Donald Fagen

This is a Donald Fagen fan page and is not affiliated with him or www.donaldfagen.com ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________Donald Fagen_____________________________________________________ based on articles and interviews 1975-2003____________________________ by Lewis Fairlawn____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ _________ 1948 - 1965:_______________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ________ Donald is born in Passaic, New Jersey on January 10, 1948 to Elinor and Joseph (Jerry) Fagen, then a C.P.A. working for a large accounting firm in New York City. The boy is exposed to popular music by his mother, who, as a child and teen, had sung professionally in the Catskills under the name Ellen Ross. Each day, as she goes about her housework, she sings the works of Kern, Warren, Berlin, Arlen, Gershwin, Porter, and so on. When Dad springs for a TV set in '55, Donald, age 7, sees Chuck Berry on the Dick Clark show and starts spending his allowance on rhythm & blues singles. His collection soon includes 45s by Chuck, the Everly Brothers, vocal groups such as the Coasters and the Drifters, and the odd Spike Jones record. ____________________________________________________________ ____As the black-and-white fifties give way to the rich-hued middle sixties, the Fagen's peregrinations around the state end in Kendall Park, a barely completed housing development on a highway halfway between groaning, industrial New Brunswick and the green avenuesÝ of Princeton. Donald's older cousins - Mike, Jack and Barbara - introduce him to "modern jazz, a hot item at the time. Donald immediately passes on his R&B collection to his little sister, Susan, and becomes a ferocious jazz snob and all-around junior hipster. ____________________________________________________________ ____ He subscribes to down beat and stays up all night listening to jazz radio personalities broadcasting out of New York City like Symphony Sid, Mort Fega, and monologist Jean Shepherd; he secures a membership in the Science Fiction Book Club. Other reading includes Ferlinghetti,Ted Joans, plays by Brecht and Albee and Paul Krassner's Realist. He is soon bussing to "the city to see live jazz at clubs such as Slug's and the Vanguard, where Max Gordon puts him at the banquette by the drums and serves him sweet, flat bar cokes. He attends concert performances by Charles Mingus, Stan Kenton, Duke Ellington and others. ____________________________________________________________ ____ At 11, he hadÝ begun to play standards and jazz tunes by ear on the new Acrosonic spinet. He struggles to understand the mysterious progressions and voicings as played on records by Red Garland, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans. There are severalÝ attempts at formal piano lessons, but Donald's progress is hampered by a hyperactive disorder or ADD or whatever they're calling it now. Nevertheless, by the time he finishes high school, Don has forced two other students, a bassist and a drummer, to form a trio, and begun writing "crummy littleÝ jazz pieces. ____________________________________________________________ ____ 1965 - 1980: ____________________________________________________________ ____ In the fall of '65, Donald enters Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY where he seesaws between majors in English literature and music. His professors include Robert Kelly, Anthony Hecht and Baruch Hochman (literature), Heinrich Blucher (philosophy) and Jacob Druckman (composition). In his third year (the rich-hued mid-sixties having given way to the psychedelic late sixties), he meets freshman guitarist Walter Becker, already a veteran of several blues bands. After discovering many common interests (jazz, Chicago blues, soul music, science fiction, writers of the so-called "black humor school), the two undergraduates begin collaborating on songs and playing in assorted pickup bands. They also get some studio experience when fellow student Terence (Boona) Boylan, having scored a record contract, hires them to play on sessions for his album, Alias Boona.In 1969, Donald and Walter, having thus far failed to form a satisfactory band, try to peddle their growing list of songs on Tin Pan Alley, which is to say the Brill Building and 1650 Broadway in midtown Manhattan. Here they hook up with a small production company recently started by the members of Jay and the Americans, who are enjoying a brief career revival due to a hit remake of the Drifter's This Magic Moment. Nothing much happens with the songs, but the Americans employ them as musicians (keyboard and bass) in their touring band and as player/arrangers in the recording studio. JATA pitchman Kenny Vance places one forgettable number on a Barbra Streisand album but the action stops there.In 1971, Broadway crony Gary Katz, now an A&R man for ABC-Dunhill Records in L.A., convinces president Jay Lasker to take the duo on as staff songwriters. They move out to the coast where they are given a tiny office containing a desk and a piano. While attempting to come up with pop material for the label's roster of artists, they scheme to assemble a band and continue to add to their "other book of songs. When Lasker agrees to a recording budget, Becker, Fagen and Katz send for some game east coast players and rehearsals commence in a vacant room at ABC-Dunhill after hours. The original lineup (in addition to Donald and Walter on keyboard and bass) is: Jim Hodder, drums; Jeff "Skunk Baxter, guitar; Denny Dias, guitar; and Dave Palmer, vocals.In '73 and '74, the band, now named Steely Dan (a cartoon-like sex appliance out of William Burroughs Naked Lunch) tours the U.S. and Britain and releases two albums, Can't Buy A Thrill and Countdown to Ecstasy. Always experimenting, Becker and Fagen expand the personnel to include, at various times, singers Porky and Bucky, singer/percussionist Royce Jones, singer/keyboardist Mike McDonald and drummer Jeff Porcaro. Nevertheless, in the summer of '74, the band breaks up. By the time Pretzel Logic is released, Donald has taken over the lead vocal spot and professional session players are being called in for recording dates. ABC-Dunhill staff engineer Roger Nichols begins to take a larger role in the recording process and the partners enlist the help of uber-manager Irving Azoff. During the last half of the seventies, the duo release four more critically acclaimed albums - Katy Lied, The Royal Scam, Aja, and Gaucho - featuring a long list of fine players. Both Aja and Gaucho are nominated for the Album of the Year Award. Roger Nichols and Elliot Scheiner take home several engineering Grammys.1980 - 1993:The eighties see Donald and Walter leading mostly separate lives, Donald in New York City and Walter in Hawaii. Donald's innovative 1981 release, The Nightfly becomes an instant classic. This rich work, one of the first major pop releases to use the new digital recording technology, also draws an Album of the Year nomination at the Grammy awards and wins France's coveted Grand Prix du Disques. In 1984, Donald receives an honorary Doctorate of Arts from his alma mater, Bard College.During the eighties, Donald takes on various projects including composing songs for films (Heavy Metal, The King of Comedy, Bright Lights Big City), for other artists (Diana Ross, Yellowjackets, Jennifer Warnes, Manhattan Transfer) and co-production (The Gospel at Colonus soundtrack), as well as writing the occasional column on film music for Premiere Magazine.As the nineties begin, Donald collaborates with producer and wife-to-be Libby Titus on a series of legendary "club-concerts exploring the work of specific songwriters such as Bert Berns and Jerry Ragovoy. This culminates in the recording, The New York Rock and Soul Revue - Live at the Beacon Theater, which features Mike Macdonald, Phoebe Snow, Boz Scaggs, Charles Brown and the Brigati Brothers. Walter, back in NYC to produce Donald's solo album, Kamakiriad, joins the revue for the '92 season.1993 - 2004:Kamakiriad, an account of a dangerous journey in the "sedan of tomorrow is released to widespread acclaim in '93. Meanwhile, encouraged by the response to their performances in the Rock and Soul Revue, Donald and Walter, now under the management of Craig Fruin, debut the All New Steely Dan Orchestra that summer. A career retrospective boxed-set, Citizen Steely Dan, is released for Christmas.Walter's solo album, 11 Tracks of Whack, with Donald co-producing, comes out the next year. 1995's Alive in America documents the 93-94 tours.At the conclusion of the Art Crimes Tour in '96, Donald and Walter begin writing for a new Steely Dan CD, the first album of all new songs in twenty years. Two Against Nature finally comes out in 2000, supported by a tour, a PBS Television concert and several other TV appearances. The album wins four Grammy awards, including Album of the Year. A few months later, Steely Dan is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition, the two songwriters become the recipients of ASCAP's Founder's Award and honorary Doctorates from the Berklee College of Music.2003 sees the release of Everything Must Go, yet another instant classic. On the 2003 tour, Donald and Walter may finally have achieved their "dream band: on drums, Keith Carlock; bass, Tom Barney; guitar, Jon Herington; keyboard, Ted Baker; trumpet, Michael Leonhart; saxes, Cornelius Bumpus and Walt Weiskopf; trombone, Jim Pugh; backup vocals, Carolyn Leonhart, Cynthia Calhoun and Cindy Mizelle. As Jean Shepherd used to say: Excelsior!I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4