They gained a reputation as the ultimate studio perfectionists, toiling endlessly at their creations. Why would Steely Dan worry if they could recreate their compositions on stage since they didn’t want to play live anyway? Truth be told, the Dan once did the whole touring thing just like all other bands. Then came 1975, when Donald Fagen and Walter Becker decided to drop all pretense that they were like their other rocking peers. Steely Dan would become a studio band exclusively.
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A Reluctant Band
In the beginning, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker didn’t have much intention of being recording artists. They wanted to be songwriters. But none of the covering artists could do justice to their quirky material, which was too complex for the typical pop-song arrangements anyway.
Hence, they created Steely Dan. Even in the beginning, they did things a bit differently. Fagen, uncomfortable with the role of a traditional frontman, included David Palmer in the first incarnation of the band. Palmer sang lead on a few songs on the band’s 1972 debut Can’t Buy Me A Thrill, but he was removed from the roster shortly after.
For the next two albums, Steely Dan settled into life as a five-piece band. In addition to Fagen on vocals and keys and Becker on bass, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter and Denny Dias played guitar, and Jim Hodder handled drums. But even then, the founding pair of the band had started to change up the formula by including a few session players.
And Then There Were Two
The other members of Steely Dan might have been able to abide such an arrangement. But Fagen and Becker also dominated the creative decisions made about the music. They basically told the others what to play and how to play it. On top of that, the touring life didn’t appeal to the pair. After 1974, they put the kibosh on any future shows and decided to make Steely Dan a studio band.
The decision to stop playing live and become a studio-only outfit proved to be a bridge too far for certain Steely Dan members. Skunk Baxter and Jim Hodder hit the high road, the former for The Doobie Brothers, the latter for session work. Denny Dias maintained a relationship with the band, playing here and there on a few more Steely Dan albums.
When Steely Dan returned with their 1975 album Katy Lied, the credits listed only Fagen and Becker as official members of the group. Since they wrote all the songs and basically drove the artistic bus, they’d furthermore hold that distinction. But that doesn’t mean that they got the job done alone.
Two Men… and a Cast of Thousands
Katy Lied also began the practice of Fagen and Becker employing a phalanx of session musicians to realize their songs. In some cases, they’d ask different players to try out a part. And they wouldn’t hesitate to move on from even accomplished session players if they didn’t like what they heard.
In addition, the pair often forced the instrumentalists to play a ridiculous number of takes so that they got just what they wanted. Even with their taskmaster reputation, Fagen and Becker were able to secure the cream of the crop of sidemen, from Katy Lied through to the end of their career.
Ironically enough, Katy Lied ended up serving as a source of frustration to the pair. The recording technology at the studio they used failed to produce a mix with which they were satisfied. Nonetheless, the studio sound of Steely Dan would become the standard for 70s rock, even though that sound never made it to the stage.
Photo by Chris Walter/WireImage
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