The Steely Dan thread

Fretwired

Great live show at Sony from 2000 .. tasty guitar from Jon Herington ... enjoy.

Jalapeno

My dream band would be a Steely Dan covers group - probably need a long time to get match fit with all those original Larry Carlton licks and solos.

Fretwired

Jalapeno said:

My dream band would be a Steely Dan covers group - probably need a long time to get match fit with all those original Larry Carlton licks and solos.

Funny I'd always thoughtthe same thing - there aren't many about which says it all really. If you watch the video above its interspersed with interviews and the band rehearsing. Fagan's a tough boss - you've got to be a top musician to make the grade.

bingefeller

Good idea for a thread.

Which is your favourite version of the Peg solo:

Personally, from these clips, I'd go for the Drew Zingg version.  

bingefeller

I do like Wayne Krantz's leads on Green Earrings here:

Fretwired

How about some Skunk Baxter ...

bingefeller

yeah Skunk was one of their best 70s guitarists....him and Jay Graydon.  Jon Herrington is really great on the more recent live stuff.  

bigjon

Had a dep gig 2 weeks ago where we did Do It Again and My Old School. Great guitar on the originals of both, was a lot of fun to learn.

DulcetJones

Great band, been a semi-fan since "Reelin' in the Years".  It was the first solo I attempted to get from start to finish.  I never got it all up to speed but I learned a lot of great techniques, had to give it up when I realized nobody wanted to try to cover it.  

axisus

Fantastic band. True class.

bigjon

Just busked Pretzel Logic with the house band at the Cambridge jazz-funk jam. It's actually a pretty straightforward song, just a couple of subtle twists which give it that hip sound.

Bucket

I fucking love Steely Dan.

Torn between The Royal Scam and Countdown to Ecstasy for favourite album of theirs, they're quite different but both have stunning guitar playing. Larry Carlton on Kid Charlemagne and Don't Take Me Alive, or Jeff Baxter on The Boston Rag? Hmm...

Kebabkid

Brilliant band and about 10 years ago I used to be in a band that played Peg, Josie,  Night by Night, Rikki don't lose that number and Reelin' in the years along with some Doobies and Eagles stuff thrown in. Great stuff to play and we had a 3 guitar set up which helped cover parts.

Kid Charlemagne will always remain the definitive guitar solo, and also be one of the most challenging to get absolutely right. No wonder it remains a favourite to study and deconstruct at The Guitar Institute and the like. The phrasing, melody, interpretation of the chords etc and it's probably Carlton's finest single piece of work. In fact, I picked up the Lick Library Steely Dan DVD by Tom Quayle - it's great for learning the more popular SD tunes and the backing tracks are superb to play along to. Highly recommended!


From their roster of live guitar players, I caught the mid-90s tour with Wayne Krantz and he did a good job but from other footage I've seen, I prefer Drew Zingg and he's my fave as sound and style wise, he's closer to Carlton. I always thought the one guitarist who should've been on an SD album was Robben Ford.

Fagan, and Becker for that matter, are task masters. I'm not sure if I like them in interviews, and they're very high brow, but they are the bosses and they want the best and that control reflects in their body of work and the quality of the classic tunes. I also remember reading about the SD session Mark Knopfler was asked to play on for the Gaucho album - it was probably at the height of his career. He said it was one of the most nerve wracking things he'd ever done and I can't even remember if his parts were pulled (need to look that one up).

I always said that if I had the brains, understanding and capability to do a music degree, my thesis would've been on Steely Dan, or err...ABBA.

There's a couple of SD tribute bands that do a good job, Nearly Dan, Gas in the Car and Stanley Dee. If you took the best elements from all of them, then you'd have a truly great band. The guitarist in Stanley Dee is a particularly fine player and is worth a listen and he uses a 339, Fender HRD, Line6 M9 and something like a Jester pedal for his overdrive.
http://www.stanleydee.co.uk/?page_id=1119

Oh, don't get me started on The Nightfly. A desert island disc if ever there was one!

richardhomer

^ Knopler's parts weren't pulled. He's all over 'Time Out of Mind' - though the more Knopfleresque sounding lead on 'Hey Nineteen' is Walter Becker.

Becker is a great guitar player in his own right.

Kebabkid

Cheers @richardhomer and yes, Becker is good. Anyone got his solo album "11 tracks of whack"? If you hear all the jazzy elements in Donald Fagen's solo work, I think you hear all the poppy and quirky elements in this album and so together...you have the Steely Dan sound.

Nunogilberto

I like SD - great band.

Jez6345789

A big SD fan but you seldom find a woman who deeply appreciates them they are a guys band. I think WB is a great guitarist but listening to Larry talk about him he seems to think he is passable but caveats the comment with who needs to be a virtuoso when you can write such amazing songs.

dindude

LOVE The Dan, my guitar teacher got me into them when I was 14 (as an indication everyone else, including me, was listening to Nirvana) and went on to explore the entire back catalogue so they were a big part of my formative years of playing guitar.

Skipped

Kebabkid said:

Oh, don't get me started on The Nightfly. A desert island disc if ever there was one!

Is it the greatest album ever made?
It might be.

I love everything about Steely Dan. I love all the drummers they have had. Years ago I was in a record shop somewhere in Holland and was browsing the Steely Dan bootlegs. I had just decided which one to buy when the shop owner rushed out from behind the counter shouting:
"No! You must buy this one! Peter Erskine is on this one!!!"
He then put the album on to make his point.

Skipped

Have just revisited the live album, "Alive in America".
It is much better than I remember.

Kebabkid

Anyone a fan of the non-Steely Dan stuff that Becker and Fagan produced/contributed to? China Crisis with Becker at the helm were great and I believe they both contributed to the Rosie Vela album "Zazu". Her single from that album, "Magic Smile", was a great song. Last time I heard anything more about her, she was a backing singer on a Jeff Lynne/ELO tour, but that was in 2001.