Walter Becker, the co-founder of the jazz-rock band Steely Dan, has passed away aged 67. He lived in Maui, Hawaii.
The death was announced on the musician’s website, with a simple message that read only “Walter Becker feb. 20 1950 – sept. 03 2017”. The news has since been confirmed by Steely Dan’s publicist, who released this statement from bandmate Donald Fagen:
"Walter Becker was my friend, my writing partner and my bandmate since we met as students at Bard College in 1967. We started writing nutty little tunes on an upright piano in a small sitting room in the lobby of Ward Manor, a mouldering old mansion on the Hudson River that the college used as a dorm.
We liked a lot of the same things: jazz (from the twenties through the mid-sixties), W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, science fiction, Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Berger, and Robert Altman films come to mind. Also soul music and Chicago blues.
Walter had a very rough childhood – I’ll spare you the details. Luckily, he was smart as a whip, an excellent guitarist and a great songwriter. He was cynical about human nature, including his own, and hysterically funny. Like a lot of kids from fractured families, he had the knack of creative mimicry, reading people’s hidden psychology and transforming what he saw into bubbly, incisive art. He used to write letters (never meant to be sent) in my wife Libby’s singular voice that made the three of us collapse with laughter.
His habits got the best of him by the end of the seventies, and we lost touch for a while. In the eighties, when I was putting together the NY Rock and Soul Review with Libby, we hooked up again, revived the Steely Dan concept and developed another terrific band.
I intend to keep the music we created together alive as long as I can with the Steely Dan band."
- Donald Fagen
September 3 2017
Becker had been suffering from an undisclosed illness and had not appeared with the band during their Classic West and Classic East concerts in July. In August, Fagen told Billboard that Becker had been “recovering from a procedure” but did not elaborate.
Born in Queens, New York City on February 20th 1950, Becker attended Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. While attending Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, he met longtime Steely Dan partner Donald Fagen, as the two formed a number of groups, including Leather Canary, which featured comedian Chevy Chase on drums.
It wasn’t until 1971 when both Becker and Fagen moved to California to start Steely Dan. The initial lineup comprised of the two leaders alongside guitarists Denny Dias, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, and drummer Jim Hodder.
In 1972, the group released their debut studio album, Can’t Buy a Thrill, which featured hit singles “Do It Again” and “Reelin’ In the Years”. Their follow-up, 1973’s Countdown to Ecstasy, was not as successful, but the group rebounded the following year with Pretzel Logic, which included their big hit “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number” and was the first to feature Becker on guitar.
In 1993, Steely Dan embarked on their first tour in 19 years, while Becker produced Fagen’s solo album, Kamakiriad, that year, and Fagen produced Becker’s solo debut the following year, 11 Tracks of Whack.
Throughout the decade, the two continued to tour and work on new material, resulting in their first studio album in two decades, 2000’s Two Against Nature, which nabbed four Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.
The following year, the two were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and also received the Honorary Doctor of Music degrees from Berklee College of Music. By 2003, the two had finished their next record, Everything Must Go, the first Steely Dan record to feature lead vocals by Becker, who sang on “Slang of Ages”.
In 2008, he was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame, which he would follow with his second solo album, Circus Money. More recently, Steely Dan staged a number of blockbuster tours, including a stop at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2015.
Steely Dan were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001 and released nine studio albums in total, selling more than 40m, with their last being 2003's Everything Must Go.
They were due to play the UK's Bluesfest next month.