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Steely Dan
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Steely Dan is the duo of singer and keyboard player Donald Fagen and guitarist and bass player Walter Becker. They met in 1967 at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, in New York State, and started the band in 1971. The name comes from the novel Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs. Steely Dan showed how far you can take jazz harmony into a pop song without the song ceasing to be a pop song.
Music and breakthrough
The debut Can't Buy a Thrill (1972) produced the hits Do It Again and Reelin' in the Years. After that the band increasingly became a studio project. After July 1974 Becker and Fagen no longer performed live. They recorded with constantly changing session musicians, with Gary Katz as producer. The high point of this way of working is Aja (1977). On the title track, nearly eight minutes long, the players include drummer Steve Gadd and saxophonist Wayne Shorter of Weather Report. The album reached number 3 on the American album chart and became the band's first platinum record. After Gaucho (1980), Becker and Fagen split up in 1981.
Influence
In 1993 they went on tour together again. The album Two Against Nature won the Grammy for Album of the Year in 2001, and in that same year Steely Dan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Walter Becker died in 2017. The band's polished studio sound found its way into hip hop: De La Soul built Eye Know (1989) on a sample from Peg.
Listening
Aja · Steely Dan, 1977Apple Music ↗
Peg · Steely Dan, 1977Apple Music ↗
Discography
Studio albums
- 1972Can’t Buy a Thrill
- 1973Countdown to Ecstasy
- 1974Pretzel Logic
- 1975Katy Lied
- 1976The Royal Scam
- 1977Aja
- 1980Gaucho
- 2000Two Against Nature
- 2003Everything Must Go
In School of Rock
The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.
- Mixtape 4: When Rock Was Still PopNL Reader
- Mixtape 5: Jazz FestivalNL Reader
Mentioned in other articles
- Fusion and jazz rock Genre
Steely Dan used jazz chords in pop songs, recorded with the best session musicians.
- Aja Album
For this sixth album, Steely Dan, under bandleaders Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, had themselves surrounded again and again by different session musicians: almost forty in total.
See also
- Aja
- Can’t Buy a Thrill
- Countdown to Ecstasy
- Pretzel Logic
- Katy Lied
- The Royal Scam
- Everything Must Go
- Fusion and jazz rock
- Yacht rock