Alex Pappademas and & Joan LeMay start Quantum Criminals by giving the origin story of Steely Dan beginning with Donald Fagan and Walter Becker meeting at Bard College as students in the 1960s. They began writing songs together and drifted into the music business. Fagan and Becker formed Steely Dan in 1971 and their first album, Can’t Buy a Thrill (1972), featured a blending of rock, jazz, Latin music, R&B, and blues. Both Fagan and Becker were perfectionists and brought a ultra-sophisticated studio production to their albums filled with songs with cryptic and ironic lyrics. Steely Dan achieved critical and commercial success through seven studio albums, peaking with their top-selling album Aja, released in 1977. The group disbanded in 1981 with a couple of reunion albums issued years later.

“They [Fagan & Becker] meet Roger Nicols, a studio engineer at ABC who tells an interviewer years later that he got into the technical aspect of recording music because ‘I hated clicks, pops and ticks on records.’ He’ll become their closest collaborator in the studio, a partner in perfectionism, the nearest thing to a third full-time contributor to the Steely Dan sound. ‘It wasn’t a drag for me to do things over and over until it was perfect, [which] would have driven a lot of other engineers up the wall,’ Nicols said. ‘In my own way, I’m just as crazy as they are.'” (p. 55)

Fagan and Becker’s obsessive natures became legionary. Donald Fagan mixed “Babylon Sisters” 250 times before he would let it go, just typical of the borderline-psychotic commitment to quality control (p. 181). The result was intricate songs that still thrill listeners today.

Pappademas and & LeMay pick over a dozen Steely Dan songs and describe how the song came about, who played on the songs–there are dozens of character sketches of the various musicians and singers who Fagan and Becker included on the various Steely Dan albums. One of my favorite Steely Dan songs is “Deacon Blues” so it was a delight to read about the musician who played the famous tenor saxophone solo:

“Donald and Walter first heard [Pete Christlieb] on the Tonight Show, playing in Doc Seversinsen’s band. ‘We did our best work behind the Alpo dog food commercials,’ Christlieb said. ‘I sold a lot of dog food.’ He dropped by one day after a Tonight Show taping and tried the solo twice; the second take is the one on the record. ‘I was gone in a half hour,’ Christlieb remembered in 2015. ‘The next thing I know I’m hearing myself in every airport bathroom in the world.'” (p. 184)

Hardcore Steely Dan aficionados will love Quantum Criminals with all the details about the two geniuses who devised this music and all the effort it took to produce their brilliant albums. Casual fans will also enjoy the humor and irony in the Steely Dan story. Steely Dan (aka, Donald Fagan–Walter Becker died in 2017 of cancer) is now touring with surviving members of The Eagles. GRADE: A

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

• 1. Jack — 1
• 2. Walter — 7
• 3. Donald — 19
• 4. King Richard/King John — 28
• 5. Lady Bayside — 33
• 6. Chino & Daddy Gee — 35
• 7. Michael/Jesus — 43
• 8. The Charmer — 48
• 9. The Fella in the White Tuxedo — 53
• 10. Dan — 58
• 11. David — 63
• 12. Mr. Whatever — 68
• 13. Louise — 77
• 14. Cathy — 78
• 15. The El Supremo — 83
• 16. The King of the World — 90
• 17. Rikki — 95
• 18. The Major Dude — 102
• 19. Mr. Parker — 107
• 20. Buzz — 110
• 21. Napoleon — 116
• 22. The Archbishop — 119
• 23. Dr. Wu — 124
• 24. Mr. LaPage — 127
• 25. Owsley — 131
• 26. A Bookkeeper’s Son — 136
• 27. The Eagles — 141
• 28. Babs & Clean Willie — 144
• 29. The Old Man — 149
• 30. Pepe — 152
• 31. A Wooly Man without a Face –156
• 32. Peg — 161
• 33. Sayoko — 166
• 34. The Expanding Man — 181
• 35. Broadway Duchess — 187
• 36. Josie — 190
• 37. The Babylon Sisters — 193
• 38. Hoops McCann/The Dread Moray Eel — 197
• 39. The Dandy of Gamma Chi/Aretha Franklin — 205
• 40. The Gaucho — 210
• 41. A Jolly Roger — 214
• 42. Third World Man — 217
• 43. Abbie/Dupree — 219
• 44. Franny from NYU — 227
• 45. Lizzie — 230
• 46. Jill — 235
• 47. Gina — 238
• 48. Dave from Acquisitions — 242
• 49. Daddy — 247
• Acknowledgements — 249
• Notes — 251