As yet another musically influential life slips through the cracks that 2016 and 2017 have
been infamous for, the world says goodbye to Walter Becker, guitarist, bassist
and co-founder of the Rock and Roll Hall-of-Fame-inducted band Steely Dan, who
died earlier this week. Becker’s official site announced the death, though no
cause of death or other details were provided at the time.
“Walter Becker was my friend, my writing partner and my bandmate
since we met as students at Bard College in 1967,” Donald Fagen, the other half
of the band, wrote in a tribute to Becker, adding, “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.”
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The
band which was famous for iconic songs like ‘Do It Again’, ‘Reeling in the Years’
and ‘Josie’, amongst others, will mourn the loss of one of its founders, as
will the rest of the world. Fagen promises to keep Steely Dan going as a
repertory band that can present live performances of the band’s catalogue, but
without Becker, it just won’t be the same.
Steely Dan was an influential act to many musicians
around Goa, and some of them speak with Café to share why the band was
influential to them, and what their favourite song by the act was:
There are songs that
make me a Steely Dan fan for life. ‘Bodhisattva’ was a song my band and I
covered in Mumbai. And ‘Josie’ was another great song by the band, with a bass
line with double stops. In those days, playing two notes together, on bass, was
something unheard of.
COLIN D’CRUZ
‘Josie’ has to be the
standout track for me, though overall, their music was clean, and so catchy.
The hook lines were addictive, and the minute you heard the first three chords
you knew they were coming on. I loved them. I love jazzy, groovy funky elements
and they rounded that up so well, and that too all staying within the
boundaries of a good old classic rock band. The vocals and the lyrics were just
the icing on the cake. They can never ever make music like that again.
CHRYSTAL FARRELL
I have only heard one
of their albums. It was back in the day, when owning a ‘discman’ was a thing.
Walter Becker was the guitarist/bassist of the band, and he highly influenced
my favourite song by the act, ‘Reeling in the Years’. It’s a fabulous rock n
roll tune, with some nice syncopation. When I heard it in the movie, ‘The A
Team’, it was like a blast from the past, for me.
REVELLINO FERNANDES
I love ‘Josie’ and I
love their arrangements; most of all, I love the board player, Victor Feldman.
Their exotic chord structures and progressions, with their unique inversions
and substitutions are the things that influence me; and that’s what I like
about their song ‘Josie’. It’s got that eerie electric piano layered with a
guitar hook derived from the Phrygian scale, and a good mix of jazz, funk and a
bit of rock.
SANCHO MENEZES
