Donald Fagen

Rock Singer

Donald Fagen was born in Passaic, New Jersey, United States on January 10th, 1948 and is the Rock Singer. At the age of 76, Donald Fagen biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.

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Date of Birth
January 10, 1948
Nationality
United States
Place of Birth
Passaic, New Jersey, United States
Age
76 years old
Zodiac Sign
Capricorn
Networth
$50 Million
Profession
Jazz Musician, Pianist, Record Producer, Recording Artist, Singer, Singer-songwriter
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Donald Fagen Height, Weight, Eye Color and Hair Color

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Donald Fagen Religion, Education, and Hobbies
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Donald Fagen Spouse(s), Children, Affair, Parents, and Family
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Donald Fagen Life

Donald Jay Fagen (born January 10, 1948) is an American musician best known as the band's co-founder, lead singer, co-songwriter, and keyboardist.

He has also released four albums as a solo artist, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

Walter Becker, Steely Dan's co-founder Walter Becker's death in 2017, leaves Fagen as the band's sole member.

Early life

Fagen was born in Passaic, New Jersey, to Jewish parents Joseph "Jerry" Fagen, an accountant, and his sister, Elinor, a homemaker who had been a swing singer in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York from childhood to her teens. Around 1958, his family moved to Fair Lawn, and then to a house on Bedford Road in South Brunswick's Kendall Park section. The change enraged him. He hated living in the suburbs. "It's like a jail," he later described. I'm not sure I lost faith in [my parents'] decision... It was also the first time I noticed I had my own interpretation of life. The Nightfly's life in Kendall Park, which included his teenage love of late-night radio, influenced his later album The Nightfly.

In the late 1950s, Fagen became interested in rock and rhythm and blues (R&B). Chuck Berry's first record was "Reelin' and Rockin," the first song he purchased. At age 11, a cousin recommended jazz music and Fagen, becoming what he described as a "jazz snob": "I lost interest in rock 'n' roll and began to develop an anti-social image." He went to the Village Vanguard regularly in the early 1960s, beginning at age 12, where he was particularly impressed by Earl Hines, Willie "The Lion" Smith, and Bill Evans. He used to ride the bus to Manhattan to see jazz musicians Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis perform. He learned to play the piano and played baritone horn in the high school marching band. He developed a lifelong obsession with table tennis. He was attracted to soul music, funk, Motown, and Sly and the Family Stone in his late teens. Henry Mancini, the Boswell Sisters, and Ray Charles have all expressed admiration for them.

After graduating from South Brunswick High School in 1965, he was inspired by Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti to study English literature, where he met Walter Becker in a coffee house in 1967. Becker and Fagen performed a revolving group of musicians, including future actor Chevy Chase, to form the bands Leather Canary, the Don Fagen Jazz Trio, and the Bad Rock Band. Fagen compared his college bands to "the Kingsmen performing Frank Zappa stuff." None of the companies existed long, but Fagen and Becker's collaborations were fruitful. The pair's early careers involved working with Jay and the Americans, for which they used pseudonyms. They appeared on ABC/Dunhill Records, which issued all of Steely Dan's 1970s albums in the early 1970s.

Personal life

Alan Rosenberg, Fagen's cousin, is a member of the Screen Actors Guild, while his cousin Mark Rosenberg was a student for a Democratic Society and a film director.

Libby Titus, a 1993 Fagen songwriter, married her. Despite the fact that the two students were backstage at a Dr. John concert in 1987, they did not become close until 1987. Titus sustained bruises after Fagen allegedly shoved her against a marble window frame in their Upper East Side apartment on January 4, 2016. Titus told the New York Times that she was divorcing her husband. Since reconciling, the two have reconciled.

On the 1993 album Kamakiriad, Titus co-wrote the song "Florida Room." Fagen has appeared with his stepdaughter Amy Helm, the daughter of Titus and musician Levon Helm. Fagen has no children of his own.

Source

Donald Fagen Career

Career

Becker and Fagen began to form Steely Dan in the summer of 1970, responding to a Village Voice ad for "a bassist and keyboard player with jazz chops" placed by guitarist Denny Dias. Dias was immediately impressed by the pair's abilities, and especially that they already had a whole stack of original material. (Fans of Beat Generation literature, Fagen and Becker named the band after a "revolutionary" product mentioned in the William S. Burroughs novel Naked Lunch.) The group's first lineup was assembled in December 1971 in Los Angeles, where Becker and Fagen had relocated to work as staff songwriters for ABC/Dunhill. Becker and Fagen formed the core of the band and wrote all the songs, with Becker on bass, and later lead guitar, and Fagen on keyboards and vocals.

After the release of their third LP in 1974, the other members left or were fired from the band, which evolved into a studio project headed by Becker and Fagen. Steely Dan's best-selling album was 1977's Aja, which was certified platinum. Three years later, they released Gaucho. Their next album wasn't until 1995, when they released the live album Alive in America. It was followed by the multiple Grammy Award winning Two Against Nature in 2000, and Steely Dan's most recent album Everything Must Go in 2003. A concert DVD, Two Against Nature, included material from much of the band's history.

After Becker's death in 2017, Fagen wished to retire the Steely Dan name out of respect for his bandmate and tour under a different name, but promoters advised him against it for commercial reasons. As of 2022, Fagen continues to tour as Steely Dan.

After Steely Dan's breakup in 1981, Fagen released his debut solo album, The Nightfly, in October 1982. It was certified platinum for sales of over a million copies in the U.S. and reached 11 on the Billboard Top 200 albums list. The first single, "I.G.Y.", released in September 1982, peaked at number 26 on the Hot 100. The follow-up single, "New Frontier" (January 1983), peaked at number 70 and was accompanied by a music video. The Nightfly was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In 2002, Rhino Records released a DVD-Audio version of The Nightfly in honor of the album's 20th anniversary. The bonus track, "True Companion", from The Nightfly Trilogy MVI Boxed Set is track seven on the Heavy Metal film soundtrack. Fagen also contributed "Century's End" to the soundtrack for the 1988 Michael J. Fox film, Bright Lights, Big City.

During the rest of the 1980s, Fagen contributed to soundtracks and wrote a column for Premiere magazine. In the early 1990s, he toured with the New York Rock and Soul Revue. Becker and Fagen reunited in 1986 to work on the debut album by model and singer Rosie Vela. Fagen co-produced and played keyboards on Walter Becker's solo album debut 11 Tracks of Whack (1994). Becker produced Fagen's second album, Kamakiriad (1993), which was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and reached number 10 on the Top 200 albums chart.

Fagen's third solo album, Morph the Cat, was released on March 14, 2006, and featured Wayne Krantz (guitar), Jon Herington (guitar), Keith Carlock (drums), Freddie Washington (bass), Ted Baker (piano), and Walt Weiskopf (sax). It reached 26 on Billboard Top 200 albums list. Morph the Cat was named Album of the Year by Mix magazine. The 5.1 surround sound mix won the Grammy Award for Best Surround Sound Album.

Fagen's first three albums were released in a box set, The Nightfly Trilogy, in the MVI (Music Video Interactive) format. Each album features DTS 5.1, Dolby 5.1 and PCM Stereo mix but no MLP encoded track, along with bonus audio and video content.

Fagen's fourth album, Sunken Condos, was released in 2012. It reached 12 on the Billboard Top 200 albums list.

In 2012, Fagen toured with the Dukes of September, featuring Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs. One of the concerts was recorded at Lincoln Center in New York City and broadcast on PBS Great Performances in 2014.

In 2013, Fagen published an autobiography titled Eminent Hipsters. A biography Nightfly: The Life of Steely Dan's Donald Fagen by Peter Jones was published in 2022.

Fagen frequently uses aliases. He wrote the liner notes to Can't Buy a Thrill under the name Tristan Fabriani, which he used on stage when he played keyboards for Jay and the Americans (Becker used Gus Mahler). On his solo albums, when he played or programmed a synthesizer part to replicate a real instrument (bass, vibraphone, horns) he credited one of his aliases: Illinois Elohainu, Phonus Quaver, or Harlan Post.

Source

Donald Fagen Awards

Awards

  • 1985: Honorary Doctor of Arts, Bard College
  • 2001: Honorary Doctor of Music, Berklee College of Music
  • 2001: Steely Dan inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
  • 2010: Jazz Wall of Fame, American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers

Jim Beard died at the age of 63: Steely Dan keyboardist John Kerry died of 'inadequate illness'

www.dailymail.co.uk, March 6, 2024
Jim Beard, a musician known for his work with Steely Dan, has died at the age of 63, according to reports. Deadline reports that the composer and producer died in a hospital in New York City on Saturday, March 2nd, from sudden illness. Beard had been a member of Steely Dan since 2008 and had recently traveled with the Eagles for their Long Goodbye tour.