(I got the) News | Issue 40
Happy Birthday to Donald Fagen
Happy Birthday to Donald Fagen, singer, co-songwriter and co-founder of Steely Dan.
Fagen turns 77 today.
Legend.
Icon: Donald Fagen
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 inactivity, Fagen remains one of the most enigmatic men in the music industry, and adored by the likes of Kanye West, Daft Punk and Mark Ronson.
Highly metropolitan, they excelled at manipulated isolation, while Fagen and Becker were labelled the most cynical and ferociously intelligent songwriters in the business.
"Our music is somehow a little too cheesy at times and turns off the rock intelligentsia for the most part," said Fagen in the mid-Seventies. "At other times it's too bizarre to be appreciated by anybody."
Experts said they welded jazz and rock into an alloy so smooth and shiny it was difficult to tell where the one ended and the other began, sneering at the world from a position of bohemian superiority so rarefied it was hard to tell exactly where it was situated.
"We were interested in a kind of hybrid music that included all the music we'd ever listened to," says Fagen. "So there was always a lot of TV music and things in there. It was very eclectic, and it used to make us laugh: we knew something was good if we would really laugh at it when we played it back. We liked the sort of faux-luxe sound of the Fifties, there was just something very funny about it. I grew up in a faux-luxe household, and it was a very alienating world, so for me it has the opposite effect: muzak is supposed to relax you, but it makes me very anxious. So in a way, I think I get it out of me by putting some of it in my songs. Then I start to laugh at it when I hear it."
The one genre Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen hates
Donald Fagen is “just being honest”. He’s always just being honest, in fact, he’s belligerently honest—the Larry David of music, if you will. Much like the egg-headed comic, this blunt honesty comes from a sincerely curmudgeonly place. Like a lot of curmudgeonly folks, Fagen’s also pretty funny too. “My natural motive is irony,” he says—the music of Steely Dan should tell you that. It is an expression of individualism—irreverent, snaky, jazzy and acerbic individualism. And it is most certainly not ‘rock.’
Why Howard Jones Covered Donald Fagen’s ‘I.G.Y.
How did you get into Steely Dan's music back in the day?
It was the first album, Can't Buy a Thrill and "Reelin' in the Years." I heard that early and just grew up with them from there.
Obviously, the music got more and more complex as the albums came out. I was progressing in my own musical world as well. I was taking it all in and thinking, "Oh my God, what chords are they playing?"
I tried to work out how to play those songs. They're so amazing and I think it's really important for a developing musician and writer to pick things that you don't really know how they are doing it. You don't know what those chord changes are, so learn them. You play the record over and over and educate yourself. I got to hang out with Walter Becker for a couple of hours once. I was in L.A. at A&M Studios doing some recording and he happened to be there. I had such a great time chatting with him.
Ex-Steely Dan/Doobie Brothers Guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter Plotting Busy 2025
Former Steely Dan and Doobie Brothers guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter will be pretty busy during the early part of 2025. The acclaimed musician will start the year off by participating in several events at the 2025 NAMM Show, which runs from January 21 to January 25 in Anaheim, California.
Steely Dan’s 1975 Masterpiece Katy Lied Getting Full 200g 45rpm 2LP UHQR Treatment on January 31
You can see it in their eyes, but is it really any surprise to learn that we are finally getting the much-anticipated 200g 45rpm 2LP UHQR edition of Steely Dan’s rightly acclaimed March 1975 album Katy Lied on January 31, 2025?
Once again, the fine folks at Analogue Productions do right by the SD catalog, just as they’ve done with the five previous releases in the UHQR Series for Can’t Buy a Thrill, Countdown to Ecstasy, Pretzel Logic, Aja, and Gaucho. (Click on each title to read our reviews.)
📷 The awesome Barney Hurley X account
Barney Hurley continues to feature great Steely Dan content on his must-see X account. There’s equally terrific non-steely Dan content as well!
Walter Becker and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards where their 2000 release, 'Two Against Nature' triumphed in four categories including the coveted 'Album of the Year' award
Have a GREAT day! 😎