Donald Fagen is 74 years old today.
Fagen is a musician and songwriter, best known as the co-founder (along with his late partner, Walter Becker) and lead singer of Steely Dan. He uses of jazz harmonies, elaborate arrangements and pays close attention to production detail.
Following the initial breakup of Steely Dan in 1981, he launched a long-running, if sporadic, solo career in 1982, spawning four albums to date. The fourth album — Sunken Condos — was released on October 16, 2012.
In 1993, Fagen and Becker reunited and toured and released albums as Steely Dan. Becker died on Sept. 2, 2017 of esophageal cancer.
Born in Passaic, New Jersey, Fagen became interested in rock and R&B in the late 1950s. His first record purchase was Chuck Berry's "Reelin' and Rockin'.“
Around age 11, after receiving musical recommendations from a cousin and attending the Newport Jazz Festival, he quickly became a self-declared "jazz snob. I lost interest in rock n' roll and started developing an anti-social personality."
Fagen would regularly take the bus to Manhattan to see Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis perform. After graduating from South Brunswick High School in 1965, Fagen enrolled at Bard College to study English literature, having been inspired by Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
While at Bard, Fagen met musician Walter Becker. The duo, along with a revolving assortment of musicians which included future actor Chevy Chase, formed various groups called The Leather Canary, The Don Fagen Jazz Trio and the Bad Rock Band. Fagen would later describe his college bands as sounding like "The Kingsmen performing Frank Zappa material.“
None of the groups lasted long, but the partnership between Fagen and Becker would continue for decades. The duo's early career included a stint with Jay and the Americans (where they went by pseudonyms), and in the early 1970s, as pop songwriters for ABC/Dunhill Records, which would go on to release all of Steely Dan's 1970’s output.
Here, Fagen performs “Weather in My Head” on the David Letterman shown in Nov., 2012