The Roseland shows, both quick sellouts, were highlighted by some new additions to the set list like "East St. Most of the '93 lineup was back; the exception was John Beasley replacing Warren Bernhardt on piano. Beasley's more aggressive style added some nice touches to the tunes. In a sign that they were opening up to promotional ideas, Becker and Fagen consented to a VH-1 special on "Alive in America", where they returned to their old Brooklyn apartment building and were interviewed.
Donald and Walter also tried their hand at doing online interviews for the first time, appearing on Prodigy, Compuserve and The Microsoft Network for live "chats" with fans. They apparently liked the experience since soon afterwards work began on their own official website, steelydan. Donald and Walter had been writing new songs together on and off beginning in the mid's, and serious discussions regarding a new studio album began in February Around this time, word began to get out that the Dan were going on the road again in the summer of , this time hitting both the U.
The tour was eagerly anticipated by Dan fans since they were expecting to hear some of the new studio material Donald and Walter were working on, and they were not disappointed; "Jack of Speed", "Cash Only Island" and "Wet Side Story" were played at various venues during the tour, and were very warmly received.
Some fans were shocked to hear Walter taking the lead vocals on the very first new song played, "Jack of Speed", and wondered what that may mean for the overall lead-vocals situation in Steely Dan.
During the tour Walter also traded lead vocals with Donald on "Everyone's Gone to the Movies", performed "Midnight Cruiser" solo and in the process making everyone forget Jim Hodder's original lead vocal on the tune , and also performed "My Waterloo" from "11 Tracks of Whack".
Changes to the touring lineup for the '96 tour included Michael Leonhart on yes trumpet, Ari Ambrose on tenor sax, Wayne Krantz on lead guitar, the great Ricky Lawson on drums, Beasley once again on piano, and Carolyn Leonhart and Michelle Wiley on backup vocals. Following the '96 tour, Fagen and Becker dove headlong into the songwriting process for their new Steely Dan album.
Continuing to shun touring in favor of recording the album, they went through the rest of '98 and most of '99 putting on the finishing touches, which included many fantastic lead guitar solos by Walter, horn parts by Chris Potter, Michael Leonhart and Lou Marini, percussion from Gordon Gottlieb and Steve Shapiro, and backup vocals from Michael's sister Carolyn Leonhart, Cynthia Calhoun, and Michael Harvey.
As it turned out Donald had once again assumed all the lead-vocal duties; he said he asked Walter if he wanted to do "Jack of Speed" but Walter declined. Michael Leonhart played a large role in the recording process by contributing to some of the horn arrangements, while Gary Blu was once again entrusted with writing out the charts.
Potter also left a major impression by coming up with the incredible 3. Becker and Fagen had originally intended that part of the tune to be a guitar solo, but Potter asked if he could take it home for a couple of days and work on it, and when he came back in and started blowing -- well, the results speak for themselves. The tune thus became an epic in the manner of "Deacon Blues" and "Aja" -- ironic since it began as a reggae piece when Donald and Walter first came up with the idea in The rest of the songs all came together during this period.
Others, like the various rumored outtakes and the previously played "Cash Only Island" and "Wet Side Story", were shelved, hopefully to be resurrected for future albums someday. Donald and Walter took a short break from the recording process in January of '99 to record "The Making of Aja" for the Classic Albums series.
They brought "Aja" musicians Bernard Purdie, Chuck Rainey and the late Paul Griffin to River Sound where they joined in reminiscing about the recording of the '77 album. New guys Herington and Barney joined the vets on instrumental jams of some of the tunes, and the resulting video was released to TV, DVD and video later that year.
During '98 and '99, various sources including Nichols, who poked fun at the shroud of secrecy surrounding the project began to report the name of the upcoming album as "Two Against Nature" and to float various tentative release dates. Finally, in November of '99, the first reviewer Roger Friedman of Fox News reported he had gotten an advance copy of the CD and disclosed the titles of the 9 tunes, in the process spoiling the "Match the Tracks" contest Steely Dan had put up on the official site.
Then it was made official: the release date was to be Feb. Being a once-inyears leap date, it somehow seemed entirely appropriate. They performed several of the songs from the new CD as well as some older favorites, and they never sounded better.
When the CD was released on Feb. To some, it seemed like they had never left, while for others, it was like being reunited with an old, dear friend.
After the tour ended, the thrills continued for Steely Dan and their fans. In December '00 it was announced that they were finally getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame , with the ceremonies scheduled for March ' In February '01 they stunned many though not most fans by winning 4 Grammy awards for "Two Against Nature" -- including the top honor for "Album of the Year".
So some were surprised when a "mere" three years later, Steely Dan released a new studio album "Everything Must Go" in , followed by North American tours in and , and a world tour in What happens next?
Who knows. But visitors to Steely Dan's Website will get the first official word. First, let's dispatch with a few perennial favorites:. Did anyone in Steely Dan ever attend the University of Alabama? For a condensed history, see the SD Timeline. The Pre-Dan Era.
The Early Steely Dan Era. The songs were so good that the origin of the name Steely Dan mattered little. Although Steely Dan's music was rooted in jazz and blues, the band's name came from a literary source--Edgar Burroughs' novel "Naked Lunch," which made mention of a "steely dan," a steam-powered adult toy.
They went on to make two more albums together and continued to tour together until illness forced Becker to pull out of a Steely Dan performance at the Classic West festival at Dodger Stadium in July. In this interview from the archives, Becker and Fagen, with biting wit, discuss the dichotomy of the anarchy of their lyrics and the jazz harmonies of their singular sound.
The duo disbanded its backup lineup and quit touring in , ceasing all live performances well before most of their major hits were even released. Flash forward to the present, at which point Fagen, 45, and Becker, 43, have done the unthinkable and — an astonishing 19 years after their previous gig — booked a brief U. Nearly all of the shows — including dates at the Greek Sept.
Tickets still remain for a show at the Blockbuster Pavilion Sept. The instrumental warmth and smoothness of the sounds was a necessary tonic for the bitterness sometimes infecting the sentiments or lack of them. But in trying to figure out exactly who it was that snapped up all those tour tickets so instantly, it comes to mind that there are probably two core audiences for Steely Dan:.
Given the cultural divide between these two camps, we continue, does the duo worry that any brawls might break out between the surly old hepsters and the gentler sax-lovers at these shows?
But historically, musicians informed by jazz rapids have drifted toward unchallenging lyrical currents, whereas, conversely, bands with subversive intentions tend to deliberately drift toward unsophisticated styles of music. As a group with credentials toward serious musicianship and an intellectually insurgent attitude, Steely Dan remains widely adored, and hardly imitated.
Sawyer lost an eye in an accident and wears an eye patch — and, usually, a well-worn cowboy hat. Their most durable hit was "The Cover of 'Rolling Stone'," which landed them the feature photo spot they sang about wanting.
So who is Dr. Sawyer's eye patch inspired the name as a reference to Captain Hook from Peter Pan , but Sawyer wasn't playing the role of Dr. When people asked the band which one was Dr. Hook, they directed them to the bus driver. Uriah Heep is a prog-metal band founded in If you've never heard of them you probably won't recognize the names of their songs either, but songs such as "Lady in Black" were big in their time. The band is still playing. So who is Uriah Heep? A dreadful sycophantic hypocrite from Charles Dickens's David Copperfield.
This southern rock group became famous for their song "Sweet Home Alabama," but they had other hits as well, such as "Free Bird. Van Zant and several others associated with the band were killed in a plane crash. So who is Lynyrd Skynyrd? If the name doesn't quite look like a person's name, that's because the real guy was Leonard Skinner.
He was the phys ed teacher at the founders' high school in Jacksonville, and he was strict in his enforcement of the school's hair length policy. Molly Hatchet was formed in in Jacksonville and is part of the same genre as Lynyrd Skynyrd; its best known song is "Flirtin' with Disaster. Hey, it's not like it was called Dave Hlubek. He rejoined in and stayed with the group until he died on Sept.
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