By Jane Stevenson Toronto Sun TORONTO — “How ya feelin’ Donald?” a male fan shouted out to Steely Dan singer-keyboardist Donald Fagen on Monday night at Massey Hall. “I’m feeling groovy, baby,” smiled the 58-year-old, who’s taking part in the first solo tour of his three-decade-plus career. And groovy Fagen, who postponed his Boston show […]
Fagen’s smooth ‘Morph’
By Tom Sinclair Entertainment Weekly What makes great music great? The late Clash singer Joe Strummer once offered a theory about what doesn’t: ”It ain’t about playing the right f—ing chord, for a start,” quoth Saint Joe, making the point that passion trumps technical perfection. He was right, of course, but that doesn’t mean that […]
Donald Fagen – ‘Morph the Cat’
By Paul Woloszyn MusicOMH.com At a time when sounding a bit rough around the edges is not a bad thing there are still some artists who are not swayed by changes in style, none more so than Donald Fagen. One half of Steely Dan, he has been making the same classy brand of jazzy pop […]
Mixing Songs, Fagen Finds the Groove
By Siddhartha Mitter Globe Correspondent BOSTON — No one has taken the place of Steely Dan. A generation ago, guitarist Walter Becker and singer-keyboardist Donald Fagen built an unmatched creative hub connecting rock, jazz, blues, and soul. Their taut sound, technical yet warm, and their lyrics, crucial vignettes of ’70s dystopia and Reagan-era dyspepsia, sped […]
Black Days
With his new solo album, Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen leaves behind imaginary landscapes to face his mortality in the uneasy air of post-9/11 New York. By James Adams Toronto Globe TORONTO — No, Donald Fagen says, he’s not on the line from the foot of Mount Belzoni, nor is he high in the Custerdome. This […]
Fagen on New Disc, Steely Dan Return
By Jane Stevenson Toronto Sun Donald Fagen’s “day job” has been as one-half of jazz-rock outfit Steely Dan with partner Walter Becker since 1972. Yes, there was that 20-year break between the group’s 1980 effort Gaucho and 2000’s Two Against Nature, a best album Grammy winner. But the singer-keyboardist can be forgiven for never having […]
Sad Experiences Still a Theme in Fagen’s Music
By Bradley Bambarger Newhouse News Service NEW YORK — Recording engineer Elliot Scheiner recalls that Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen was once rather obsessed with making records. While recording “The Royal Scam” in 1975, Scheiner expressed dismay that Fagen and Steely Dan partner Walter Becker wanted to work on Christmas Day, engineer in tow. Fagen replied, […]
Still Reelin’ in the Years
On his first solo tour, Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen brings something for both jazz snobs and pop fans By LYNN SAXBERG The Ottawa Citizen Donald Fagen makes music for discerning people. In Steely Dan, he and musical partner Walter Becker created some of the most sophisticated rock of the 1970s, music so finely crafted that […]
Steely Dan’s Voice, Wry as Ever, if Less Sure
By Laura Sinagra New York Times NEW YORK — Those meticulous jazz-rockers Steely Dan built a career on seeming coolly unfazed. But the solo efforts of its principals, Donald Fagen and his snarkier counterpart, Walter Becker, prove what we all knew: that insouciant affect is usually the result of peer pressure. We can only be […]
Steely Dan Man Makes N.Y. Return
By Kevin O’Donnell Rolling Stone The last time Steely Dan frontman Donald Fagen performed at New York’s Beacon Theater was in 1991 with the “New York Rock and Soul Revue,” an informal collective of musicians that included Boz Scaggs and Michael McDonald. Tuesday night, some fifteen years later, the singer and keyboardist came home. While […]
