Download Instrumental    It’s a sad time in the music world.  Walter Becker passed away last week from an undisclosed illness.   He was only 67.  Rarely does a death in the music industry affect me so greatly.  It happened with John Lennon, then Harry Chapin, and now Walter Becker.  But, at some point in time, we all must carry on without our heroes.  I don’t have any left.  Sad.

Becker and Donald Fagen were the core members of Steely Dan, a hugely successful band of the 70’s – my favorite group from that decade.  The music was a cerebral combination of rock and jazz, with a little R&B mixed in for good measure.  Sophisticated rock, I would call it.  The music was complicated and, I thought, difficult to play.  The lyrics were cryptic and quite sarcastic at times – but oh, so interesting.  Becker played bass and lead guitar while Fagen handled the keyboards and lead vocals.  And that was pretty much the whole band.  They used studio musicians for any other instrumentation and none of those guys were ever considered to be a part of Steely Dan – that’s just how cerebral they were.  Kinda snobby, really,  but who cared?   The music was outrageously good!

“Rikki, Don’t Lose That Number” was released in 1974 and was their most successful single.  Donald Fagen met a New York artist at a college party named Rikki Ducornet.  Even though she was married and pregnant at the time, Fagen wrote down his phone number and gave it to her before he left the party.  She was tempted to call him but, alas, never did.  Hence, the song.  Rumor has it that Becker was interested in her too, so the idea of them collaborating on this song is intriguing.  Ah, musicians…. they’re a sordid lot.

And speaking of “sordid”, I won’t tell you how Steely Dan came up with their name.  You can google that one yourself.