FEET/FEAT: FOOTWEAR

Unless you are super hard or super poor, all of us need some shoes on our feet, so as to protect our tootsies from the assaults of hot tarmac, wet mud, ground glass or dog poop. You name it, any of those can make a make a walk in the park anything but a walk in the park, as well as giving ample opportunity to strut your stuff or stamp your style. So, tonight I am going to be looking at the popular topic of shoes through the medium of popular song. (Well, I like 'em.)

Barefoot/Ray Collins Hot Club

Barefoot isn't shoes, but I can't resist this instance of unshoddery, so delightfully kitsch it is. Apparently the title track of a German film, thus Barfüss, it is by the Ray Collins Hot Club about whom I know nothing. So imagine my surprise as I discover they still exist and are still playing, having only come into being this century.

Men in Sandals/Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby

Ooof! Has there ever been a better exposition of the horror of men in sandals? DOI, here, I am actually quite partial to a sandal in the summer, although only ever paired with shorts or flappy linen trousers, as they don't go with else. And never, absolutely with socks, that peculiarly English affectation that curdles my blood. Wreckless Eric is a chap unlikely to take kindly to the sort of men who rock that particular folly, with his wife, Amy Rigby singing and explaining exactly why.

Bad Sneakers/Steely Dan

I never got the fancy trainers argument, all these megabuck sports shoes worn as a badge of one-upmanship. Wrong generation, I guess, my son still near needing a separate room to house his collection, at 13 his defined go-to essential in a family trip to NY in the 90s being the Nike Store. To me they are just plimsolls or gym shoes, not my bag at all. I don't see Becker and Fagen ever having been that keen either.

New Shoes/Paolo Nutini

Back at the beginning of his career, Scots-Italian singer Paolo Nutini was a simpler soul, the pleasure of some new leather sufficient to give him joy. And inspiration. With his heritage, I can see him in a pair of snakeskin winkle pickers, so his expectation to be walking to the break of dawn, blister free, may be optimistic.

 

Blue Shoes Stepping/The Bible

I have a pair of blue shoes. Not suede, I am afraid, but still quite natty. I like a fancy shoe, having also examples in green and red, but the blue ones were a mistake, pinching my toes and hobbling my gait. The blue shoes quoted here sound a bit more promising. The Bible never got quite as much acclaim as they deserved, despite boasting Kirsty MacColl's brother, Neil, and ace songwriter, Boo Hewerdine in the frontline. 

In These Shoes/Kirsty MacColl

Talking of Kirsty MacColl, perhaps this is the time to veer off into the world of women's shoes, a strange and mysterious money pit where any link between the number of feet and the number of shoes needed is of no connection or relationship. A single pair is never enough and Imelda Marcos the only upper limit. (And, funnily enough, there is a song about Imelda.)

Soul Shoes/Graham Parker & the Rumour

Finally, a song that really makes me smile, especially in this version, filmed decades after Graham Parker and the Rumour originally recorded it, showing exactly my style, a built for comfort ambience embracing the band from head to their soul shoes. Of course, the video never gets around to showing their feet, but I will bet the shoes on show would be well worn and battered, much like the band themselves appear. Marvellous.

It's all cobblers, innit?! My favourite.

IN MEMORIAM: TWO STEEL PEDDLERS

To say I am fond of pedal steel guitar would be an understatement; I bloody adore the instrument and how it sounds, whether as high lonesome shorthand for classic country, or, indeed, often more whenever it pops up in unexpected settings. This year we lost two or the best, two, even if I often confused the one with the other, with this piece probably now continuing to prolong the blurring of my Bucky with my Buddy.

So, in alphabetical, we got Mr Bucky Baxter, who left us in May. Born in Florida 65 years ahead of that, he was perhaps best known for his pivotal role in the bands of Steve Earle and of Bob Dylan. Indeed, he was a Duke for the three breakthrough albums of Earle's early career, Guitar Town through Copperhead Road, appearing sporadically thereafter. His was the steel in R.E.M.'s World Leader Pretend, and on Ryan Adam's Gold album, he featured on Joe Henry's Trampoline and, possibly surprisingly, played on and produced a record, Cockahoop, by the ex-Catatonia singer, husky welsh chanteuse, Cerys Matthews. But it was as a Bob Dylan regular on the Never Ending Tour throughout most of the 90s that his name became best known. Indeed, Dylan had come across him at a Steve Earle concert, asking him to teach him how to play the instrument. (History has not revealed how well that went.) In the studio, he also appeared on Dylan's Unplugged and Time Out of Mind, the latter, not without coincidence, one of my favourite Dylan's.

Fearless Heart/Steve Earle & the Dukes (1986)

World Leader Pretend/R.E.M. (1988)

Tryin' To Get To Heaven (live)/Bob Dylan (1999)

I have to mention Dylan some more, as Baxter was there for one of the two ever times I have caught the Bob live, when he headed a stormy Friday night in July at the Phoenix festival, near Stratford-on-Avon, in 1995. If Blackbushe a decade before had been sublime, this was ridiculous, all songs unidentifiable in the muddy sound, all party to tuneless new arrangements. All unidentifiable until Baxter's steel gave a hint of the original melodies, a highlight in an otherwise forgettable evening. O, had it been to the standard of the Vienna concert, above, four years later.

Baxter wasn't all that ambitious, it seems, happy to be a contributor rather than the focus of attention. But he did make one solo recording, Most Likely No Problem, an instrumental album which is worth the seeking out, with an astonishing who who's of participants.

The Big Difficult/Bucky Baxter (1999)

Here's a nice interview which gives an idea of the man. Finally, those with a finger on the pulse might know he is/was the father of the up and coming Rayland Baxter. 

R.I.P. Bucky. 

Link

Buddy Cage, not to be confused either with another fellow deceased steel maestro Buddy Emmons, was a Canadian by birth, born a few years ahead of Baxter, in 1946. Another musician proficient in his instrument from an early age, he first drew attention in canadian country-rockers, Great Speckled Bird. However it was his longterm tenure in the steel seat for Grateful Dead offshoot band, New Riders of the Purple Sage, between 1971 and 1982, that he will be best remembered, taking the reins of the instrument from Jerry Garcia. Frankly, a much more adept player than Garcia. He also did a load of sessions, including, the ubiquitous Dylan reference, laying down some tracks on the many and varied Blood on the Tracks sessions, if only once on the actual studio release. 

Calgary/Great Speckled Bird (1970)

Gypsy Cowboy/NRPS (1972)

Peggy O/NRPS (2010)

Although the Riders continued for several more years, Cage had not been tempted to return to that fold until 2005, until after founder member, John Dawson had put the original band to bed in 1997. Their 2012 release, 17 Pine Avenue, I thought terrific and well up to the standards of their earlier work, better even, tighter without their notorious cannabinoid looseness of yore.

The intervening years had him back to guesting on innumerable projects, but he never made a solo record. Perhaps closest might have been if the music from a Dutch tour, in 2005, had been ever committed to posterity. In cahoots with Derek Trucks and Sonny Landreth, both accomplished legends on slide, it was called Steelin' and Slidin'. (I wonder if any clips are available?)

Steelin' and Slidin'/Trucks, Cage and Landreth (2005)

Here's an interview with him from his second spell with the band. Multiple myeloma took him in February.

R.I.P. Buddy.

Link.

Mail: Rikki Don't Lose That Number

purchase [ Pretzel Logic ]

It's no surprise that the first page or more of a Google search about "mail to yourself" is all about computer apps and email tips. But when Steely Dan penned this song (1974), they were singing about the USPS; the Internet was still Vint Cerf's project.

This appears to be about the only Steely Dan song that has never been appeared in SMM. We've covered the passing of Walter Becker back in early 2018 (thanks Darius) and 30 or more Steely Dan songs here at SMM over the years. In fact, of the 30 or so appearances of Steely Dan - stretching back as far as 2008 - a majority of them were posted by Darius, with a few by [interestingly] Any Major Dude and Geovicki.  And ther have been others including my mentor boyhowdy. I've done a few myself. You can type <steely> into the top right search window of the SMM site to reminisce.

And back in 2009, there was a mail-related Postage Paid theme that includes writings from several of SMM's blogging projenitors if you want to continue down the nostalgia path.

Of course, it's the line from <Rikki  Don't Lose That Number> "..send it off in a letter to yourself" that entitles me to include Steely Dan once again. What a way to keep a backup of your data! What about Google Sync?


Of note is the fact that Walter Becker is credited with vocals and bass guitar while Jeff "Skunk" Baxter gets the guitar credit.

AllMusic.com tells us it was the band's biggest hit, so here's a collection of versions from

Stanley Dee

Skunk Baxter

Bad Sneakers

In Memoriam: Walter Becker

Steely Dan: Don’t Take Me Alive

[purchase]

By most reckonings, Walter Becker was one half of Steely Dan. The other half was Donald Fagen. I have written before how I consider Steely Dan at its peak to have been a trio, adding producer Gary Katz. However, it is Walter Becker whom we lost in 2017, at age 67. Donald Fagen is probably the man most people would think of when discussing Steely Dan. Fagen was the lead singer, so that made it his band in the minds of some. But you have only to compare the Steely Dan album The Royal Scam with Fagen’s solo album The Nightfly to understand Walter Becker’s importance. Both albums feature Fagen’s writing and Katz as producer. Both feature the shimmering pop-jazz surfaces that Steely Dan became known for. But, on his own, Fagen creates a set of songs that is sweetly nostalgic, although laced with sly irony at times. Don’t get me wrong, The Nightfly is a great album. But The Royal Scam has a bite that The Nightfly is missing. You can hear it in the razor sharp guitar solo Becker played on Don’t Take Me Alive, but this is also a lyric that Fagen would never have written. Becker gives us the story of a desperate man. A crowd urges, “Mad dog, surrender,” but it is the mad dog’s point of view that interested Becker. Becker gives us this man’s story, and makes him a human being without making him any less fearsome. It is this quality of desperation that interests Becker. You find it in the story arc of Kid Charlemagne, and from a woman’s point of view in Haitian Divorce. Even on the album Aja, in the song Josie, which seems to be more a Fagen kind of character portrait, the title character is “a raw flame, a live wire…”, descriptions that come from Becker’s need to work out his personal demons.

It was those personal demons that eventually broke up Steely Dan. Becker would descend into the depths of drug addiction, and he became unable to devote himself to the meticulous process of shaping the music that had also become a hallmark of Steely Dan. It would be thirteen years before Becker and Fagen would work together again, and twenty years before Steely Dan released a new studio album. There were musical high points in this later Steely Dan output, and in Becker’s solo albums, but they would never again capture the spark that made the classic run of Steely Dan so great. In part, this was because Becker had finally put some of his demons to rest. I am glad he lived long enough to experience a happy marriage. I am glad that he and Fagen were able to renew both their friendship and their musical partnership. But it the music of those tortured years that Becker will be best remembered for.

steel: pedal steel

purchase [Take It Easy]
purchase [These Days]
purchase [Sleepwalk]

I've had a lot of work to do to put this together. More than I anticipated. Quite some time back in this blog, I commented that covering a theme sometimes requires that you educate yourself: read, listen, dig around.

I'm still wet around the ears. Some day I would like to own and learn how to play the pedal steel guitar. It's a pretty intimidating instrument - and this from a guitar player who doesnt have first hand experience except for listening. But I have been doing a little background reading and listening, both of which only further my previous conviction about the contraption. Contraption in that  -if it is your stage instrument, you need to know how to set it up. It's not an instrument you pull out of its case, tune and go (like a guitar or a flute): you'll need a tool kit to put it together before your gig - tightening bolts, attaching legs and pedals in addition to the sound cables. There are various configurations (2 necks, 10 string or more), and then there are the pedals:  for volume and several others that bend combinations of strings - best, apparently, in combination. So, you've got one hand sliding the steel bar, the other picking combinations of strings and then your feet (and knees) controlling volume and bending.

While the pedal steel features in country music (and was birthed in the 30's out of an interest in the Hawaiian slide), it was a variety of 70's music that initially got me interested. The deeper I looked into that 70's sound, the more I saw that there were a handful of pedal steel players that got around, sort of a shared community of the skilled. . Many of the famous names end up doing session work for others, partly because the good are so few and far between.

The 70's music that turned me on to the sound include the following:

One of the Doobie Brothers steel players was John McFee. McFee also played on The Who's The Kids Are Allright. He has also played with Elvis Costello, Hewey Lewis, the Grateful Dead and more.

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter also played with the Doobie Brothers. Before that, he played with Hendrix. He played with Steely Dan up through Pretzel Logic before moving to the Doobie Brothers.

Sneaky Pete Kleinow (RIP 2007) similarly got around, playing with Steve Miller, the Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder and others. Sometimes credited as the man who brought the pedal steel to rock.

The Number Nine: Hey Nineteen/Steely Dan

purchase [Hey Nineteen]

I have always liked Steely Dan. Becker and Fagan, whatever the critics say, have always hit the right spot with me: a mix of rock and jazz that is right down my alley - I think some folks call it jazz rock. Some be-little it.

Sure, I know the critique that their compositions can't be played live without lots of backup support, and, yes, that is an issue. Of limited import. Their compositions are primarily studio based. They've played with some of the best session musicians and produced so many classics that it really doesn't matter if the two of them (because that's all that Steely Dan really is) can't reproduce the identical album recordings on stage without assistance. So what?

Their hits are classic - they stick in your mind for decades (Yes, it has been decades) and ring true as memes for generations 30 plus years forward.
Here is an interesting piece about them that you might want to peruse - no point in my repeating/copying what someone else has eruditely scribbled.
But look at their lyrics: irreverent but relevant.

That's 'Retha Franklin
She don't remember
The Queen of Soul

irreverence: She don't remember what?
Relevance: she is the queen of soul

Re/Again: Do It Again

[purchase]

Steely Dan, at their commercial and artistic peak, were a trio of Donald Fagen, Walter Becker, and producer Gary Katz, ably supported by a large cast of top notch studio musicians. They were a studio-only band, focused on the painstaking creation of recordings that were rich in musical and lyrical detail. But Steely Dan began as an actual band that split its time between recording and playing live. Do It Again is one of the standout tracks from this early period. This band recorded two albums, Countdown to Ecstacy and Can’t Buy a Thrill. Becker and Fagen were writing complex harmonies and long songs from the beginning, but these early albums have a stripped down feel compared to what would come later. There is also an immediacy in these early albums that would be replaced in the later work by a glittering sheen of artifice that gave albums like Aja its perfect pop sound. I love both periods of Steely Dan, but I can hear a random track and tell you which period it belongs to.

Do It Again is one of Steely Dan’s most direct lyrics. In one word, this is a song about recidivism. The song could be about one person, but I hear it as being addressed to people in general. It says that we cannot overcome the worst aspects of our natures. It identifies crime or violence, love, and gambling as bad habits that we are destined to return to once we have tried them. The song can be taken as a warning or an excuse, but it also serves as a template for the characters who inhabit most of Steely Dan’s songs. You may not ever want to meet such people in person, but you will keep coming back to Steely Dan’s music to learn more about them. For the rest of the 1970s and into the 80s, that is just what music fans did.

Water/Wet: Dirty Water

The Inmates: Dirty Water
[purchase]

Over at my other blogging home, we periodically contribute to “Q&As,” where the editor poses a question, and the staff responds. One of the questions was, “What was a song that you didn’t know was a cover?” and I wrote about Johnny Cash’s version of “Ring of Fire.” Back in the pre-Internet days, it was not always easy to learn musical factoids like whether a song was a cover or not, especially if it was a relatively obscure song. Unless you heard the original, or heard a radio DJ mention it, you had to rely on word of mouth, or reading something in a magazine or book. Seems pretty damn quaint, doesn’t it?

As I have mentioned before, starting to work at WPRB in 1979 was not only a huge thing in my musical life, but has influenced my whole life. And having access to the massive, somewhat annotated, record library, and other musical obsessives to talk about music with definitely increased my musical knowledge, but there were, and still are, many gaps.

When I first heard the Inmates’ song, “Dirty Water” when it was released in 1979, I immediately liked its raw energy. It was clearly a retro-garage band sound, with a bit of early Stones, and it was, it seemed, about the dirty water of the Thames and London. I remember playing it pretty often, never once mentioning that it was, in fact, a cover of a song by the Standells, which was about the Charles River and Boston. Because I had no idea that it was a cover. Here’s the original.

Frankly, I have no idea when I learned that, probably when I heard it played on the radio somewhere, and it clicked in. And look, in my defense, it wasn’t like the original was a big hit. It was released in 1965, ran up the charts, peaking at #8 and pretty much faded away, except maybe in Boston, where I am not from, and have never lived, although it later became acknowledged as a seminal rock song.

The Standells were from Los Angeles, and the song is actually not particularly positive toward its subject city. (A few trivia asides—The leader of the Standells was Larry Tamblyn, the younger brother of actor Russ Tamblyn, who was, among other things, Riff in the movie version of West Side Story and Dr. Lawrence Jacoby in Twin Peaks. Lead singer Dick Dodd was a former Mouseketeer who was a dancer in the movie version of Bye Bye Birdie. For brief periods, Dewey Martin, later of Buffalo Springfield, and Lowell George, later of Little Feat, were in the band. And they appeared on The Munsters.)

According to the Internet, despite the negative references in the song about the bad water, frustrated women and crime, including a Strangler, in Boston, the Boston Bruins, a team I don’t root for in a sport that I barely follow, began playing the Standells’ version in 1991, 1997 or 2007, depending on what you read (and there are probably other cites, too, but I got bored looking). The Red Sox, a team that I sort of like, mostly because they are the sworn enemies of the Yankees, also started playing the song, as did the somewhat deflating New England Patriots and the Celtics, who I haven’t liked since the late 1960s.

This has led to a revival of interest in the song, and it has become often covered (and stolen—the Buffalo Sabres play a version substituting the Niagara River). Boston based Celtic punks Dropkick Murphys, big sports fans themselves, cover the song, as has former Red Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo, a fair rocker in his own right. Other bands often play it it when appearing in the city, including local boys Aerosmith, Bruce Springsteen, who, as you might be aware, is from New Jersey, Dave Matthews Band and Steely Dan.

Although the Inmates had a minor hit with their cover, and have continued to record and tour to this day, I've never heard from them again.

Lies/Liars: Vannevar Bush's Trails

buy Walter Becker "Book of Liars"
buy Steely Dan "Reelin in the Years"
buy Fleetwood Mac "Go Your Own Way"
buy Stevie Nicks "Stop Draggin My Heart Around"

I recently revisited the Feb 2015 print copy of Wired – specifically an article about Microsoft’s new CEO. Segments of Jessi Hempel’s article worth relating seemed to resonate with where I am vis-a-vis Star Maker blogging, (and  our theme of “lies”)

When Vannevar Bush first envisioned the Internet (his memex), the idea was that “trailblazers” could share their trails – the sequence of links they followed to get to a certain (re)source. More often than not, current web files lead us to the end rather than sharing the process and all the intermediary by-paths that might add value to our journeys. For most of us, searching for information about music related to lies, this would be a likely starting point:

Of the fairly decent list of links that appeared, my trail began at the top, and- partway down the list- I locked in on Steely Dan – mostly because, well … they had their heyday when I was a radio disk jockey and… because I like the jazz-rock mix

But I couldn’t place the song “Book of Liars”. Turns out it is a Walter Becker “solo” piece from a 1994 album (Alive in America) produced by the other ½ of Steely Dan, Donald Fagan, and then brought out again in 2004.

 

This got me thinking about other Steely Dan songs/lyrics. If we stretch the “lies” theme to include cheating lovers, our trail could wind on over to Reelin in the Years

 

(where they sing: “after all the things we’ve seen and done you go and find another man…” – cheat city)

 

Back to Vannevar Bush and his memex and his trailblazers. My thought process continued by following Steely Dan – at which point I saw that Steely Dan appeared on the TV show Midnight Special – and so did Fleetwood Mac, at about the same time. My YouTube right-side links (your results may vary) suggested I would like some Fleetwood Mac (Vanovar Bush in action).  I am not sure I have my Fleetwood Mac timeline down all that well, but .. well … there was a certain amount of spouse sharing, and it seems to me that there must have been a certain amount of lies going on there: hence: Go Your Own Way.

 

Again, the YouTube right-side link. This time: Tom Petty (and one-time Fleetwood Mac member Stevie Nicks. Stop Draggin My Heart ...

 

 

link ... to link ... to link ... Many lies...

 

Sisters: Babylon Sisters

Steely Dan: Babylon Sisters

[purchase]

Babylon Sisters comes from the album Gaucho, which would be the last album from the original run of Steely Dan. After Gaucho, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen would split up. Fagen initially pursued a solo career, while Becker moved to Hawaii and kicked his drug habit, before eventually reemerging as a producer and solo artist himself. When Steely Dan finally went back in the studio as a group, they were without longtime producer Gary Katz.

Gaucho was the album from that original run that Becker and Fagen found the most difficult to make. In fact, there exists as a bootleg an entire album worth of material that would have been a very different album than the one we know. That one is called, alternately, The Lost Gaucho or The Second Arrangement. It has an alternate version of Third World Man with entirely different lyrics, an instrumental version of Gaucho, and a bunch of songs that were scrapped. To my ear, the “official” album, Gaucho, was well worth the effort it took to make. Compared to the previous album, Aja, the sound is somewhat simplified. The band is a large as before, and the background singers are still here, but the songs on Gaucho are shorter, and have less complex structures and harmonies. Aja is a great album too, but there are times when this Steely Dan lite, if you will, is just what I am in the mood for. The songs here have lyrics that are as opaque as always, but the musical directness gives these songs the unique feel of well crafted short stories, where Aja is more like a collection of finely wrought novellas. Babylon Sisters is a fine example of what I mean. Compared to the epic sweep of Home at Last, or even the storytelling of Don’t Take Me Alive, from the Royal Scam album, Babylon Sisters is a moment in time and a mood piece, and a very fine one.

The Other Guy: Walter Becker

Steely Dan: Slang of Ages

Steely Dan: Slang of Ages (live)

[purchase]

Steely Dan got their start forty years ago, but they only qualified for this week’s theme with their last studio release, 2003’s Everything Must Go. Until then, Donald Fagen always handled all of the lead vocals. One thing that becomes clear from listening to Fagen’s solo work is that, with Steely Dan, he is usually singing the words of Walter Becker. Becker has a cynicism and a sense of irony that are missing when Fagen writes for himself.

One stock character in Becker‘s writing is the sexual predator. You find him, in various forms, in Everyone‘s Gone to the Movies and Cousin Dupree, just to name two. Slang of Ages features him in a less threatening form. Here, he is a down-on-his-luck would-be Lothario, trying to pick up a woman in a bar. This character is not Becker, but rather someone he wants us to see and understand. We don‘t have to like him, and we are even allowed to laugh at his misadventures. But the laugh must be a nervous one, because the character shows us urges we try to deny in ourselves. The way the song is written, it is even possible that the entire encounter takes place only in the narrator‘s mind. In the end though, it does not matter if it is real or not; we have still seen what Becker wanted to show us.

Becker speak/sings his way through most of the lyric here. He can carry a tune when he needs to, but this delivery suits the character. Nevertheless, based on the evidence of this performance, Donald Fagen is certainly the more expressive singer. There is no sign that Steely Dan has any intention of doing any further albums, although they continue to tour. It may be that they decided that Becker should take this vocal because it would be his last chance to do so in the studio with Steely Dan.

I found a nice fan-made slide show for this song. As a bonus, I have also included a live version, also from 2003. The live video should have cut off thirty seconds before it does, however; the song that Donald Fagen begins to introduce at the end, if you’re wondering, is Peg.

Work: Dirty Work

Steely Dan: Dirty Work

Purchase Link: [Amazon mp3]

Before I get to the song, and my first post here, I'd just like to thank the Star Maker Machine for allowing me to join in and contribute here as a side gig from my regular blog, Reselect.com. It's an honor to be included in the company of so many other excellent music bloggers.

My contribution to this "Work" theme that we are in the midst of is the 1972 Steely Dan song, "Dirty Work," from their debut album, Can't Buy a Thrill. Although surrounded on that album by such Steely Dan standards as "Reelin' in the Years" and "Do It Again," "Dirty Work" is a bit of an anomaly in their catalog, as it was sung by David Palmer, a singer only temporarily employed as lead vocalist by the band (particularly for early live shows). He was brought on, apparently, due to Donald Fagen's initial reluctance to sing lead vocals -- somewhat amusing in retrospect, due to how connected his voice ultimately became to the band's identity.

In any case, Palmer was a good choice to sing "Dirty Work" -- his voice fits the song like a glove, sounding every bit the fool for love that the song's lyrics convey. The work in question isn't "work" as much as it is semi-reluctant "play" -- that is, being the man-on-the-side of the married woman that he's singing the song to. It features one of Steely Dan's most beautiful melodies, a true pop classic. They could have stopped with this song and album and would still have been remembered very fondly today (although the band's identity would certainly not be nearly as intricate as it turned out to be). But although the band went on to even greater fame, Palmer was out of a job (to continue the "work" theme a bit further) following Can't Buy a Thrill -- but he certainly lucked out when the band chose him to sing this one, cementing himself a footnote in the annals of classic rock.

-- Dave Gershman, Reselect.com

Memories: Barrytown

Steely Dan: Barrytown

[purchase]

As a parent, many of life’s best and most potent memories will involve one’s children. There are, of course, the milestones: births and birthdays, first steps, first days at school, holidays, graduations, weddings etc. And there will be random events or just the vibe of a certain age which resonates stronger than that of other ages.

My only child, a son who now is 17, has given me a truckload of such memories, all of them happy. One particular joyful memory is our sharing in the enjoyment of music. When he was three years old, for a while I had to dance him to sleep. I’d put on some vinyl records, and slowly dance and sing along until he’d drift away. Over time, a standing playlist developed.

Bath-time was singing time. He’d loudly sing his favourite nursery rhymes and then some songs on our evening playlist. I have a home video recording of him sitting in the bath singing The Righteous Brothers “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” and John Travolta’s “Sandy” from Grease.

Another home video recording of that time concerns none of our sleep-dancing songs. Sitting at our dining room table, he spontaneously starts singing: “I can see by what you carry that you come from Barrytown.” As readers of my blog, Any Major Dude With Half A Heart, will know, I am rather partial to Steely Dan, and the first side of 1974’s Pretzel Logic is, in my view, a masterpiece. So I was very proud of my little boy for digging on the musical stylings of the Dan.

He has remained pretty cool. The first CD he bought with his own money, when he was 10, was The Beastie Boys’ Licence To Ill, an album released 18 years earlier; the second, soon after, was a best of collection of The Highwaymen (that’s the Cash/Jennings/ Kristofferson/ Nelson country supergroup).

At the same age, he turned up for his first guitar lesson. “What do you want to play?” the tutor, a grizzled old session man, asked him, no doubt expecting to hear in response Green Day or Black Eyed Peas. My son – ten years old – replied: “Johnny Cash”. Which is as cool an answer as he could ever have given. In the end, he did learn several Green Day songs, and he is still a keen guitar player – of old and new material.

Vocal Harmonies: Steely Dan Edition

Steely Dan: Show Biz Kids

[purchase]

Rickie Lee Jones: Show Biz Kids

[purchase]

Steely Dan: Home at Last

[purchase]

This week, we have heard duets and group vocals. But there are also artists and groups who are justly well known for their use of background singers. Surely Steely Dan would be one of these. When I think of Steely Dan, the first things I hear in my head are those wonderful horn charts and vocal harmonies. But Steely Dan was not born sounding that way. The sound developed over time. Show Biz Kids offers an early example. There are no horns here at all. The background singers have only one line, which they repeat throughout the song, turning it into a chant. In interviews, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker have always been coy about the words they are chanting. Is it “Las Vegas” or “Lost Wages”? You be the judge. The other feature of the vocal harmonies that is notable in Show Biz Kids is Becker joining in with close harmonies on the chorus.

Now listen to Rickie Lee Jones’ version of Show Biz Kids. She uses the chanted vocals only part of the time, (and the words are definitely, “Las Vegas”). She uses a more complex vocal harmony on the chorus. And she has stripped out the screaming guitar that was so much a part of Steely Dan’s early sound. In short, with the exception of the stand up bass, she has recorded the song as Steely Dan might have if they had done it later in their career. Listen to Home at Last, from Aja, and you will see what I mean. Here are the horn charts, which Jones doesn’t use on Show Biz Kids, but which are certainly part of her sound as well. And, on the chorus of Home at Last we hear vocal harmonies as done by a mature Steely Dan.

Discographers note: the piano and background vocals on Jones’ version of Show Biz Kids is by Joe Jackson.

Independence: Sign in Stranger

Steely Dan: Sign In Stranger

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There are two parts to the concept of independence. The obvious one is freedom or liberation, and it’s always a positive. But you also have to be independent from something, and that’s where the darkness creeps in. Leave it to Steely Dan to explore that side of things eloquently. In Sign In Stranger, the independence is from a person’s past. Mizar Five is a haven for criminals and lowlifes who seek a fresh start, and sometimes a new identity. The song does not suggest that any of them will change their ways, only that they will be free of their records. So here is independence with a sense of menace.

Deep Album Tracks: Aja

Steely Dan: Aja

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Music Appreciation 401: Final Exam - Counts for 25% of your final grade

Compare and contrast the previously posted "Livin' On The Fault Line" with Steely Dan's "Aja". Explain why this song would be on your desert island list.

Similarities:

Both songs were released in 1977.

Both songs were the non-hit title tracks off their respective albums.

Both songs are in the genre known as jazz-rock.

Extra credit: Both songs feature vibe player Victor Feldman.

Differences:

The Doobie Brothers exemplified the 70's laid-back California rock sound, whereas Steely Dan represented the New York City temperament: intellectual, slightly cynical, sophisticated, with a dash of sangfroid.

Aja, the song, features some of the best jazzmen around. Steely Dan (basically Walter Becker and Donald Fagan), arguably one of the best studio groups, like, ever, were known for their expertise in selecting primo sidemen. Take a look at the impressive roster for this song:

Wayne Shorter, saxophone (with Weather Report at the time)
Larry Carlton, guitar (in The Crusaders circa 1976; he was also spectacularly featured on Kid Charlemagne)
Denny Diaz, guitar Steely Dan's most consistent side member.
Joe Sample, electric piano (long-time member of The Crusaders)
Steve Gadd, drums
Michael Omartian, piano
Victor Feldman, vibes Featured in many session recordings from Frank Zappa to Miles Davis.
Chuck Rainey, bass I can't even begin to list the groups he's played with.
Timothy B. Schmit, vocals. Better known as one of The Eagles.

I'd bring Aja to any desert island exile because, well, Wayne Shorter and Larry Carlton on a Steely Dan song have got to be the pinnacle of wonderful in my eyes. And hell, they've got one of the Eagles as backing vocalists. When I wasn't listening to the Aja track, I'd be grooving on Deacon Blues because it has both Larry Carlton and Lee Ritenour on guitar. Or I'd be groovin' on Peg, with Tom Scott and vocalist Michael McDonald, who is also featured on Livin' on the Fault Line, and do I get extra credit for mentioning that, too? I wouldn't be the only one with Steely Dan on an island sojourn: Rolling Stone Magazine lists it as one of their top 500 albums ever, and our very own Darius has posted 4 Steely Dan songs here, so he must love them, too!

Live: Bodhisattva

Steely Dan: Bodhisattva

[listen free at last.fm]

I posted the original 1973 version of this song here on Star Maker Machine way back in the summer of 2008; I won't bother to linkback, as the download is long dead, but I stand by what I said at the time:

A jamming, loose, eminently danceable tune, paced out as a 1950s jitterbug and famous for its guitarwork, this classic hit from the masters of otherwise-smooth, high-arrangement jazzrock has frenzied ecstasy all over it...carefully constructed to reflect a general tone of hysterical, almost desperate upheaval and unpredictability just on the other side of the suburban picket fence...among the greatest, rawest demonstrations of the carefully crafted genius that is Steely Dan at its best...make sure you've got your air guitar handy.

It's hard to beat the controlled chaos of the original. But this classic live version, recorded the following year, is goddamn glorious, the song on speed: a little breathless, and a hell of a lot more punk. Sure, you can bop to the other, but you can mosh to this. Air drummers, take your marks...

Long Songs: Deacon Blues

Steely Dan: Deacon Blues

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Steely Dan, in their heyday, made a habit of being sneaky. They would use all these jazz harmonies in their music, and get people who “hated jazz” to love it. The album Aja was their commercial peak, and the sneakiness was here in full measure, if you knew what you were hearing. But with Aja, Steely Dan managed another bit of sneakiness: they took a long song to #19 on the pop chart. I know that Roundabout by Yes had charted even higher a few years earlier, but that was a 3:27 radio edit. Does anyone know if Deacon Blues was the longest song ever to reach the top 20 up to that point?

Another thing about Deacon Blues: I grew up in a non-sports household. About fifteen years after the release of Aja, I finally found out the meaning of the line, “They call Alabama the Crimson Tide...” But I loved the song anyway. There was one other sneaky thing about Steely Dan. When I asked my older brother to explain some of their lyrics, he would smile in an evil way, and say, “you’ll understand when you’re older.” Now I am, and I finally do.

Drugs: Kid Charlemagne

Steely Dan: Kid Charlemagne

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Steely Dan, at the height of their powers, had a way of getting the listener to nod their head and tap their feet, without ever noticing the content of the lyrics. Case in point: Kid Charlemagne. Here is one of Steely Dan’s finest grooves, and here too are those jazz harmonies that Becker and Fagan would sneak past the average pop music fan. And here is a song about another “archetypal counterculture icon”, the chemist.

The chemist was the guy who built a home chemistry lab, and created synthetic hallucinogens, most famously LSD. Kid Charlemagne tells the story of the rise and fall of one such chemist. At the peak of his career, “every apron had your number on the wall”. But, all too soon, his fans and customers “joined the human race”, and his career was over. At that point, there was nothing left for him except running from the law.

Sadly, there are some parallels to what has become of Steely Dan. The band broke up after the release of the album Gaucho, and when they regrouped years later, they seemed to no longer have the pulse of the pop music fan. Popular musical styles had moved on in their absence, but I think something else happened as well. The classic Steely Dan albums were musical collaborations between Walter Becker and Donald Fagan, and were produced by Gary Katz. When they reconvened, Becker and Fagan were still there, but Gary Katz was gone. So now, Steely Dan certainly aren’t running from the law, but their name no longer emboldens nearly as many aprons as it once did.

Adjective Noun: Haitian Divorce

The image above is “a zombie in a coco shell”, ie, a mug made from carved coconut shell. A zombie is, of course, the name of the drink.

Steely Dan: Haitian Divorce

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Every so often, my wife and I have a moment that reminds us of why we are married to each other. Often, this involves one of us noting something absurd, and we start riffing on it, and the absurdity grows exponentially. Other times it can involve one of us remembering a snatch of a song lyric, and we puzzle it out together until we remember what song it comes from.

One time, we were in the car listening to Steely Dan’s album The Royal Scam. The song “Haitian Divorce” came on, and we found ourselves singing along to it at the top of our lungs, probably drawing stares from passing motorists, but if so we never noticed. We got all the way to the end of the song, turned to each other, a gave each other that look. No words were needed. The lyrics, of course, are completely inappropriate, but there it is.

So I dedicate this post to my wife, Janice. I love you.