the ’70s’ most sophisticated pop recordings with lyrical portraits of life on the dark side, casting a cynical eye with black humor and pathos on the American Dream as it was being acted out on a cocaine binge […]
The Band Still Mixes it up After All These Years
Originally published on July 11, 2014 By Rozanna M. Martinez Journal Staff Writer Albuquerque, NM — Playing for Steely Dan for about 15 years never gets routine, according to the band’s guitarist Jon Herington. The band always finds ways to switch it up during live shows even though some Steely Dan classics were written so […]
Dan Cools Down Hot Summer Nights
Originally published on July 7, 2014 By Felice Lineberry Redmond Reporter Contributor REDMOND, Wash. — With the excellent weather we have been receiving, Marymoor Park was cooled down with the breezy sounds of Steely Dan this past weekend. Originating members Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, along with their 11-piece band, played both Saturday and Sunday nights as […]
Herington Looks Back at 15 Years
Originally published on June 27, 2014 By Robert Ham Special to The Oregonian PORTLAND, Oregon — Until 1999, Jon Herington had been living the life of most well regarded but little known guitar players. The New Jersey native was grabbing gigs in studios and in clubs where he could get them, playing in the backing […]
Review: Eminent Hipsters
Originally published on May 13, 2014 By Paddy Kehoe RTE.ie Since their formation in the early Seventies, their days of hit single success and the seigneurial, yet still frantic years of the present, Donald Fagen has led Steely Dan through thick and thin. That jazz-inflected, but essentially rock combo has always been a long-tailed ensemble […]
Icon: Donald Fagen
Originally published on Feb. 12, 2012 By Dylan Jones GQ Magazine – UK As one half of Steely Dan, Donald Fagen was responsible for what many consider to be one of the greatest albums ever made, 1977’s jazz-infused masterpiece, Aja. With a career that has seen him veer from rock stardom to pathological secrecy, via long periods of […]
Donald Fagen’s Steely Love of Jazz Radio
Originally published on Jan. 2, 2014 By Ben Fong-Torres For the San Francisco Chronicle It wasn’t his fault, but Donald Fagen, half of Steely Dan and a fine artist on his own, stood up San Francisco. Fagen, author of the delightful book, Eminent Hipsters, was going to be in town at the Swiss American Hall […]
‘Eminent Hipsters’ Review
Originally published on Dec. 30, 2013 By Austin Trunick undertheradarmag.com This collection of autobiographical essays from Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen — who might otherwise have become a journalist, or an English teacher, as he explains here -— primarily focuses on early influences that found him in Cold War-era suburban New Jersey during his youth, up […]
