nickhoorwegmusic

Hi all,

I thought I might share the exciting (for me, anyway!) story of when I met Walter Becker, one half of Steely Dan.  Steely Dan has been a big part of my life’s soundtrack,  and the records they made give me a feeling of warmth and comfort every time I hear them, even though many of the songs aren’t exactly warm and friendly.

In September, 2007, the Dan’s ’Heavy Rollers’ tour hit Australia, their first visit ever. I travelled several hundred kilometres and saw three concerts - one in Canberra, one in the Hunter Valley, and the last in Sydney. On the day of the Sydney concert I was at my then day gig in a CD store, in the back room eating lunch. My co-worker appeared and said “A guy that looks like Walter Becker just walked in the shop”, so I dropped everything and went to the counter. Sure enough, it WAS Walter, studying the ‘New Release’ section.

After a couple of minutes Walter came over to the counter and asked “Got anything by Warne Marsh?”. I replied in the affirmative and led him over to the shelves, finding three or four albums for him. As luck would have it, the CD playing on the store stereo at the time featured Keith Carlock, drummer with Steely Dan, which gave me the chance to say “Hey we’re playing an album with your drummer on it” - a beautiful way to show recognition of who I’m talking to without being all fan-gushy (although I was nervous and actually shakey!), and to lead into a conversation.

The conversation lasted about fifteen-twenty minutes, and Walter was very friendly, easygoing and unpretentious. I asked him how he was enjoying the tour, told him I’d seen two gigs already, and asked him how his solo record was coming along (which turned out, 9 months later, to be Circus Money) . And after he’d signed an ‘11 Tracks of Whack’ CD for my sister I asked him if he minded me asking a nerdy Steely Dan question. He said “Not at all, shoot”, and I asked him a question I’d wanted the answer to for years:

Did Steve Gadd REALLY cut Aja in one take?!

And Walter said:

“No, he did it in two. He read the first one down and then at the end he said ‘Is there anything specific that you want?’ and I said ‘Yeah, when you get to this part, play like hell!’, and on the next take he did. We used a composite of both takes for the record.”

I asked if it was true that everyboy had stopped playing in stunned disbelief when Gadd played his solo:

“No, everybody kept on playing right till the end.”

Nothing like getting the info straight from the source! 

When our conversation finished Walter said “Nice talkin’ to ya!” and shook my hand. I was on cloud nine all day, and the concert that night was killer!

Walter if you ever read this, I played Circus Money for seven months straight on my car stereo - it’s one of my all time favourite albums.

 Cheers!

Nick

P.S. Oh yeah, for anyone interested, Walter bought three Warne Marsh CDs and one Thelonious Monk CD. The man has taste!

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