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TDC: Walter Becker Dead at 67


Teh

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                                                                         Great band and very fine musician. Love the band through all its many changes..................I had heard he was ill but it was kept unknown as to what it was...........and still is. This year is as bad as last as some of the aging greats we grew up with are passing on. Sad but part of life is the end of life. RIP:(

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I am a Steely Dan fanboy. Rarely does a week go by that I don't listen to at least one of their albums in its entirety.

This is a sad day indeed.

Thank you, Walter Becker. You will be missed.

 

-Bobby

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Donald Fagen made a pretty good statement about his friend/collaborator/etc:

Quote

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

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/read-donald-fagens-tribute-to-steely-dans-walter-becker-w500968

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Damn,  I had never seen Steely Dan and had the opportunity to do so the past couple of years.   Something always came up. 

Couldn't say it any better than Arm of Hamer posted.  One of many bands that defined by teenage years.  

Too many great songs to list

The talent that joined them on their quest for the music they created is like a Who's Who of artists.  

Personal Fave was "Deacon Blues".  

Rest in Peace Walter and to his family, friends and fans thoughts and prayers.   :(

Hamerica

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Last October I had the honor of delivering my last completed guitar to Walter, and he was as gracious and appreciative as could be. Then this past May I was lucky enough to see what turned out to be his final performance at this year's Greenwich Town Party. With Jon Herington off touring Europe, he was in the mood to rock out. He was truly a musical ninja, and always on the side of the outsider. In addition to Donald Fagen's statement, I thought this was a nice commentary:

http://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2017/09/04/548384628/walter-becker-was-a-master-of-musical-understatement

What a loss.

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I belatedly took a serious turn listening to Steely Dan, as I was firmly into hard rock and metal during the lads' second heyday when Aja hit the charts. Frankly, for a young preteen who had formal music training yet was enamored of the glitz, excess, and roaring sounds of boosted Marshall amps omnipresent in the heavy metal genre, it was difficult to accept as cool the smooth jazz inflections of Steely Dan, whose "Hey Nineteen" was, at that time, a soundtrack staple in "General Hospital's" Luke and Laura saga. 

Fast forward a couple of decades. I happened upon "Josie" while listening to a classic rock station on my afternoon commute. This time, I listened more closely. The subtle complexities in the chord progressions, voicings, rhythms, and vocal harmonies hooked me. I just HAD to figure out that tune...which led to working on "Peg", "Kid Charlemagne", "Do it Again", "Reelin'in the Years", etc. Each song is like a puzzle and contains surprising nuances as you unpack the composition.  

Donald and Walter are/were a natural progression of the studio-borne composer/producer archetype previously established by McCartney, Lennon, and Brian Wilson. When they reunited and began touring like a regular band several years ago, it dawned on me that, like McCartney and Wilson, they'd found a new challenge and were having a ball mastering the live performance of their anthology. 

Rock music is a hell of lot better for having had the contributions of Water and Donald.

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Long time since I've been on the HFC, but had to check in on this.

Great things already written, so all I can add is this;

When I heard about this late Monday, it struck me that Walter was only 8 years older than me.

When listening to "Can't buy a thrill" when it came out, and I was a 14 year old freshman in high school, had someone asked me if I could conceive of putting out an album this good when I was 22, I would have said "no", and sure enough, eight years later proved that correct, by not doing it. 

Amazing ability."Did you feel like Jesus" indeed.

R.I.P. Walter and thanks. 

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  • 2 months later...

I was curious about the mechanics of Fagen taking over the operation and continuing under the band name. Turns out there was apparently an agreement from 1972 about that. But it's going to court anyway. :facepalm:

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/donald-fagen-sues-becker-estate/
 

Quote

 

Walter's widow Delia Becker apparently petitioned to become an officer of the incorporated Steely Dan partnership in a letter dated just days after his sudden death; she also demanded 50 percent ownership. Fagen says that the Becker family has taken control of the band's official web site, as well.

Fagen is now suing Becker's estate in an attempt to complete a long-planned buy out of the band name, as detailed in a 1972 agreement signed by all of the original Steely Dan members.

 

 

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28 minutes ago, Steve Haynie said:

Rock star widows are pesky things.  Just ask Artimus Pyle.  

I back Donald Fagen on this one.

Just ask Dweezil Zappa!

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