(Credits: Rhino Entertainment)
Sat 7 March 2026 21:45, UK
To call Steely Dan a band in the traditional sense isn’t necessarily true if you ask Donald Fagen and Walter Becker.
Both of them liked the idea of making some forward-thinking music, but aside from the first few albums having a regular cast of characters, it made a lot more sense for them to make music that had a bunch of musicians coming in and out of the studio to create a lush sonic masterpiece. Everyone knew their place in the band once they got settled in, but Fagen felt that there were times when even he and Becker didn’t seem all that necessary on every single track.
They were the sculptors of the songs, sure, but that doesn’t mean that they had to worry about every single part that they were coming up with. Their strong suit was knowing when someone nailed the perfect take, and even though it took countless professionals to work out what the solo to ‘Peg’ was going to be, it was much more interesting for them to jam with the right guitarist and then see what their replacement could do better.
Hence why so many of their albums seemed to cost a fortune. No one else would have even fathomed spending this much money on studio time back in the day, but Fagen wasn’t concerned with having a house in the hills that he paid off with his royalty checks. All of that money went into making the songs sound great, but Fagen always felt the one fly in the ointment was his voice whenever he started singing.
He already had a lot of stage fright at the beginning of the band’s career, but when you listen to a song like ‘Dirty Work’, it’s clear that having David Palmer as their singer wasn’t the right choice, either. Fagen was stuck with the position since he could deliver the songs the best, but when the group started becoming known as one of the best players in yacht rock, he and Becker were both stunned when Michael McDonald walked in the door to lay down background vocals on their records.
Any session vocalist needed to really know their stuff to nail those harmonies on any Steely Dan song, but even the isolated vocals from ‘Peg’ feature some of McDonald’s finest singing. It took a while for him to work out how tight those harmonies needed to be, but by the time that he walked out of the studio, Fagen wished that he could have stuck around rather than go back to his time with the Doobie Brothers.
‘What A Fool Believes’ was bound to be a smash hit when it came out, but Fagen felt that McDonald’s chops were miles better than anything he could have done, saying, “There was a serious discussion about whether he should replace me as the lead singer, which would have been my personal preference. But, for some dumb reason, I was voted down. I didn’t insist, and I’ve regretted it ever since. I mean, here’s this monster singer and musician, and he’s also really funny and a sweetheart of a guy. What’s not to like?”
Would McDonald have given them a real shot in the arm had he stuck around? Absolutely, but even if he was a better technical singer, Fagen was the best singer Steely Dan could have asked for. He had that tone of voice that could deliver songs like ‘Kid Charlemagne’ perfectly, and even if McDonald had more precision with his voice, he probably couldn’t have sold some of the more sinister songs in their catalogue.
A lot of ‘The Dan’s best songs always thrived on having the best musicians available to them when they got started, but the number-one rule that Fagen needed to learn was to serve the song above anything else. He knew that each guitarist had their place within the confines of the right song, but if his vocal were to be taken off any one of their tunes, the whole thing would have fallen apart.