Donald Jay Fagen is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the
co-founder and lead singer of the rock band Steely Dan.
Following the initial breakup of Steely Dan in 1981, Fagen launched a
long-running, if sporadic, solo career in 1982, spawning four albums to date.
In 1993, Fagen and Becker reunited and have since toured and released albums as
Steely Dan. Early life
Fagen was born in Passaic, New Jersey, on January 10, 1948, to Jewish parents
Joseph "Jerry" Fagen, an accountant, and his wife, Elinor, who had been a singer
in upstate New York's Catskill Mountains. His first cousins Alan and
Mark Rosenberg also grew up in Passaic. The Fagen family moved from Passaic
first to the suburb of Fair Lawn around 1958, then quickly moved and settled
into a house on Bedford Road in the Kendall Park section of South Brunswick,
New Jersey. The transition greatly upset him since he detested living in the
suburbs. He would later recall to an interviewer that it "was like a prison.
I think I lost faith in [my parents'] judgment... It was probably the first
time I realized I had my own view of life." His life in Kendall Park,
including his teenage love of late-night radio, later inspired tracks on his
album The Nightfly. Fagen became interested in rock and R&B
music in the late 1950s. His first record purchase was Chuck Berry's
"Reelin' and Rockin'". Around age 11, after receiving musical recommendations
from a cousin and attending the Newport Jazz Festival, he quickly became a
self-declared "jazz snob". "I lost interest in rock 'n' roll and started
developing an anti-social personality." Fagen regularly took the bus to
Manhattan to see Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, and Miles
Davis perform. Soon afterwards, he learned to play the piano, and also
played baritone horn in the high school marching band. Fagen also began a
lifelong fondness for table tennis during his teenage years.
After graduating from South Brunswick High School in 1965, Fagen enrolled at
Bard College to study English literature, having been inspired by Jack
Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, and Lawrence
Ferlinghetti. At Bard, Fagen met musician Walter Becker. The duo, along
with a revolving assortment of musicians which included future actor Chevy Chase,
formed various groups called The Leather Canary, The Don Fagen Jazz Trio, and the
Bad Rock Band. Fagen later described his college bands as sounding like "The
Kingsmen performing Frank Zappa material". None of the groups lasted
long, but the partnership between Fagen and Becker would. The duo's early career
included a stint with Jay and the Americans, and in the early 1970s, as
pop songwriters for ABC/Dunhill Records, which released all of Steely Dan's 1970s
output. Career
= Steely Dan= Fagen met Becker at a college coffee
house at Bard College in 1967. Responding to an ad in The Village Voice
in the summer of 1970, Fagen and Becker met guitarist Denny Dias and started a
musical partnership that formed the basis of what would become Steely Dan.
However, the original group's line-up would only be assembled in full around
December 1971 in Los Angeles, California, to where Becker and Fagen
had relocated, initially to work as staff song writers for ABC/Dunhill.
Fagen and Becker formed the core of the band and co-wrote all the group's music;
on tour and record, Becker played bass and Fagen played keyboards, as well as
performing almost all of the lead vocals on their recordings.
After releasing their third LP in 1974, the other members gradually left the
band, which evolved into a studio project headed by Becker and Fagen. They
scored their biggest success in 1977 with the platinum-selling album Aja.
After a lengthy period of inactivity as a band which began in the early 1980s,
the duo of Becker and Fagen revived Steely Dan in the mid-1990s, and have
since produced two more Steely Dan studio albums: 2000's Two Against Nature
which won several Grammys, Everything Must Go, as well as the live CD Alive in
America and a live concert DVD entitled Two Against Nature, which included
material spanning much of the band's history.
= Solo career= After Steely Dan's breakup in 1981,
Fagen released his critically acclaimed solo debut album, The Nightfly, in
October 1982. It reached #11 on the Billboard album chart and was certified
Platinum for sales of over a million copies in the United States. Its
premiere single was "I.G.Y.". The song hit the Adult Contemporary Top 10 and
peaked at #26 on the Billboard Hot 100. The follow-up single, "New Frontier"
peaked at #34 AC and #70 Pop and was aided by a popular MTV music video. The
Nightfly was nominated for several Grammy Awards including Album of the
Year. It was significantly more jazz-based than Fagen's Steely Dan work.
Rhino Records released a special DVD Audio version of The Nightfly in honor
of the album's 20th anniversary in 2002. Fagen's second solo album, 1993's
Kamakiriad, was produced by Becker. It climbed into Billboard's Top 10 but sold
fewer copies than The Nightfly, topping off at 900,000 in sales. Kamakiriad was
also nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
Recording sessions for Fagen's third solo album, Morph the Cat, began in
August 2004 and the album was released March 14, 2006. Performing on the album
are Wayne Krantz, Jon Herington, Keith Carlock, Freddy Washington, Ted Baker,
and Walt Weiskopf. Upon its release, Morph the Cat received universal acclaim
and was later named Album of the Year by Mix magazine. Fagen was also given
'Producer of the Year' award.The 5.1 mix of Morph the Cat won the 2007 Grammy
Award for Best Surround Sound Album. All three of Fagen's albums previously
released on the DVDA format have now been released in Warner's latest format
MVI as a boxed set. Each album features a DTS 5.1, Dolby 5.1 and PCM Stereo mix
but no MLP encoded track, along with bonus audio and video content. Customers
will also be able to select any track or any portion of a track and use it as
their mobile phone ringtone. To support Morph the Cat, Fagen embarked
on his first solo tour, and played dates across the US, with one date in Canada.
Fagen's management also sold VIP packages for the tour, which included a
pre-show party, premium seats and access to the band's sound checks. This was
mocked on his song-writing partner Walter Becker's website. Fagen joined
Becker for a Steely Dan/Michael McDonald tour the following summer of 2007.
He also toured with the New York Rock and Soul Revue. The 1986 debut album by
Rosie Vela, Zazu, inspired the first collaboration between Fagen and Becker
following the disbanding of Steely Dan. This led to their reunion as a writing
team and the creation of a new touring version of Steely Dan. The following
year Fagen co-produced Becker's solo debut, 11 Tracks of Whack.
In the spring of 2010, Fagen stated plans to record a fourth solo album
which will be lighter in tone and not an extension of the Nightfly trilogy,
anticipating a 2012 release. On August 13, 2012, the album title was revealed
to be Sunken Condos and the release date October 16.
In 2012, Fagen also started a second tour with The Dukes of September Rhythm
Revue, which included Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs.
Musical style Fagen has classified himself as both a
self-taught pianist and self-taught vocalist, although he did spend a few
semesters studying formally at Berklee College of Music. He is said to have
taken some vocal lessons in the mid-1970s as a precaution after feeling
the straining effects of years of touring. Although he learned to become
an entertainer, early on Fagen suffered from severe stage fright which
originally prompted Steely Dan producer Gary Katz to hire David Palmer to sing
two songs on Steely Dan's debut album Can't Buy a Thrill. This also led to the
hiring of Royce Jones and Michael McDonald as additional singers in the
band's early 1970s' tours. Fagen's name routinely appears on all-time underrated
lists when talking about rock singers and his influence and phrasing can be
heard in artists such as Joe Jackson, Ben Folds, Bruce Hornsby, and Elvis
Costello. Fagen plays keyboards on many of his own songs. He predominately
features the Fender Rhodes Electric Piano and Wurlitzer Electric Piano
driving the chord progressions. He's often a featured soloist as well
contributing piano, electric piano, organ, synthesizer, etc.) and saxophone.
Collaborations with other artists In 1977 he played synthesizer on Poco's
Indian Summer album. In 1978 he coproduced, with Walter
Becker, Apogee, an album of straight-ahead jazz featuring Warne
Marsh and Pete Christlieb, both on tenor, and Lou Levy on piano. Also
co-wrote, with Walter Becker, "Rapunzel", the third track on the
album. In 1980 he sang background vocals on Far
Cry's album. He played synthesizer on the title track
of Rickie Lee Jones' 1981 album Pirates. In 1983 he played synthesizer for the
track "Love Will Make It Right", which he also wrote, on Diana Ross's solo
album Ross. Fagen wrote and co-arranged the track
"Lazy Nina" on Greg Phillinganes' 1984 album Pulse.
In 1986 he wrote the title track to the Yellowjackets' album Shades. Also in
1986 Fagen and Becker contributed to Rosie Vela's album Zazu
In 1991 The Manhattan Transfer recorded Fagen's song "Confide in Me" on their
album The Offbeat of Avenues. In 1992 Jennifer Warnes recorded "Big
Noise New York" on her solo album The Hunter.
Fagen's own versions of both "Confide in Me" and "Big Noise New York" were
released as 'B' sides for the CD singles of the Kamakiriad tracks "Tomorrow's
Girls" and "Snowbound," respectively. They were subsequently made available on
the Bonus CD of The Nightfly Trilogy boxed set in 2007.
In 2008 Fagen played synthesizer on the album I Know You're Married But I've Got
Feelings Too by folk singer Martha Wainwright.
Starting in 2008 Fagen made regular appearances with the Levon Helm Band,
performing at Helm's Midnight Ramble concerts in Woodstock, New York. He
plays keyboards and sings with his step-daughter, Amy Helm.
In 2013 he reported that he was producing a second album by the band Oh
Whitney. Soundtrack contributions
In 1978 Steely Dan recorded "FM". It is the title theme to the film FM. The
soundtrack to the film won the 1979 Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album,
Non-Classical, with engineers Roger Nichols and Al Schmitt taking the
honors. This was the first single Steely Dan released on MCA Records, predating
MCA's acquisition of ABC Records by one year.
He recorded "True Companion" for the 1981 animated cult film Heavy Metal.
He wrote "The Finer Things", which appeared on the soundtrack to the Martin
Scorsese 1983 film The King of Comedy, as well as sang background vocals on the
song. David Sanborn is given credit for the main part of the song.
He recorded "Century's End" for 1988's Bright Lights, Big City.
He recorded "Reflections", a Thelonious Monk cover, along with guitarist Steve
Khan, for the film 1988 Arthur 2: On the Rocks.
He recorded "Blue Lou" an instrumental piece, for the 1992 film Glengarry Glen
Ross. = Other works=
Fagen wrote briefly in the 1980s for Premiere magazine, including a few witty
pieces on Henry Mancini and Ennio Morricone. These are available online
from his website. His website also features other articles he has written,
such as ones for Slate.com. In 1988, Fagen was a co-producer of the
Broadway soundtrack album The Gospel at Colonus.
In the late 2000s, he appeared as the "Wise Man" in a promotional video for
the Electro-Harmonix Stereo Memory Man with Hazarai digital delay/looper. This
short promo video was directed by frequent Steely Dan trumpet player
Michael Leonhart. Fagen frequently uses aliases. He wrote
the liner notes to Can't Buy a Thrill under the name Tristan Fabriani, which
he would use on stage when he played keyboards for Jay and the Americans,. On
his solo albums, when he plays or programs a synthesizer part to replicate
a real instrument he will credit one of his aliases – Illinois Elohainu, Phonus
Quaver, or Harlan Post. In October 2013, Fagen published a
collection of essays and autobiographical material titled
"Eminent Hipsters" with Viking Adult publishing company.
Discography = Studio albums=
= Other releases= 2007 The Nightfly Trilogy
Awards In 1984, Fagen was awarded an Honorary
Doctor of Arts degree by his alma mater, Bard College.
In 2001, both Fagen and Becker received Honorary Doctor of Music degrees from
Berklee College of Music. They both accepted their degrees in person.
In 2001, Steely Dan were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 2010, Fagen was added to the American Society of Composers, Authors and
Publishers' Jazz Wall of Fame. Personal life
In 1993, Fagen married fellow songwriter Libby Titus. Although the two had
attended Bard College at around the same time, they did not become friends until
1987 when they both went backstage after a Dr. John concert. Libby Titus co-wrote
the song "Florida Room," which appears on 1993's album Kamakiriad.
Fagen is Jewish; his writings and interviews show a close identification
with Jewish culture, but indicate skepticism about all religion. Donald
celebrated his bar mitzvah at Kendall Park's Congregation Beth Shalom in 1961,
a synagogue his father helped found. References
= Footnotes= = Bibliography=
Sweet, Brian. Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years. Omnibus Press. ISBN
9780711982796. External links
donaldfagen.com Wax Poetics interview with Donald Fagen