Steely Dan - Did You Know?

May 14, 2018

Music facts, music trivia, interesting stories and much more. Introducing the "Did You Know" page about American rock band, Steely Dan.

Enjoy!

 

 

Steely Dan is an American rock band that was founded in 1972 by Walter Becker (guitar, bass, backing vocals) and Donald Fagen (keyboards, lead vocals).

Steely Dan blend in their music elements of traditional pop, jazz, R&B and sophisticated studio production with cryptic and ironic lyrics and have enjoyed critical and commercial success during the 1970s.

Throughout the band's music career, the two have recorded with a many and different session musicians, and in 1974 decided to retire from live performances in order to become a studio-only band. Rolling Stone magazine even called Steely Dan as "the perfect musical antiheroes for the Seventies".

Steely Dan disbanded in 1981, but reunited again in 1993. They have toured steadily and even released two albums of new material, one of them - Two Against  Nature, winning a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

Steely Dan have sold over 40 million albums all over the world, and in 2001 were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. in March 2001. VH1 lists Steely Dan at the #82 spot on their 100 greatest musical artists of all time list.

Unfortunately, Walter Becker died on September 3, 2017, which left Donald Fagen as the only official member of the band.

Now, it's time for our interestnig fact of the day and it is about the origin of the band's name, Steely Dan. Believe it or not, but Steely Dan are named after a dildo from the William Burroughs novel "Naked Lunch".

Donald Fagen recalled that they had to come up with a name in a hurry, and because he and Walter Becker were both fans of Burroughs, they chose the name Steely Dan.

It was actually an in-joke, because who's going to know what steely dan was? The two figured that it would fall apart after three months or so, and because of that didn't think much about the name or to change it.

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