(I got the) News | Issue 48
Eight books on Steely Dan; 'Katy Lied' is a bestseller once more
I Just Turned Forty, and Steely Dan’s Entire Discography Mysteriously Appeared on My Phone
The big 4-0. It was supposed to be a moment of reflection. A time to consider what the next chapter of life will hold.
But that morning of my fortieth birthday, something was different.
I awoke to a sharp, unsettling sensation, as though something in the universe had shifted and my very DNA had been altered. The low, almost imperceptible hum of a Fender Rhodes electric piano reverberated through my bones. The room was the same, but something felt… wrong. Almost…sinister.
Born Middle-Aged: Eight Books on Steely Dan
A review of the literature on the hyperliterate jazz-rock ironists from 1970s L.A.
Steely Dan’s 50-Year-Old Album Is A Bestseller Once More
Decades after the group’s final album, and years after Becker’s death, Steely Dan is back on the charts in the United Kingdom.
One of the duo’s earliest releases finally becomes a sales smash long after it initially hit the charts, thanks to a special release that appeals to diehard fans.
The one band Steely Dan thought nobody could match
Whether they said it themselves remains a mystery, but plenty of others have said it for them; when Steely Dan emerged in the 1970s, they effortlessly began pedalling a brand of ‘smart rock’. The band hybridised jazz and added a wealth of literary depth to catchy lyricism. While they weren’t the first songwriters to get bookish, they did seem to pioneer the notion that academia was a new groovy pinnacle. They were music’s premier postliberalists.
Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter on the definitive Steely Dan song
As a guitarist with such an undeniable sense of flair, Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter was a massive part of the first three Steely Dan records, helping to define the legendary jazz-rock group’s sound from the beginning. While the group were surrounded by virtuoso musicians from whom they demanded nothing less than perfection, Baxter’s guitar playing was electrifying to the point that their songs would have sounded somewhat incomplete without his offerings.
Remember When: Steely Dan Became a Two-Man Band and a Studio-Only Entity in 1975
They gained a reputation as the ultimate studio perfectionists, toiling endlessly at their creations. Why would Steely Dan worry if they could recreate their compositions on stage since they didn’t want to play live anyway? Truth be told, the Dan once did the whole touring thing just like all other bands.
Then came 1975, when Donald Fagen and Walter Becker decided to drop all pretense that they were like their other rocking peers. Steely Dan would become a studio band exclusively.
💬 The excellent Expanding Dan newsletter
Steely Dan's surreal 'Today' show concert, 25 years later
Twenty-five years ago, Katie Couric’s chirpy voice echoed among the buildings surrounding the Today show’s street-side Studio 1A in Rockefeller Center, bringing word of the first album of new music by Steely Dan in two decades.
“The question is, What took so long?” Couric asked Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. “Twenty years!”
📷 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, Santa Monica, California, 1977
💿 Steely Dan: Every Song Ranked
There’s no story anywhere in music like Steely Dan.
Have a GREAT day! 😎
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images