Steely Dan's Greatest Hits & Quips

Fagen and Becker Promote Their 1978 Collection

Looking for some distraction as the minutes tick away while we await election returns? If there was anything more absurd than a "Steely Dan Greatest Hits” album, it was Donald Fagen and Walter Becker doing interviews to "promote" it. A rollicking time was had by all. This originally ran in the Los Angeles Times, Dec. 10, 1978.

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NEW YORK — Maybe it's the air quality. Or fear of earthquakes. Or brushfires. Or terminal boredom. Whatever the reasons, a number of musicians long aligned with the Southern California pop scene have been talking about moving East for at least a part-time fix of New York funk and gunk.

Among those who've returned from West Coast exile are Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, the composing and recording team that is better known as Steely Dan. "We wanted to beat Linda Ronstadt to New York," Becker said sarcastically about the announced defection of California's pop-rock ringleader. But there were more practical reasons for Becker and Fagen to take apartments in Manhattan (they still maintain their California homes).

Perfectionists who are obsessively particular about musicians and recording studios. Fagen and Becker used to fly New York's top session men to California for extended stays for appearances on Steely Dan albums. Fagen and Becker found that reversing the process — that is, coming to New York to record with the musicians they wanted — was only slightly less extravagant considering the time Steely Dan likes to spend in studios. "There were some really outstanding hotel bills." Becker said. "The hotels weren't that outstanding, but the amount we were paying was."

The only consolation was that Steely Dan could afford the expenses. After years of modest popular success and exceptional critical acclaim, Steely Dan's sixth album, Aja, released last year, was a major commercial breakthrough, with sales of more than 2 million. A new album, Steely Dan's Greatest Hits, consolidates on a two-record set most of the highlights of one of rock's most prolific and intelligent song-writing teams.

"Greatest hits is traditional rock 'n' roll argot for most popular," Fagen said. "All were FM hits, except for one or two songs, which were hits only in our own living room."

The greatest hits album leaves Steely Dan owing ABC one more album before they start a new cycle with Warner Bros. Records. Fagen and Becker are writing new material now, but are uncertain about style or content directions. "We're planning to use four clarinets on every track," Becker said whimsically. "It's something I've wanted to do for a long time."

The one thing that is known about the next Steely Dan record is that it won't be a live album. Although it began as a group in the traditional sense, with Becker the bass player and Fagen a keyboard player and singer, Steely Dan evolved into basically a studio recording unit. Hired hands have included former permanent members Jeff Baxter and Michael McDonald (now with the Doobie Bros.), Denny Dias, and a who's who of jazz and pop musicians including Larry Carlton, Rick Derringer, Steve Gadd, John Klemmer, Rick Marotta, Bernard Purdie, Chuck Rainey, Elliot Randall, Tom Scott, Wayne Shorter and Phil Woods.

It has been at least five years since Fagen and Becker have performed in concert, and it's unlikely they ever will again. "It's silly — it's 1978. We're in no condition to do that kind of manual labor," Fagen said. "We tried to get a group together after Aja was recorded but we... didn't like the vibes."

Manager Irving Azoff, who also guides the careers of the Eagles, Dan Fogelberg, Boz Scaggs and Joe Walsh, tried to use reverse psychology on Fagen and Becker. He told them that they shouldn't tour, which led them to set four dates earlier this year, using the quickly trained studio musicians who had played on Aja. But the expense would have been enormous. Said Becker: "We'd be taking them (the studio musicians) away from their Saudi Arabian weekend scale. So after the first rehearsal, we canceled the whole thing."

Relieved of the usual rock-star duty of touring, Fagen and Becker have found energy for other projects. They produced a superb, straight-ahead jazz album, Apogee, featuring two under-appreciated tenor sax players, Warne Marsh and Pete Christlieb. Christlieb is a member of The Tonight Show band, so Fagen and Becker sent Johnny Carson a copy of the album. "His secretary wrote back, saying he'd listen to it." Fagen said with some bemusement.

Another jazz album featuring the work of Fagen and Becker was just released by the Woody Herman Band. One side of Chick, Donald, Walter & Woodrow on Century Records features a suite composed by Chick Corea. The other has big band arrangements of five Steely Dan songs. Fagen and Becker weren't active participants, though their friend Dick LaPalm produced the album. [This is a little joke, I think, since LaPalm was a dedicated jazz promoter, not producer.] The tunes that came out the best, like 'Green Earrings', were the ones that were most reworked for big band," Becker said. Fantasizing about where it all could lead, Becker said that he ultimately expects Steely Dan music to be arranged for marching bands. He laughed at the possibility of 'Peg' being played by dozens of uniformed sousaphone players.

Fagen and Becker also were responsible for the only high point of the movie FM — the title song. Manager Azoff had been executive producer, but had his name dropped from the credits. Neither Fagen nor Becker has bothered to see the movie. "I begged off because of the static in the reviews," Fagen said. Said Becker: "The script they gave us was really a mess. They didn't give us a lot of information."

For example? "I asked if there was going to be a score, so we would be able to approach it from a point of consistency of style," Fagen said. "They said. 'Score?' But we wrote a song that would sound good with a big production, and an overdub of strings, that would sound good coming out of movie theater speakers. If it had been a mystery film, it would have worked out better." Said Becker, "There seems to be some mystery about this film." Retorted Fagen, "Yeah, the plot."

Fagen and Becker still like the idea of writing for the movies. They're thinking about composing the score for a German, partially animated movie called A History of the CIA. (Presumably a joke, but with Steely Dan you never can tell.) But right now, said Fagen, "we're going to get back to making Steely Dan albums for a while."

© Wayne Robins, 1978