Donald Fagen, Candid and Vulnerable

"My personality, my identity, was very vague to me." 1993.

Libby Titus, longtime wife of Donald Fagen, died Oct. 13, 2024. She was 77. “My beautiful wife, Libby Titus Fagen, passed on October 13th surrounded by family. Thanks for keeping us in your thoughts, and for respecting our privacy at this time,” Donald Fagen wrote on the Steely Dan website. I thought I would repost this interview nearly 30 years ago with Fagen, in advance of his solo album Kamakiriad.

The interview took place in Manhattan, May 19, 1993. Without his partner in crime Walter Becker to deflect questions, Fagen was more candid and vulnerable than I had ever heard him before, or since. Always meticulous musicians, the last Steely Dan album had been Gaucho, in 1980. Moving relatively quickly, Fagen released his first solo album, the acclaimed The Nightfly, in 1982. Here are excerpts from our conversation about Kamakiriad, his futuristic 1993 solo album about a journey in a Japanese automobile with a bioponic farm attached, about which I wrote more of a review/feature the pre…