Your favorite musician's favorite band. The mighty Steely Dan. RIP Walter. Thanks to Donald, Walter, and all of the legendary players who toiled away until the songs were beyond perfect. In an era of pop music brilliance, these guys were on another level.
Walter and Donald are a great comedy act. Donald Fagen has perfected the art of the deadpan delivery, and his timing is impeccable, pausing just long enough after saying something hilarious or provocative to see if it gets a rise from the interviewer, and then moving on smoothly;
RIP Walter 💔 🙏 😢 And Don, you're amazing. Thank you for writing the soundtrack to my life. Oh! And my 16 year old daughter just figured out how epic you are!
My daughter who is 21 heard enough Steely Dan from her dad (me), that one day "Reelin' In The Years" came on the car radio, and she told me, "I love this song!!" "Lunch With Gina" is one that always makes her Spotify playlists!! Yeah, baby girl!!
I had listened to them since the 1970s but I saw them for my first time on this tour at the Gorge in Washington state. Beautiful venue on the Columbia River. It was magic.
Walter Becker, "well we're not in Detroit so, just, any old sloppy sh*# you wanna play will be fine tonight". These guys talking is almost as good as their music. Miss you Walter
My fan connections to Becker & Fagen's music go all the way back to my first rock concert in the fall of 1965: future Steely Dan session guitarist Rick Derringer and his band The McCoys at the Van Wert, Ohio County Fairgrounds. One year later on Dec. 4, 1966 I saw The Yardbirds at Lima, Ohio's Springbrook Gardens Club. Unbeknownst to me at the time, a 19 year-old music store guitar teacher was also at the show and actually introduced himself to band member Jimmy Page. That was future Steely Dan session guitarist Elliott Randall who 6 years later composed and played the iconic lead solos on "Reelin' in the Years" that Page would famously rate "12 on a scale of 10." Then on March 19, 1972 my wife and I marveled at this kid drumming for Sonny & Cher at a concert in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Turns out that kid was 17 year-old Jeff Porcaro, who we would then see two years later on April 21, 1974 tandem drumming alongside Jim Hodder at our first Steely Dan concert at the U. of Toledo. We were lucky to see them as headliners that night, playing all the best songs from their first 3 albums, because 2 nights earlier they had to open for The Beach Boys in Columbus, and my cousin who was there said many of the fans showed no interest in Steely Dan. I bought every new album after 1974, hoping they would tour behind it, and they just never did. When they explain in this interview at 15:00 why they stopped touring I have this question: how disappointed would they have been if their jazz heroes had stopped performing live in their prime?
Massive Steely Dan fan from their first album onward, I listen to them pretty much every day, and I always feel better for even a few minutes of the Dan. The "Alive in America" album has become my favourite, if only for the wonderful arrangements and re-arrangements. "Reelin' in the Years" is my favourite, I'm always hoping it will be taken up by reactors. Glad it gets its moments here.
Yes you gotta love that lead in for Reelin' in the Years. Can't tell you how much joy Steely Dan has brought me over the years. Been a fan since I first heard them when my next door neighbor's mom was playing them. I was about 13
Sadly they added stuff in the studio afterwards. Solo on Kid Charlemagne for example. Wadenius first played the original solo verbetim but they asked him to come up with his own and add it in the studio.
Perfect timing. I spent entire weekend listening to Steely Dan & watching all available footage & interviews. Such a Unique Sound. I'm a huge fan. This was great. oNe LovE from NYC
Retired ... have spent countless, enjoyable time revisiting the “entire” Becker/ Fagan collaborative song book and much of their solo product. Conclusion: with all of the accolades accorded. In recognition of their of their work product they remain under appreciated and undervalued and, deserve a much higher recognition status in the industry. This duo was genius caliber. Needless to say, I am a converted huge fan and admirer. RIP Walter. We celebrate your contribution to creating a more enjoyable. life on this planet. 🎶
Cheers for uploading! RU-vid is becoming an archive for music history that may have never seen the light of day, beyond an old VHS tape. Here it can live on. FANTASTIC!
Great to see this again. Saw it once at 3am on VH1. Alive in America was a fave disc mine. Went to see them a couple of years after this.What a fantastic show, had so much fun seeing them live. Was going to go see them with Steve Winwood last summer until COVID stopped all the live concerts.....
Somebody finally put this up on RU-vid! Thank you! This album was awesome. I loved the reinterpretation of reeling in the years from this album. So jazzy
thanks for posting ... great clip. wish that the shows on youtube from '93 on could be pulled together into an "official" box set .... music and performances are stellar .... I would buy it in a second .... and it would save all the hassles with flakey downloads and mucking about for hours with audacity et al .... awesome band ... awesome tunes ...
Walter is hilarious, but Donald gets in a great line about his reaction to seeing bandmates picking up women on the road when they toured in the 70s: "It was a combination of envy and moral outrage."
Love seeing them wandering around their home streets of NYC remembering where they lived and the bands they created trying to get started and recognized. New sounds are always difficult to market from an unknown band. Love the escaping iguana out of Donald's flat window at 904!
Wonderful, candid conversation and interviews... anyone else count how many times either one of the said "y'know" .... guess when you've worked to gather that long, something has to rub off...
To me Fagen&Becker are in that short list (Gershwin Bros, Jerome Kern, Rogers&Hart etc;) of composers who's music seems to get better as it ages. Who's music never gets boring or tiresome. I've seen them live 6 times and at each and every performance they gave far more than what little money I paid them. There aren't a lot of musicians I can say that about on both counts
Growing up I never thought what did these bands, musicians like. It turns out so many of them like jazz or show tunes. From Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Gino Vannelli, Joe Jackson, Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Sting, and many more.
Thanks so much for posting. Any more ?;) the nearest thing to an SD documentary. Wasn’t this originally aired on CNN? Wrote two features on the drummers of SD and my vote goes to Peter Erskine/ Dennis Chambers who featured on Alive in America. The best live drummers they ever had.
The Aja documentary and VH1 special are some good ones. This youtube channel "Skeevy Daniel" has a lot of good stuff: ru-vid.com/show-UCq9_KZbz5PtQ-yJxlDEkVcQMaking of Aja: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mHVHSUXBhk4.html VH1 Storytellers: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7CmYmeCWfPM.html
I used to work for MTV / VH1 in the 90's.. Thank god the era of me having to make my camerawork look like we were bobbing about in a bathtub in the southern ocean (in winter) is long gone..
I didn't miss them on their two stadium shows - And they killed. Absolutely. each show they brought around a new band for each leg or shows. I was covering a bunch of Steeley Dan in some of my early bands.
Is there a fill video of "Reelin" and others featuring Dennis Chambers on drums? Obviously the video existed (shown in part here). Great post, thanks for uploading!!
Are these guys genius or what? Their music is timeless. Was fortunate enough to see them in concert through the years and always flawless but when Donald toured with the Great Phoebe Snow, OMG absolute perfection. Phoebe’s astounding voice lovingly applied to Donald’s lyrics and their respect and love for each other, was like sipping a very dry, chilled martini at the bar at Chez Josephines on 42nd street. Beyond amazing.
Incredible. Is the show available??? Favorite backup singers i have to heard with them. Shot beautifully. They had such a carefully construed public persona.
I don't understand why alive in america doesn't ever appear in a film, and does it here in a few times, I mean alive in America is the icon steely dan live album, why wasn't it filmed? And if so ( in fact here are some flashes of it), why it is not showed completely? ( knowing that alive in America was not a complete show, there were diferent moments of the tour compiled in one album)
LMAO @ 16:00 into the video the waiter pours a drink and leaves a glass of something on the table . Then he sneaks a domino chip off the table . Donald didn't notice , as the waiter was very slick with that maneuver . However Walter did see it . He watched his hand pick it up . Then Walter raised his head to look at the mans face but the waiter just turned and walked away as if nothing happened. Walter shakes his head then raised his eyebrow as to say " what balls on this guy "
Whatdaheck My country's commercials is keeping on forcing me to watch ads every 2 min of this marvellous masterpiece documentary of the History of music. Give us a break! Go send some ads on poppish commercials-nano type music videos!
I always assumed "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" was some kind of hotline, someone who can help you... maybe the person who gave you the number. Then i realized at the time they wrote it, a "number" meant drugs, something you crave and are begging for that will "make you feel better...when you get home..."
I love the fact that Walter and Donald looked and acted like two completely unassuming guys…they looked like they could be librarians. Looks can be deceiving.
No. Alive in America features songs from different tours in 1993 and 1994. There may be some footage from those tours on RU-vid but there is not an official broadcast of any of the shows.
Funny, I never noticed a problem with the volume. Must be because I'm plugged into a stereo. Never noticed a problem with ads either. Maybe because of my ad blocker?
Pop up ads now are compressed so they jump up real loud on you, thanks you tube, you need the money I guess, so I put a compressor limiter on the audio, works!
Great doco, loved Donald saying Skunk Baxter did very well with the ladies after the shows he had a mixure of moral disgust and envy seeing Baxter the next morning with these ladies sometimes half dressed .
It's Warren Bernhardt. He was my favourite jazz pianist. I believe he was the musical director for the Steely Dan tour in the 1990s. They asked him to take up the role again in the 2000s, but he was committed to tour with Art Garfunkel at the time and so had to decline the offer. Sadly, there isn't much film on the Internet of Warren playing. But if you search for L'Image (or L'Image2.0) you should find some videos.
I know this sounds presumptious, but the formula of Steely Dan could be attempted again. Of course, it won't be the same and it shouldn't be. However, if a band could merge urbane soulful songwriting and vocals and make the songs a platform for virtuosos to showcase on, you'd at least get a start. However, getting anywhere near Fagen and Becker's songwriting or Fagen's singing is the impossible challenge.
