In the aftermath of last week’s STEELY DAN concert, I turned to Major Dudes: A Steely Dan Companion edited by Barney Hoskyns. This book collects reviews and interviews with Walter Becker and Donald Fagan from the 1970s to the present. Reading reviews of STEELY DAN’s early albums shows that many critics didn’t know what to make of this kind of music. One critic dismissed the music of Becker/Fagen as “hospital music.” Yet reviews from the 1990s and 2000s show that the music world finally caught up to what STEELY DAN was doing forty years ago.
If you’re a STEELY DAN fan, you’ll enjoy the insights in this volume. Much is made of the way each album was recorded and how the songs were crafted. Plenty of background information on the musicians and the recording techniques are included. I came away more appreciative of what Walter Becker, Donald Fagan, and their legions of studio musicians accomplished. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Acknowledgements p. xi
A Squonk’s Tears – Steely Dan at forty-five p. xiii
1 Thrill Seekers p. 1
1 Rock and roll via Third Stream p. 3
2 Review of Can’t Buy A Thrill p. 10
3 Get Your Thrills Here p. 12
4 Counting Down to Headline Status p. 15
5 Review of Countdown to Ecstasy p. 21
6 Walking Slow, Drinking Alone, And Moving Swiftly Through The Night … p. 23
2 Dark Companions p. 31
1 Review of Pretzel Logic p. 33
2 Band Breakdown p. 36
3 Review of Katy Lied p. 47
4 Yes, it’s Steely Dan Versus the Fifth Ice Age p. 49
5 Review of The Royal Scam p. 63
6 Art for Art’s Sake p. 66
3 Glamour Professionals p. 101
1 Review of Aja p. 103
2 Retrospective review of Aja p. 106
3 Steely Dan Dare to give Sylvie Simmons a more-open-than-usual interview p. 108
4 Retrospective review of Gaucho p. 122
5 Disaster and Triumph in the Custerdome p. 127
4 New Frontiersmen p. 143
1 Review of Donald Fagen’s The Nightfly p. 145
2 Donald Fagen Revisits an Era of Innocence p. 148
3 Walter Becker: Breaking the Silence p. 155
4 Donald Fagen; Reeling In The Years p. 160
5 Review of Fagen’s Kamakiriad p. 165
6 Donald Fagen: The Man Who Came in From the Cool p. 167
7 The Dream Ticket p. 174
8 Review of Becker’s 11 Tracks Of Whack p. 179
5 Heavy Rollers p. 183
1 Stand-Up Rock’n’Roll: The Return of Steely Dan p. 185
2 Review of Show at Wembley Arena, London p. 214
3 Review of Two Against Nature p. 217
4 Hey Nineteen: It’s About Time p. 221
5 Steely Dan and Jazz p. 227
6 Review of Everything Must Go p. 234
7 A Droll Double Act p. 235
6 Grey Eminences p. 243
1 Review of Fagen’s Morph The Cat p. 245
2 At Long Last, Fagen Puts The ‘Cat’ Out p. 247
3 Becker’s Circus Money p. 250
4 Review of Fagen’s Sunken Condos p. 253
5 Donald Fagen p. 255
6 Review of Fagen’s Eminent Hipsters p. 260
7 Icon: Donald Fagen p. 278
8 Walter Becker, 1950-2017 p. 289
Contributors p. 295
Index p. 305
I know that in college they had a band that had Chevy Chase on drums.
Not a huge fan. I like some of their stuff. The jazzier stuff not so much. One of the criticisms of them is that I find their music a bit on the cold side. Not a lot of warmth there. This sometimes happens when you use a lot of studio musicians.
My favorites are probably Katy Lied Aja and Pretzel Logic.
Steve, STEELY DAN pretty much was done producing their greatest music by Gaucho (1980). Walter Becker’s drug problems, according to several sources in MAJOR DUES, made recording impossible.
Cool. I will check it out. Walter used to get one chance per concert to do his solo hipster rap and you could believe the drug use stories. Of course, Fagen’s wife is Libby Titus, a singer and songwriter herself, and former girlfriend of the late Levon Helm, as well as the mother of his daughter Amy. She was at Bard College with them, but dropped out to get married when she got pregnant at 19.
Jeff, Bard College doesn’t come off well in MAJOR DUDES. Walter Becker dropped out after three semesters and Fagan speaks dismissively of the education he received there.
I would also recommend reading Fagen’s autobiographical EMINENT HIPSTERS. He comes across as very snarky and difficult in the last section, covering a cross-country tour with Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs, but any fan will get a lot of enjoyment from it.
Jeff, I read EMINENT HIPSTERS when it was first published. Very snarky, indeed!
OK, I put it on hold.
Fagen’s book has a lot of great stuff about growing up in New Jersey, taking the bus into the city to see musicians, plus his reading of science fiction.
Jeff, both Becker and Fagen enjoyed Science Fiction…and William S. Burroughs!
Somehow i missed a lot of music like this. I switched away from rock by age 20. Thought I needed to listen to classical or jazz for some reason. Maybe because I was a faculty wife.
If I could do it over, I might realize I could listen to all of it..
Patti, STEELY DAN is jazz-rock. Their songs are on YOUTUBE. Try “Deacon Blues” and “Hey Nineteen” and see if you like what you hear.
When I discovered Steely Dan in the seventies I really wasn’t musically sophisticated enough to understand exactly what they were doing, and maybe I’m still not. All I knew was that I loved their sound and their songs, and in all the years since I’ve never heard anyone else remotely like them.
Michael, same here. I’m not musically sophisticated, but I knew STEELY DAN was doing something very, very different from the other rock groups in the 1970s. And, their albums sounded fantastic!
Michael McDonald was a member of Steely Dan’s touring band in the ’70s, and also sang background on many of the records from that era. We’ve seen him open for them and also play with Fagen and Boz Scaggs as The Dukes of September, which was pretty cool. This was 2010-2012 (there is a Live at Lincoln Center DVD of the 2012 concert). Sorry, no Deacon Blues or FM, but they did a half dozen Steely Dan songs, as well as some by the other artists. This was a reconstitution of the early 1990s New York Rock and Soul Review, which had the three of them plus the late Phoebe Snow (who did a great version of “At Last”, and a duet of “Knock on Wood” with McDonald) and Eddie and David Brigati from the Rascals. We have a CD of their Live 1991 concert at the Beacon.
Revue, not Review
Jeff, Michael McDonald is an underrated singer. I have many of his CDs and play them from time to time.
I’d rather listen to the songs than read about the group. This is true of almost all groups and singers, though I did enjoy Linda Ronstadt’s autobiography.
Rick, since STEELY DAN is one of my favorite groups, knowing more about their lives and patterns of work interests me.