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“Learn to play the saxophone…I play just what I feel… Drink scotch whiskey all night long and die behind the wheel” Steely Dan – Deacon Blues
Better get used to it. Rock’s greatest artists are dying…And yesterday we lost one-half of Steely Dan’s mind trust, Walter Becker.
Partners since their early days at Bard College, Becker founded Steely Dan along with Donald Fagen.
And what started as stoned after-hours fun turned into one of America’s most enigmatic and Influential rock bands ever.
A band that like the Beatles redefined what rock and pop could be…
Named after a dildo in William Burroughs’s countercultural classic The Naked Lunch, Steely Dan’s music, especially during their seven album run between 1972 and 1980, fused East Coast bohemian rock swagger with West Coast jazz in a way that the world had never seen before.
Working primarily with a changing collection of session musicians, Becker (who played guitar and shared songwriting duties) and Fagen (lead vocalist and piano) enjoyed hits that generations have grown up on… Songs like Reelin’ in the Years, Do it Again, Rikki Don’t Lose That Number and Deacon Blues. Songs taht are now a part of our pop-cutural DNA.
Almost anti-rock in every way, the duo was like none other. Fagan could barely sing (but did), while Becker eschewed rock star dynamics and let Steely Dan’s cynical lyrics and his own unique guitar stylings, do the talking.
Steely Dan’s impact on rock was profound. Not only did they introduce jazz swing to rock. They infused it with latin rhythms and SoCal pop and soul…all to serve as a backdrop for cinematic songs about Hollywood’s winners and losers and the hypocrisy that comes with fame.
And their songs became hits on almost every radio format…they sold 40 million records worldwide.
In a statement released shortly after learning of Becker’s death, Fagen wrote…
“Walter Becker was smart as a whip, an excellent guitarist and a great songwriter. He was cynical about human nature, including his own, and hysterically funny.”
Nice…
Fagen also added that he hoped to continue to “keep the music we created together alive as long as I can with the Steely Dan band.”
Life is always shorter than you think it’s going to be…
(Walter Becker 1950 – 2017)
