So, I understand WB was busy in the producer's chair for most of the '80's, but was he still writing/recording demos of his own songs during this time frame, and if so, might we get to hear some of those older tunes here?
I really appreciate all the discussion here that was generated from my initial question; I've enjoyed reading it all and it's helped fill in the blanks for me. Thank you!!
It’s just a solo— on Fra Lippo Lippi's Angel -- (below)
from the Becker produced Light and Shade (87)
-- But to the extent that playing in someone else's song can reveal anything, it does let us hear a tiny bit of one musical choice he made during that time.
By the way,credits for this album, for which the Norwegian FLL was brought to LA to record (this was to be, alas, the album that was to launch them in the States) reads like the portable musical troop from which both Donald and Walter drew upon for so many projects, everyone from Nichols’ engineering to Porcaro’s drumming.
I discovered a very freaky thing while revisiting this song: In the official music video, the singer (a keyboardist) is strumming a guitar and pretends to play Walters solo (!). Not that there could be any question about that sound, from the solo through to the end of the track, but it sent me back to the original credits to see how this Milli Vanilli moment was represented. The credits are legit; it's the video that's deceptive. FLL was essentially a keyboard player/ singer Per Sørensen and a bass player Rune Kristoffersen (!).On the Light and Shade wiki page, Sørensen is credited with keyboards and vocals, and Walter with guitar and production. One page in particular that just names personnelalso has "Guitar -- Walter Becker" underneath the track name.
Hard to imagine what was behind this 60’s era feint. As a demanding Japanese promoter we knew used to ask, “Who is fired”?
Anyway…nice prototypical Becker playing on this "nice" prototypical 80s cut :-)
Re-listening to some of WB’s production work, I was put in mind of hourstuff’s question about 80s musical output, and this discussion.
First, Walter was writing at least from the time of the DF/WB sessions in the mid ’80: there are cassettes of some of their work, and some of Walter’s fooling around with some of it afterwards.
Second, he said —and may have mentioned in an interview, and as reported by Matt’s source, above, — that he started keeping track of “the songs that were in my head” as he was working with RLJ on Flying Cowboys…so that’s 87-88 or so?
Finally, I believe the earliest “out loud” writing he did at the pre-dawn of the ’90s was with Dean Parks, who can confirm or not. Some of the earliest cassettes I found were marked "WB/DP". Walter said he felt that Dean could get him started writing and, especially, playing again… and indeed it worked, and as we know, they went on to write some great songs together.
This post was going to be about something else…which I’ll put in a second post; it’s too embarrassing to drop these massive core-dumps, especially since they don’t seem to stimulate discussion. (BTW, came across a cassette labeled “crickets” and I assumed it was throw-away stuff, like “nothingsville”. When I played it, it was…crickets. Literally. For some reason he wanted to sample them)
We do know that sometime in the late 80s, probably around the Rosie Vela era, that D & W took a shot at writing some songs together for the first time since the 70s. I believe that Snowbound and West of Hollywood sprouted from those meeting.
The short answer is that so far we've sourced what we've released from Walter's extensive collection of DAT tapes. DAT tapes were introduced by Sony in the late 80s, so I wouldn't have expected to find much pre-90s material on them, with the exception of some older stuff that was backed up to DAT. The Circus money era demos and outtakes are from digital files, but I don't think we've even begun to explore cassette tapes or the mysterious box of reel to reel tapes labeled "Steely Dan - All The Good Stuff That We Didn't Release." No idea what's on those.That last part is a joke, but the truth is that there may well be other formats that we just haven't gotten to yet.Additionally, and d-mod is going to know this answer better than I do, but I'll take a whack at it anyway; I think Walter honestly did stop writing music with the expectation of recording it after Gaucho and for at least a few years. There may be a notebook with lyrics etc in it somewhere, but I think he really did put the same amount of effort that he had reserved for his music into taking care of himself, and that by definition precluded the kind of output we see occurring around 11ToW, Circus Money, and the intervening Steely Dan albums.
I really appreciate all the discussion here that was generated from my initial question; I've enjoyed reading it all and it's helped fill in the blanks for me. Thank you!!
Re: 80s musical output
It’s just a solo— on Fra Lippo Lippi's Angel -- (below)
from the Becker produced Light and Shade (87)
-- But to the extent that playing in someone else's song can reveal anything, it does let us hear a tiny bit of one musical choice he made during that time.
By the way, credits for this album, for which the Norwegian FLL was brought to LA to record (this was to be, alas, the album that was to launch them in the States) reads like the portable musical troop from which both Donald and Walter drew upon for so many projects, everyone from Nichols’ engineering to Porcaro’s drumming.
I discovered a very freaky thing while revisiting this song: In the official music video, the singer (a keyboardist) is strumming a guitar and pretends to play Walters solo (!). Not that there could be any question about that sound, from the solo through to the end of the track, but it sent me back to the original credits to see how this Milli Vanilli moment was represented. The credits are legit; it's the video that's deceptive. FLL was essentially a keyboard player/ singer Per Sørensen and a bass player Rune Kristoffersen (!). On the Light and Shade wiki page, Sørensen is credited with keyboards and vocals, and Walter with guitar and production. One page in particular that just names personnel also has "Guitar -- Walter Becker" underneath the track name.
Hard to imagine what was behind this 60’s era feint. As a demanding Japanese promoter we knew used to ask, “Who is fired”?
Anyway…nice prototypical Becker playing on this "nice" prototypical 80s cut :-)
Re-listening to some of WB’s production work, I was put in mind of hourstuff’s question about 80s musical output, and this discussion.
First, Walter was writing at least from the time of the DF/WB sessions in the mid ’80: there are cassettes of some of their work, and some of Walter’s fooling around with some of it afterwards.
Second, he said —and may have mentioned in an interview, and as reported by Matt’s source, above, — that he started keeping track of “the songs that were in my head” as he was working with RLJ on Flying Cowboys…so that’s 87-88 or so?
Finally, I believe the earliest “out loud” writing he did at the pre-dawn of the ’90s was with Dean Parks, who can confirm or not. Some of the earliest cassettes I found were marked "WB/DP". Walter said he felt that Dean could get him started writing and, especially, playing again… and indeed it worked, and as we know, they went on to write some great songs together.
This post was going to be about something else…which I’ll put in a second post; it’s too embarrassing to drop these massive core-dumps, especially since they don’t seem to stimulate discussion. (BTW, came across a cassette labeled “crickets” and I assumed it was throw-away stuff, like “nothingsville”. When I played it, it was…crickets. Literally. For some reason he wanted to sample them)
Second post later…
We do know that sometime in the late 80s, probably around the Rosie Vela era, that D & W took a shot at writing some songs together for the first time since the 70s. I believe that Snowbound and West of Hollywood sprouted from those meeting.
The short answer is that so far we've sourced what we've released from Walter's extensive collection of DAT tapes. DAT tapes were introduced by Sony in the late 80s, so I wouldn't have expected to find much pre-90s material on them, with the exception of some older stuff that was backed up to DAT. The Circus money era demos and outtakes are from digital files, but I don't think we've even begun to explore cassette tapes or the mysterious box of reel to reel tapes labeled "Steely Dan - All The Good Stuff That We Didn't Release." No idea what's on those. That last part is a joke, but the truth is that there may well be other formats that we just haven't gotten to yet. Additionally, and d-mod is going to know this answer better than I do, but I'll take a whack at it anyway; I think Walter honestly did stop writing music with the expectation of recording it after Gaucho and for at least a few years. There may be a notebook with lyrics etc in it somewhere, but I think he really did put the same amount of effort that he had reserved for his music into taking care of himself, and that by definition precluded the kind of output we see occurring around 11ToW, Circus Money, and the intervening Steely Dan albums.