Donald Fagen

Donald Jay Fagen (born January 10, 1948) is an American musician best known as the co-founder, lead singer, co-songwriter, and keyboardist of the band Steely Dan, formed in the early 1970s with musical partner Walter Becker. In addition to his work with Steely Dan, Fagen has released four solo albums, beginning with The Nightfly in 1982, which was nominated for seven Grammys. In 2001, Fagen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Steely Dan. Following Becker's death in 2017, Fagen continued to tour under the Steely Dan name.

Donald Fagen
Fagen in 2017
Fagen in 2017
Background information
Birth nameDonald Jay Fagen
Born (1948-01-10) January 10, 1948
Passaic, New Jersey, U.S.
Genres
Occupation(s)
  • Musician
  • songwriter
  • record producer
Instrument(s)
  • Vocals
  • keyboards
Years active1965–present
Labels
Member ofSteely Dan
Formerly ofThe Dukes of September
WebsiteOfficial Facebook

Early life

Fagen was born in Passaic, New Jersey, on January 10, 1948,[2] to Jewish parents, Joseph "Jerry" Fagen, an accountant, and his wife, Elinor, a homemaker who had been a swing singer in upstate New York's Catskill Mountains from childhood through her teens.[3][4] His family moved to Fair Lawn, a small town near Passaic. When he was ten years old, he moved with his parents and younger sister to Kendall Park, a newly constructed suburban section of South Brunswick, New Jersey. The transition upset him. He detested living in the suburbs.[5] He later recalled that it "was like a prison. I think I lost faith in [my parents'] judgment... It was probably the first time I realized I had my own view of life." His life in Kendall Park, including his teenage love of late-night radio,[6] inspired his later album The Nightfly.[3]

Fagen became interested in rock and rhythm and blues (R&B) in the late 1950s. The first record he bought was "Reelin' and Rockin' " by Chuck Berry.[3] At age eleven, a cousin recommended jazz music and Fagen went to the Newport Jazz Festival, becoming what he called a "jazz snob": "I lost interest in rock 'n' roll and started developing an anti-social personality."[7] In the early 1960s, beginning at age twelve, he often went to the Village Vanguard, where he was particularly impressed by Earl Hines, Willie "The Lion" Smith, and Bill Evans.[8] He regularly took the bus to Manhattan to see performances by jazz musicians Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis. He learned to play the piano, and he played baritone horn in the high school marching band.[7] He developed a lifelong fondness for table tennis.[9] In his late teens he was drawn to soul music, funk, Motown, and Sly and the Family Stone. He has also expressed admiration for the Boswell Sisters, Henry Mancini, and Ray Charles.[8]

After graduating from South Brunswick High School in 1965, inspired by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, he enrolled at Bard College to study English literature, where he met[10] Walter Becker in a coffee house in 1967.[11] Becker and Fagen attracted a revolving assortment of musicians including future actor Chevy Chase, to form the bands Leather Canary, the Don Fagen Jazz Trio, and the Bad Rock Band.[12] Fagen described his college bands as sounding like "the Kingsmen performing Frank Zappa material".[13] None of the groups lasted long, but the partnership between Fagen and Becker did. The duo's early career included working with Jay and the Americans, for which they used pseudonyms. In the early 1970s they worked as pop songwriters for ABC/Dunhill Records, which released all of Steely Dan's 1970s albums.

Career

Steely Dan
Main article: Steely Dan

Becker and Fagen began to form Steely Dan in the summer of 1970, responding to a Village Voice ad for "a bassist and keyboard player with jazz chops" placed by guitarist Denny Dias. Dias was immediately impressed by the pair's abilities, and especially that they already had a whole stack of original material.[14] (Fans of Beat Generation literature, Fagen and Becker named the band after a steam-powered vibrator mentioned in the William S. Burroughs novel Naked Lunch.[15][16][17]) The group's first lineup was assembled in December 1971 in Los Angeles, where Becker and Fagen had relocated to work as staff songwriters for ABC/Dunhill. Becker and Fagen formed the core of the band and wrote all the songs, with Becker on bass, and later lead guitar, and Fagen on keyboards and vocals.

After the release of their third LP in 1974, the other members left or were fired from the band, which evolved into a studio project headed by Becker and Fagen. Steely Dan's best-selling album was 1977's Aja, which was certified platinum. Three years later, they released Gaucho. Their next album was not until 1995, when they released the live album Alive in America. It was followed by the multiple Grammy Award winning Two Against Nature in 2000, and Steely Dan's most recent album Everything Must Go in 2003. A concert DVD, Two Against Nature, included material from much of the band's history.

After Becker's death in 2017, Fagen wished to retire the Steely Dan name out of respect for his bandmate and tour under a different name, but promoters advised him against it for commercial reasons.[18] As of 2022, Fagen continues to tour as Steely Dan.[19]

Solo career

After Steely Dan's breakup in 1981, Fagen released his debut solo album, The Nightfly, in October 1982. It was certified platinum for sales of over a million copies in the U.S. and reached 11 on the Billboard Top 200 albums list.[20] The first single, "I.G.Y.", released in September 1982,[21] peaked at number 26 on the Hot 100. The follow-up single, "New Frontier" (January 1983[22]), peaked at number 70 and was accompanied by a music video. The Nightfly was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In 2002, Rhino Records released a DVD-Audio version of The Nightfly in honor of the album's 20th anniversary. The bonus track, "True Companion", from the Nightfly Trilogy MVI Boxed Set is track seven on the Heavy Metal film soundtrack. Fagen also contributed "Century's End" to the soundtrack for the 1988 Michael J. Fox film, Bright Lights, Big City.

During the rest of the 1980s, Fagen contributed to soundtracks and wrote a column for Premiere magazine. In the early 1990s, he toured with the New York Rock and Soul Revue.[2] Becker and Fagen reunited in 1986 to work on the debut album by model and singer Rosie Vela.[23] Fagen co-produced and played keyboards on Walter Becker's solo album debut 11 Tracks of Whack (1994). Becker produced Fagen's second album, Kamakiriad (1993), which was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and reached number 10 on the Top 200 albums chart.[20]

Fagen's third solo album, Morph the Cat, was released on March 14, 2006, and featured Wayne Krantz (guitar), Jon Herington (guitar), Keith Carlock (drums), Freddie Washington (bass), Ted Baker (piano), and Walt Weiskopf (sax). It reached 26 on Billboard Top 200 albums list.[20] Morph the Cat was named Album of the Year by Mix magazine. The 5.1 surround sound mix won the Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album.[24]

Fagen's first three albums were released in a box set, Nightfly Trilogy, in the MVI (Music Video Interactive) format. Each album features DTS 5.1, Dolby 5.1 and PCM Stereo mix but no MLP encoded track, along with bonus audio and video content.

Fagen's fourth album, Sunken Condos, was released in 2012. It reached 12 on the Billboard Top 200 albums list.[20]

In 2012, Fagen toured with the Dukes of September, featuring Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs. One of the concerts was recorded at Lincoln Center in New York City and broadcast on PBS Great Performances in 2014.[25]

In 2013, Fagen published an autobiography titled Eminent Hipsters.[26] A biography Nightfly: The Life of Steely Dan's Donald Fagen by Peter Jones was published in 2022.[27]

Fagen frequently uses aliases. He wrote the liner notes to Can't Buy a Thrill under the name Tristan Fabriani, which he used on stage when he played keyboards for Jay and the Americans (Becker used Gus Mahler). On his solo albums, when he played or programmed a synthesizer part to replicate a real instrument (bass, vibraphone, horns) he credited one of his aliases: Illinois Elohainu, Phonus Quaver, or Harlan Post.

Style and themes

Fagen has classified himself as both a self-taught pianist and a self-taught vocalist, although he did spend a few semesters studying formally at Berklee College of Music and took some vocal lessons in the mid-1970s as a precaution after feeling the straining effects of years of touring. Although he learned to become an entertainer, early on Fagen suffered from severe stage fright, which prompted Steely Dan producer Gary Katz to hire David Palmer to sing two songs on Steely Dan's debut album, Can't Buy a Thrill. This also led to the hiring of Royce Jones and Michael McDonald as singers in the band's tours in the early 1970s. Fagen plays the Fender Rhodes electric piano and Wurlitzer electric piano.

According to Robert Christgau, in terms of lyrics, Fagen is a "pathological ironist"[28] who "doesn't much care about hippies" or the message of his generation's counterculture: "His '60s are the Kennedy years, when a smart, somewhat shallow suburban white kid could dream of Brubeck and bohemia and bomb-shelter wingdings and transoceanic rail links to exotic locales."[29]

Personal life

Fagen's cousin Alan Rosenberg is an actor who was president of the Screen Actors Guild, while his cousin Mark Rosenberg was an activist in Students for a Democratic Society and a film producer.[30]

In 1993 Fagen married songwriter Libby Titus. Although the two attended Bard College at around the same time, they did not become friends until 1987 when they were backstage at a Dr. John concert. On January 4, 2016, Titus sustained injuries after Fagen allegedly shoved her against a marble window frame at their Upper East Side apartment.[31] The two have since reconciled.[32]

Titus co-wrote the song "Florida Room" on the 1993 album Kamakiriad. Fagen has performed with his stepdaughter Amy Helm, daughter of Titus and musician Levon Helm.[33] Fagen has no children of his own.

Awards

Discography
See also: Steely Dan discography

Studio albums
Year Album details Peak chart positions Certifications
(sales thresholds)
US
[38]		 AUS
[39][40]		 DEN
[41]		 NLD
[42]		 NZ
[43]		 SWE
[44]		 UK
[45]
1982 The Nightfly 11 19 — 16 9 8 44
1993 Kamakiriad
  • Released: May 25, 1993
  • Label: Reprise
 10 80 — 13 30 9 3
2006 Morph the Cat
  • Released: March 7, 2006
  • Label: Reprise
 26 — 29 23 — 9 35
2012 Sunken Condos
  • Released: October 16, 2012
  • Label: Reprise[48]
 12 — 36 13 — 10 23

Collaborations

The sources for this section include AllMusic[49] and Discogs.[50]

Writing
  • 1987: "Henry Mancini's Anomie Deluxe", Premiere Magazine.[51] Revised and reprinted in Eminent Hipsters.
  • 1988: "In The Throes of Lakmania", Premiere Magazine.[52]
  • 1988: "Tell Blondie To Break Out The Ice", Premiere Magazine.[53]
  • 1989: "A Talk with Ennio Morricone", Premiere Magazine.[54]
  • 1989: "All That Jazz", Harper's Bazaar. Revised and reprinted in Eminent Hipsters.[55]
  • 2007: "The Devil and Ike Turner. Parsing his hits", Slate.[56]
  • 2013: Eminent Hipsters.[4]
  • 2016: "The Man Who Told A Christmas Story. What I learned from Jean Shepherd", Slate.[57]
  • 2016: "Neutron Sunday. In 1956, Ed Sullivan showed America what nuclear holocaust looks like. We were never the same again", Slate.[58]
  • 2016: "Something of Value: How I fell in love with horror movies, and what their terrors taught me", Slate.[59]
  • 2020: "Ukulele Ike, a.k.a. Cliff Edwards, Sings Again", Jazz Times.[60]

References
  1. Dukes of September Donald Fagen, Boz Scaggs Soultracks.com. Retrieved 8 February 2023
  2. Erlewine, Stephen. "Donald Fagen Biography". AllMusic. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
  3. Sweet, Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years 7.
  4. Fagen, Donald (2013). Eminent hipsters. Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated. ISBN 9780670025510.
  5. James L. Kelley, "Steely Dan's Donald Fagen: A case of mistaken self-identity, corrected by self-reformulation." In: E. Vanderheiden, & C.-H. Mayer (Eds.), Mistakes, errors and failures across cultures: Navigating potentials (pp. 91-107). Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2019, p. 97.
  6. Fagen, Donald (December 23, 2013). "Jean Shepherd, the man who told A Christmas Story". Slate.com. Retrieved February 11, 2014.
  7. Sweet, Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years 8.
  8. Morrison, Allen (December 2013). "An Eminent Hipster Speaks". DownBeat. Elmhurst, Illinois: Maher Publications.
  9. Sweet, Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years 9.
  10. Sweet, Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years 10.
  11. Brunner, Rob (March 17, 2006). "Back to Annandale (article originally from Entertainment Weekly)". The Steely Dan Reader. Retrieved August 25, 2023.
  12. Fruchter, Rena. (2007). I'm Chevy Chase...and You're Not. Virgin Books.
  13. Sweet, Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years 12.
  14. "The Mojo Interview". Steelydan.com.
  15. "The Return of Steely Dan". Mojo Magazine. October 1995. Retrieved December 15, 2006.
  16. "Official Steely Dan FAQ". Archived from the original on December 27, 2011. Retrieved January 18, 2007.
  17. Burroughs, Williams S. (1962). Naked Lunch (1991 reprint ed.). New York: Grove Press. p. 77.
  18. "Donald Fagen Discusses the Loss of Walter Becker and Steely Dan's Future". Rollingstone.com. December 19, 2017. Retrieved August 25, 2020.
  19. "Steely Dan Add Dates to 2022 Summer Tour". March 15, 2022.
  20. "Donald Fagen Awards". AllMusic. Retrieved June 9, 2016.
  21. "Donald Fagen - I.G.Y. (What A Beautiful World)". 45cat.com.
  22. "Donald Fagen - New Frontier". 45cat.com.
  23. "Rosie Vela – Zazu Album". Broberg.pp.se. September 10, 2000. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
  24. GRAMMY.com 49th Annual GRAMMY Awards Winners List Grammy.com, retrieved May 7, 2008
  25. "Great Performances: About the Program". PBS. February 24, 2014. Retrieved June 9, 2016.
  26. Quinn, Anthony (November 14, 2013). "Eminent Hipsters by Donald Fagen – review". The Guardian – via www.theguardian.com.
  27. "Reelin' in the Years (And Peelin' Back the Layers) of Steely Dan's Donald Fagen".
  28. Christgau, Robert (June 16, 2021). "Xgau Sez: June, 2021". And It Don't Stop. Substack. Retrieved June 17, 2021.
  29. Christgau, Robert (August 10, 1993). "Virtual Hep". The Village Voice. Retrieved June 18, 2021 – via robertchristgau.com.
  30. Michener, Charles (Spring 2009). "In Theater and Politics, Alan Rosenberg Affirms the Lessons of His Undergraduate Years". Case Western Reserve. Retrieved April 4, 2014. art/sci misspells Fagen's name but identification is clear.
  31. "Steely Dan's Donald Fagen arrested on assault charge". Cnn.com.
  32. "Donald Fagen and wife are 'happily married' following assault charge". pagesix.com.
  33. Dougherty, Steve. "Amy Helm Talks About Her Debut Solo Album, 'Didn't It Rain'". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
  34. "Schenectady Gazette - Google News Archive Search". News.google.com. Retrieved February 5, 2021.
  35. Berklee College of Music: Commencement 2001 – Photographs, retrieved October 15, 2007
  36. "Steely Dan". Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
  37. "ASCAP to Add Five Music Greats to Jazz Wall of Fame". Ascap.com.
  38. "Donald Fagen Chart History: Billboard 200". Billboard. Retrieved September 29, 2021.
  39. Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 107. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  40. Ryan, Gavin (2011). Australia's Music Charts 1988–2010 (pdf ed.). Mt. Martha, VIC, Australia: Moonlight Publishing.
  41. "Danish Chart – Donald Fagen". danishcharts.dk. Retrieved October 28, 2011.
  42. "Dutch Charts – Donald Fagen". Dutchcharts.nl. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  43. "New Zealand Chart – Donald Fagen". Charts.nz. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  44. "Swedish Chart – Donald Fagen". Swedishcharts.com. Retrieved September 22, 2011.
  45. "UK Chart Company – Donald Fagen". Official Charts Company. Retrieved September 29, 2021.
  46. "Searchable Database". Recording Industry Association of America. Archived from the original on June 26, 2007. Retrieved September 22, 2011. Note: User must define 'Artist' search parameter as "Donald Fagen".
  47. "Certified Awards Search Archived 2013-01-15 at the Wayback Machine". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved on September 22, 2011. Note: User needs to enter "Donald Fagen" in the "Search" field, "Artist" in the "Search by" field and click the "Go" button. Select "More info" next to the relevant entry to see full certification history.
  48. "Donald Fagen to Release Sunken Condos, October 16 on Reprise Records". Broadcast Newsroom. Archived from the original on October 14, 2012. Retrieved August 13, 2012.
  49. "Donald Fagen Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved June 10, 2016.
  50. "Donald Fagen". Discogs. August 17, 2023. Retrieved August 17, 2023.
  51. Fagen, Donald. "Mancini's Anomie Deluxe". Premiere (October, 1987).
  52. Fagen, Donald. "In The Throes of Lakmania". Steely Dan.com Archive. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
  53. Fagen, Donald. "Tell Blondie To Break Out The Ice". Steely Dan.com Archive. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
  54. Fagen, Donald. "A Talk with Ennio Morricone". Steely Dan.com Archive. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
  55. Fagen, Donald (July 2, 1990). "Donald Fagen on NY jazz scene". Steely Dan Reader. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
  56. Fagen, Donald (December 17, 2007). "The Devil and Ike Turner Parsing his hits". Slate. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
  57. Fagen, Donald (December 24, 2016). "The Man Who Told A Christmas Story What I learned from Jean Shepherd". Slate. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
  58. Fagen, Donald (October 14, 2016). "Neutron Sunday In 1956, Ed Sullivan showed America what nuclear holocaust looks like. We were never the same again". Slate. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
  59. Fagen, Donald (October 28, 2016). "Something of Value: How I fell in love with horror movies, and what their terrors taught me". Slate. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
  60. Fagen, Donald (December 7, 2020). "Ukulele Ike, a.k.a. Cliff Edwards, Sings Again". Jazz Times. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
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