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Doing It Again

Steely Dan sends fans reelin' through the years on
a tour to promote its first studio album in 20 years.

JILL DAVIDSON SKLAR

Special to the Jewish News

C

an you still find that
polyester wrap dress,
tucked way back in the -
closet near those brides-
maid dresses you'd never be
caught dead in? How about that
leisure suit your honey once wore?
Why bring them out again?
Well, Steely Dan, that venerable
jazz-rock duo whose songs epito-
mized an important part of pop
Donald Fagen, left, and Walter Becker of Steely
music during the 1970s, has
released a new album, Two Against Dan perform songs from their first new studio
Nature, and is touring to promote album in 20 years Sunday at Pine Knob.
it, making a stop at Pine Knob
Music Theater on June 25.
Exodus, recalled his father for a Rolling
In addition, look for their tunes in
Stone magazine article.
the Farrelly brothers' new film, Me,
"He heard it on the radio, and he
had a knack for recalling whole songs.
Myself and Irene, starring Jim Carrey
and opening today in area theaters.
We decided that he ought to have
lessons. Near where we were living was a
The Farrellys (There's Something About
famous music school, and we took him
Mary) utilize groups like Wilco, Brian
Seltzer, Smash Mouth and Ben Folds
for an audition, and they said, 'Let's see
Five to revamp Steely Dan classics like
what he can do.' He played 'Exodus,'
"Do It Again," "Barrytown" and "Dr.
and they said, 'Well, fine, but he's going
Wu" for the film's soundtrack.
to have to start from scratch and do it
Gurus of lounge-music staples,
our way,' and he didn't want to, so he's
Donald Fagen and Walter Becker once
self-taught," Joseph Fagen said.
churned out such hits as "Rikki Don't
The younger Fagen also was drawn to
Lose That Number" and "Reelin' in
the work of a number of ja77 musicians,
the Years." Like REO Speedwagon,
a love he picked up from his cousins.
the J. Geils Band, Air Supply and oth-
Prone to solitude, he spent his time lis-
ers who graced the charts with hits
tening to ja77. programs on the radio or
during those years, the middle-aged
reading by the pool in his back yard.
songsters are back. And they've created
Walter Becker, born in 1950, grew
new songs with lyrics as vague as they
up shifting between Queens and
were more than two decades ago.
Scarsdale, N.Y., where he lived with his
As one reviewer noted, "As always
father and grandmother (his British
in Steely Dan's marvelously impres-
mother moved to England following his
sionistic world, we often don't know
parents' divorce). Becker also had an
what in the hell the people in the
early fascination with music, and learned
songs are actually doing, but we're
to play guitar from a childhood friend.
pretty damn certain they shouldn't be
Steely Dan — the name is drawn
doing it at all."
from a dildo mentioned in William
Fagen and Becker come from hum-
did not
Burrough's Naked Lunch
ble beginnings.
come about until five years after
Donald Fagen was born in 1948 and
Becker met Fagen at Bard College in
grew up in New Jersey, the son of an
upstate New York. During those years,
accountant and a former Catskills resort
the pair played in a number of bands,,
singer. By all accounts, he took to music including one with a soon-to-be-
early, originally shunning the guitar but
famous Chevy Chase.
finding an attraction to the piano.
After graduation, they moved to
In fact, the first song he was able to
New York and wrote songs, selling
bang out was the theme to the movie
only one, to Barbra Streisand, called "I

—

Mean to Shine." They also began
touring with the band. Jay and the
Americans, led by a singer whose real
name was Dave Blatt.
Blatt, the son of a cantor, cut their
pay in half, so Becker and Fagen
answered an ad looking for a pianist
and bass player for a new band, called
Damian. They quickly took over, play-
ing their own music, firing most of the
band members and moving to
California, where they began recording.
Fagen, known for his rather thin
voice, took the role of lead singer for
the newly created Steely Dan. "The
songs have to be performed with a cer-
tain attitude, and we couldn't find the
right singer when we started. I became
the singer by default, because I was
the only one with the right attitude,"
Fagen once told a reporter.
In 1971, they released their first
recording, You Gotta Walk It Like You
Talk It, followed the next year with
Can't Buy a Thrill. The latter album
contained two Top 20 hits, "Do It
Again" and "Reelin' in the Years."
The next album, Countdown to
Ecstasy , released in 1973, contained no
hits, but Pretzel Logic, released in. 1974,
and the following year's Katy Lied both
broke into Billboard's Top 20. The next
four years brought four more albums:
The Royal Scam (1976), Aja (1977),
Greatest Hits (1978) and Gaucho (1980).
"We set the bar pretty high for our-
selves," noted Gary Katz, who pro-
duced Steely Dan's entire '70s cata-
logue, in a recent interview. "We were
meticulous about the work."
At the time, critics generally loved
the pair's music, mostly citing the care-
ful, almost obsessive, musical arrange-
ments and the cryptic, at times baffling,
lyrics. Fans couldn't help humming the
rhythms, even if they didn't quite
understand what the words meant.
But for all of their hits, accolades and
awards, Becker and Fagen did little tour-
ing. According to reports, the pair hated
being on the road because it hampered
their writing, and rapid changeover of
studio musicians made it hard to tour
with any consistency of sound.
Besides that, Becker and Fagen
began to drift apart while working on
Gaucho. During the year it took them
to make it, Becker was hit by a car
and broke his leg in several places. His
girlfriend accidentally overdosed on
drugs. In addition, his own drug
addiction caught up with him, leading
him to head for treatment in Hawaii.
Fagen released a solo recording in
1982 called The Nigh0y, but Steely
Dan faded into obscurity until the
early 1990s, when Becker rejoined

