From: stuart@apollo.hp.com (Stuart Troutman)
Subject: Goldmine:Steely Dan
Originator: stuart@mingus
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 18:26:18 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Company, Apollo Division - Chelmsford, MA


For any fellow Dan-heads out there:

The current issue of Goldmine contains a feature on Steely Dan (as well as 
a good article on Sun Ra). If any of you check it out, see if you find this 
puzzling, or is it just my own confusion? The writer mentions various dates 
through the course of recounting the Steely Dan history, and I could swear 
that his dates are all one year off. For instance, he begins by saying that 
the first Steely Dan single ("Dallas") was released in 1972, followed shortly 
thereafter (the same year) by the first hit, "Do it Again", as well as the 
first album ("Can't Buy a Thrill"). And then he proceeds with the group's 
chronology of releases from that point on, with all (or most) of the dates 
falling, it seems to me, one year LATER than they should. Maybe my own memory 
is clouded, but I feel nearly certain that I was listening to "Can't Buy a 
Thrill" in late 1971, and wasn't "Do it Again" on the hit charts in late '71? 
I thought it was mid-'72 when the second album ("Countdown to Ecstasy") was 
released. 

Otherwise, it's a pretty good article, followed by separate interviews with
Fagen and Becker. There's also a couple of photos that I've never seen any-
where before, including a group photo in the studio, from sometime around '73 
or so, that shows them with their backup singer, Royce Jones, who also played 
some percussion and maybe some keyboards in their live shows. There are also 
two women in the photograph who I take are other backup singers that they hired 
(unfortunately there is no caption). However, it was my understanding that their
usual female background singers (some studio veterans like Venetta Fields, 
Clydie King, and Shirley Matthews) were black, but these two women are white. 
If anyone knows who they are, please let me know.

One of the frustrating things about the article is that the writer brings up 
a few good questions, but fails to pursue them, and they aren't addressed in 
the interviews. For instance, he mentions that the singer on "Dallas", who is 
obviously NOT Fagen, doesn't sound quite like David Palmer (their short-lived 
lead singer on the first album), which is what I always thought too. But then
he doesn't take it any further. Anyone know if that IS Palmer? Also, he refers
to Royce Jones at one point, but then later fails to identify him as the singer
on the live version of "Any Major Dude" from the Record Plant studio concert 
(the one on the "Rotoscope Down" bootleg). He just indicates that the vocal is
by "someone other than Fagen". Weird. And he refers to a live version of "Do it
Again" on the "Bent Over Backwards" bootleg as being sung by Palmer; my copy of
that bootleg contains the live "Do it Again" from their '72 ABC-TV "In Concert"
program, which is sung by Fagen (isn't it?). And he never fully identifies the 
sources of the assorted early tracks that appear on "The Early Years" album or 
on the "Berry Town"/"Sun Mountain" bootleg. Some are apparently '68-'71 demos, 
some with Kenny Vance (from their Jay & the Americans days), and some when they 
were part of Denny Dias' previous band, Demian. The writer does bring up Barbra
Streisand's early cover of "I Mean to Shine" and Poco's cover of "Dallas", as
well as most of their various outside projects, but he omits their extensive
contributions to the Thomas Jefferson Kaye album recorded by Gary Katz and
Roger Nichols, as well as the "Chick, Donald, Walter, & Woodrow" album by the
Woody Herman Orchestra. He also mentions that the live "Bodhisattva" was from
their very last live concert, which I didn't realize. Is he right about that?

I plan to write to the editors at Goldmine, in hopes that they'll print some of 
the above discography additions, and in hopes that they'll investigate further
into some of these questions. So if anyone out there has any more info to add,
or any corrections to make to this stuff, please contact me. Thanks.

                                    stuart@apollo.hp.com
                                    Stuart Troutman
                                    356 Harvard St.
                                    Cambridge MA 02138



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