Walter Becker Steely Dan founder , the guitarist, bassist and co-founder of the rock duo Steely Dan, probably the most profitable and adventurous teams of the 1970s and early ’80s, died on Sunday. He was 67.
In recent times Mr. Becker and Mr. Fagen have toured extensively with a big band and backup singers. Final fall they’d an prolonged run on the Beacon Theater in New York, wherein every night was dedicated to the songs from a single Steely Dan album.
“Walter Becker was my buddy, my writing accomplice and my bandmate since we met as college students at Bard School in 1967. We began writing nutty little tunes on an upright piano in a small sitting room within the foyer of Ward Manor, a mouldering previous mansion on the Hudson River that the faculty used as a dorm, Mr. Fagen stated.
Mr. Becker had missed performances in Los Angeles and New York earlier this 12 months. Donald Fagen, the band’s different co-founder and lead singer, instructed Billboard final month that Mr. Becker had been “recovering from a process, and hopefully he’ll be superb very quickly.” He gave no different particulars.
Walter Becker Steely Dan founder
Beginning in 1972, after Mr. Becker and Mr. Fagen had met at Bard School, the group produced hit singles like “Do It Once more,” ‘Reelin’ Within the Years,” “Rikki Don’t Lose That Quantity” and “Deacon Blues,” in addition to a raft of critically lauded albums, together with “Pretzel Logic,” “The Royal Rip-off,” “Aja” and “Gaucho,” the latter two extensively thought to be their most artistically achieved.
The usually calm tempos of Steely Dan’s music held unlikely musical twists and ingenious lyrics on an eclectic vary of matters, amongst them stock-market crashes, Puerto Rican immigration, junkies, dishonest lovers, an area alien and a suicidal sofa potato.
Mr. Becker and Mr. Fagen went their very own methods for a lot of the 1980s, producing solo albums. They reunited in 2000 with “Two In opposition to Nature,” which earned a Grammy Award for album of the 12 months.
Steely Dan has offered greater than 40 million albums worldwide, and the band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame in 2001.
