Walter Becker of Steely Dan, dead at 67.

cmy330go

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/walter-becker-steely-dan-co-founder-dead-at-67-w500956

deronb1

Geez! Way too soon. Saw them a couple of years ago at an outdoor venue. Superb!

tratliff

Wow. Great musician and one of my favorites.

RIP

daddyjt

A loss of monumental proportions. Steely Dan is tied with Fleetwood Mac for my all-time favorite band. At quite possibly the greatest time for rock music in history, with an unprecedented number of truly great bands playing, Steely Dan still found ways to push the envelope in creativity, originality, and passion for music. Becker was at the heart of this, and will truly be missed

Rest In Peace sir.

Mikey081057

Very sad.. RIP Walter Becker one of the all time greats to me.

gce

And only 67. RIP Walter Becker...

gudnoyez

If there was one band that me and the wife enjoyed as much as the other it was the Dan. When I first started dating her she picked The Royal Scam when I finally got her to my place. We will both be listening to the Dan related stuff the rest of the weekend starting out with His solo stuff. R.I.P Mr Becker.

kharp1

I remember seeing them around 94 on their first tour in many years. Outdoor show at an amphitheater outside Pittsburgh. Aja is still one of my "go to" albums. Sad we're losing some of the great ones from an incredible era of Rock.

toucanet

Major loss to the music world.

indyhawg

I was fortunate to see Steely Dan twice. RIP.

Derf

So sad. Loss of a great talent.

vmaxer

Gone too soon, RIP.

Dennis Gardner

Every album they ever did is in my slow rotation. None were duds, sort of like the 4 blonde doctor's daughters that we all knew........R.I.P W.B.

erniejade

Dang!! Rip.

mrbigbluelight

The instant I read the title to this thread, the song "Reelin' in the Years' started playing in my head.
A lot of GOOD music.
Dam.

cmy330go

Some nice words from Donald Fagen:

Walter Becker was my friend, my writing partner and my bandmate since we met as students at Bard College in 1967. We started writing nutty little tunes on an upright piano in a small sitting room in the lobby of Ward Manor, a mouldering old mansion on the Hudson River that the college used as a dorm.

We liked a lot of the same things: jazz (from the twenties through the mid-sixties), W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, science fiction, Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Berger, and Robert Altman films come to mind. Also soul music and Chicago blues.

Walter had a very rough childhood - I’ll spare you the details. Luckily, he was smart as a whip, an excellent guitarist and a great songwriter. He was cynical about human nature, including his own, and hysterically funny. Like a lot of kids from fractured families, he had the knack of creative mimicry, reading people’s hidden psychology and transforming what he saw into bubbly, incisive art. He used to write letters (never meant to be sent) in my wife Libby’s singular voice that made the three of us collapse with laughter.

His habits got the best of him by the end of the seventies, and we lost touch for a while. In the eighties, when I was putting together the NY Rock and Soul Review with Libby, we hooked up again, revived the Steely Dan concept and developed another terrific band.

I intend to keep the music we created together alive as long as I can with the Steely Dan band.

Donald Fagen

September 3 2017

Copied from - http://variety.com/2017/music/news/donald-fagen-walter-becker-dead-steely-dan-1202546352/

mhardy6647

Dang

schwarcw

RIP Mr. Becker. Your music will be long remembered

F1nut

Thank you for some of the best music ever written and performed. After all these years it definitely stands the test of time.

RIP Walter Becker

MrBuhl

RIP, Lucky enough to have seen them a few times as well, supremely talented individual indeed.

trav0810

I just saw this last year...just saw Fagen solo last week. Steely Dan has become my favorite band over the last couple years. I was very sad to hear of his passing this morning.

In tribute, I am listening to the Aja SACD that just arrived in the mail yesterday while I was out of town.

[Deleted User]

I've turned several teens and 20-somethings on to Steely Dan the past few years and have been getting texts from some of them lately asking if I was going to a local concert they were having. It'll be a shame if it's cancelled and the baggy **** pants kids can't see them in person.

And there's nothing worse than dying with money in the bank. I'd imagine he did well for himself and had some stashed away to get old with.

Dabutcher

RIP. One of my favorites. D

Dennis Gardner

From his website, worth your time, explains a kids view into their Dad's mind....



a d a u g h t e r ' s t r i b u t e

- s a y a n b e c k e r



You loved music more than anyone I know. You're always there bobbing your head to each beat, doing a little dance here and there, or sitting over there with your big head phones on and swaying back and forth. I could see it, your dissecting the song — listening in closely for each beat , for each musical instrument — you know, whatever you musicians do. But I get it.

Every road trip without fail came The Pit Stop at some guitar store. Heck, dad, I keep telling you why don't you just own your own store? Five hours go by as I sit watching you fiddle with a guitar here and there...yet you never end up buying one. I understand though; it was your fun place, like an arcade; playing all you can, and as loud as you can. Your candy shop.

Dad you're kinda funny; sometimes I may not understand the meaning behind your witty highly intelligent comments or jokes, but for you to smile and make everyone — or even thousands all at once — smile and laugh, then yeah you got something going for you pops... I get it. Your presence makes everyone's day a little brighter. I love you for that.

Coast to coast. How is it that you know so many facts about every state or country we visit? We would walk through Central Park Zoo and just randomly point out some little thing... and here it comes, some long historical fact about it. Dad, it's a seal for crying out loud! It amazes me how intelligent you are.

"Dad, I like that we understand one another"
"Sa-girl, we are soul mates"
"Dad I love you to the moon and back"
"Girly face I love you more than that, to the next galaxy"
"Wow, that's far!"
"Well it's true"

"...Thanks dad"

... for your love for music, your fatherly advice and devotion, your knowledge about the world and your blindingly sharp sense of humor ... for all that, and more.

We had one hell of a ride. You are my world, my soulmate, my father, that I love so much.

It's true your love is shining from the next galaxy. I could see it now; you got a whole galaxy of guitars to look at. Rock on dad, rock on until your heart is content.

I hear you.

I get you.



-Your only Pulama Ama Lama.

Mikey081057

[Deleted User]

Mikey081057 wrote: »

NO $hit!!!!

mhardy6647

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/read-rickie-lee-jones-poignant-tribute-to-walter-becker-w501078

[Deleted User]

This unfortunate incident has had my memory bank in overdrive lately. My brother was 5 years older than so I was his punk little brother always bugging him. But he had a couple friends that treated like a person. They were into audio and got me into it. I was the only guy in jr high that had a real stereo in his bedroom. My first high end album purchase was MFSL Steely Dan Aja.

When my son was around 5 or 6, he started a ritual of wanting A Decade of Steely Dan to start playing in my truck as we left the house early Sunday mornings heading out to a motocross track. He knew every word to every song and what song was coming on next. He would also use what song was playing to know when we where getting close to the track.

In high school he decided he wanted to play guitar which my wife and I supported. He took to it like a duck to water. All of our Steely Dan, Pink Floyd, Rush, Zeppelin, etc. soon began disappearing. They were all in his room so he could figure out how to play them. He was asked to join a band and played some local gigs but nothing really after high school. He still sits in room 7 days a week after work or whatever playing one of his guitars. Waisted talent that should be using it for a few bucks. I took his truck to get some food last night cuz it was easiest to get out of the driveway. Sure enough, he had Steely Dan playing when I turned the ignition key. A mid 20's kid that doesn't follow the sheep around. He knows what good music is and doesn't give a crap if his buddies don't get it.

mrbigbluelight

That Rolling Stones article by Rickie Lee Jones is a very good read.

Dennis Gardner

I like how she (RLJ) called them the first "college band". Their attention to detail and tongue in cheek take on things did make them more sophisticated than a lot of the simpler offerings of the time. I find it cool how well their style holds up today. You can't really tell their '70s music from their new stuff from the last decade or so.

mhardy6647

I listened to much of Can't Buy A Thrill drivin' home from Boston tonight. A great record album.