Lets start a "Dan" thread

Smithers XKR

Smithers XKR

Well-known member
Not your favourite SD songs... but your favourite use of great musicians and production and recording values 👍

I nominate this one, the perfect pop/jazz track.

- Rick Marrota, drums. People think it was Porcarro but it was not. Rick used such subtle use of hi hat dynamic and great cymbal work.
- Chuck Rainey, bass. Don and Walt expressly told him... do not slap! We dont want it. But he did it anyway 😅
- Jay Graydon, guitar solo. They had tried a number of great session players and were unimpressed. Jay came in and laid down the perfect guitar pop/rock/jazz solo in one take.
- Mike Mac, laid down 4 part harmonies. He is awsome.
 
RRuskin said:
I have to go with this one.
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As I get older my friend, I move more and more away from the rock/metal stuff I played in the 80s in bands and back to my real love of the great 70s music I grew up with. All of my writing now is back in the day.
Thanks Rusk, nice one 😉🥰👍
 
RRuskin said:
How could they go wrong with guys like these?
  • Donald Fagen – lead vocals, synthesizer, backing vocals
  • Bernard Purdie – drums
  • Chuck Rainey – bass guitar
  • Larry Carlton – guitar
  • Walter Becker – guitar solo
  • Victor Feldman – piano, vibraphone
  • Tim Schmit – backing vocals
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And lets not forget they had 2 brilliant guitar players in that original band man!
I just love Skunks playing and his work on the Doobie Brothers Stampede album.
And when they wanted a tasteful little solo on Aja they just called on Denny again.
 
RRuskin said:
How could they go wrong with guys like these?
  • Donald Fagen – lead vocals, synthesizer, backing vocals
  • Bernard Purdie – drums
  • Chuck Rainey – bass guitar
  • Larry Carlton – guitar
  • Walter Becker – guitar solo
  • Victor Feldman – piano, vibraphone
  • Tim Schmit – backing vocals
Click to expand...
There's an even longer list of names who Fagan and Becker employed and hired.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a Steely Dan fan, with one exception. Fagan and Becker never performed as a duo in front of a live audience, which was the norm for Seals and Croft, and other duos back in the day.
 
60s guy, I think the type of music that Seals and Crofts created works much better as an acoustic duo than the style of music Becker and Fagen wrote. It's much closer to the singer/songwriter/folk music of people like Simon and Garfunkel. Songs like Bodhisattva, and Peg have much more complex instrumentation. I don't think B & F intended the music to be performed in a simple, stripped down manner. It could probably be done on some songs, but that's not the direction they wanted to take. I could see a song like Aja being done with a simpler setup, almost in an "MTV Unplugged manner". It might lose something in the translation though.

It's a bit like the Beatles saying that they would stop touring to concentrate on creating music in the studio. It gave them room to explore different avenues.
 
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