The influential musicians who shaped Donald Fagen
At the beginning of their career, Steely Dan seemed to be influenced by everything except rock and roll. In an era where punk was still king and progressive groups were on the way out, the creative team of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker made songs that were never concerned with being cool from start to finish. Although their music might have taken on a smooth aesthetic as the years went on, Donald Fagen never claimed to be the biggest rock music fan.
When listening to classics like ‘Do It Again’ or ‘Peg’, the only element tying the songs to rock and roll is the prominent use of the guitar, which primarily played lines that were more popular in jazz music than anything rock-flavoured. Although not all of the innovations the band made were praised then, their attention to detail in the studio also made for some of the best-recorded albums of the late ‘70s, like Aja. Outside of their trademark style, Fagen never considered himself a rocker at heart.
When discussing his favourite artists, Fagen was going back to the age of classic songwriters when coming up with his sound, telling The New Yorker, “I only like seven or eight of the greatest artists: Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk … And I like big-band arrangers, like Gil Evans. There’s a band called the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra that I used to like for the arrangements”. It’s not exactly hard to see why Fagen sees himself in that light, either.
Going through Steely Dan’s discography, Fagen always seemed to act as a bandleader, using different musicians almost like instruments on their own by getting the right performance for the song. While their approach was normally cutthroat in the studio, Steely Dan’s need for musical perfection helped them pioneer some of the jazz-themed parts of their songs, which would be adopted for many hip-hop samples later down the road.
Steely Dan’s approach to lyrics was also far from conventional. Whereas most pop songs at the time talked about love and all the heartache that comes with it, Fagen was interested in painting pictures of characters from the wrong side of the tracks on songs like ‘Kid Charlemagne’ and ‘Do It Again’. Even though it was hard to sympathise with these characters, the tone of the music always made you interested in seeing how they might win the day.
Although some of Steely Dan’s songs crossed over to the pop charts, Fagen never looked at his body of work that way. He said: “Most pop music, nothing much happens; you’ll hear something, and it’s repeated. I like when there’s some development. The jazz arrangers of the fifties and sixties really knew how to develop a piece of music”. As opposed to having the typical lead singer dictating mentality, Fagen saw himself as more of an arranger, only making sure his songs were just right before hitting the record button.
Some of Steely Dan’s greatest music was also sculpted in this way. Throughout some of the hits off of their album Gaucho, Fagen’s voice is the only common factor, leaving the rest of the song filled out by session musicians. Like most of his idols like Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk, Fagen was always concerned about creating a mood with his music rather than anything destined for pop stardom.
