8 Songs That Show Walter Becker’s Brilliance
Donald Fagen fronted Steely Dan but that was a matter of circumstance. Originally, both he and his partner Walter Becker intended to be pulling the strings from behind the curtains—they'd be the team writing the songs and divining the direction the band would head, while a pretty face would sing their pretty melodies. Once the duo decided that David Palmer, a part-time vocalist on the group's 1972 debut Can't Buy A Thrill, didn't quite jibe with their plan for the group, Fagen took over vocal duties but Becker remained somewhat in the shadows, especially after Steely Dan retired from the road in 1975 so they could craft albums with the best studio musicians money could buy. This raised a question: if Steely Dan could hire the best guitarists in the world, why would they need to Becker to play a solo?
The answer is pretty simple: Steely Dan always favored “feel.” Those endless hours in the studio was a quest for the right sound, one with precision and vibe—the kind of sound Becker could achieve. Once he and Fagen holed up in the studio, he started to play more guitar, not less, soloing on nearly half of their 1977 landmark Aja. Becker developed a fluid style, one based on the blues but as fleet as hard bop. It was the perfect complement to Fagen‘s keyboards, adding a bit of grit to the sophisticated chords and rhythms. This hint of dirtiness also underlined how the characters populating Steely Dan songs were often unsavory types; underneath that shiny surface, there was dirt.
Since it's impossible to discern precisely what lyrics belong to either Becker or Fagen—the two shared the same sardonic sensibility and gift for wordplay, something that becomes evident on the pair's solo albums, records that feel as if they're part of the Steely Dan canon—guitar winds up as the place where it’s the easiest to hear Walter Becker’s individual voice. Alternately sharp and eloquent, his solos suit the beautiful, cynical spirit of Steely Dan.
Pretzel Logic
Pretzel Logic is the first of Steely Dan's albums to be recorded with numerous studio musicians and this coincided with Walter Becker dropping bass for guitar. On the title track for this 1974 record, Becker doesn't have the finesse of Jeff “Skunk” Baxter or Denny Dias—the recording fades out as he's bending notes as if he's in a garage rock band—but this rawness suits the song's loping, winking blues.
Black Friday
Like “Pretzel Logic,” “Black Friday”—the opening track to 1975‘s Katy Lied—is a blues song, but this one is hyper-charged and filled with complicated chords. Against this cloistered swing, Becker spits out shards of blues runs. It’s tense but his solo also benefits from elongated phrases that make his flurries of notes sting harder.
Bad Sneakers
Arriving right after “Black Friday” on Katy Lied, “Bad Sneakers” is the song's polar opposite: a jazzy, hooky slice of elegant isolation. Becker’s solo is wonderful, its long phrases seeming especially lyrical when contrasted with the band’s hard swing.
Josie
The concluding cut on Aja, “Josie” finds Becker playing off Fagen’s vocal, at first mimicking the melody before sliding into a solo that pushes the song from its soul foundation toward jazz. On an album as impeccable as this—the VH1 Classic Albums documentary on its making is a masterclass on album production—it's notable that Becker's solo has an airiness that gives the illusion that it was tossed off, not constructed with an ear for every slight pause.
Gaucho
Until it reaches its halfway mark, the title track from Steely Dan’s seventh studio album Gaucho is devoid of guitar. It’s a piano part lifted from Keith Jarrett and accessorized by a saxophone, its elegant bounce setting the stage for a grand entrance from Becker, who delivers a break that cuts against the grace of “Gaucho,” and that’s merely a primer for a concluding solo that is possibly the most soaring he ever recorded.
Lucky Henry
Walter Becker recorded two solo albums both firmly in the highly-polished studio style he and Fagen perfected on Gaucho in 1980. On his own, Becker indulges in his taste for reggae and plays some mean guitar, and nowhere did he sound meaner than on “Lucky Henry,” a cut from his 1994 solo debut 11 Tracks Of Whack. As a song, it's minor—it's the rare Becker composition that feels like a sketch—but his breaks and solos here are his fiercest on record and show a clear debt to Hubert Sumlin.
Book of Liars
The only solo Becker song Steely Dan ever performed live in concert, “Book of Liars” is an understated slow-burner. His guitar here is notable in its absence—in both the studio and live versions, it's a showcase for piano—so the attention shifts to his appealingly laconic drawl. He can sell this kind of soft soul well, even if the lack of Fagen‘s audible sneer means that the song doesn't seem quite as barbed as the average Dan tune.
Slang of Ages
A companion to “Book of Liars,” “Slang of Ages”—a cut on Steely Dan's last album, 2003's Everything Must Go—is the only time Walter Becker sang with the band in the studio. Musically, it's a nice easy groove, but Becker is playing with his phrasing in a manner he never did on 11 Tracks of Whack, syncopating and telling jokes. In other words, he's playing Donald Fagen’s game here and he can hold his own with the master.
