Eminent Hipsters

July 29, 2013
In these entertaining sketches, Steely Dan keyboardist and front man Fagen pays tribute to the “talented musicians, writers, and performers” from beyond the suburban New Jersey of his youth. In one chapter, Fagen recalls his early fascination with now-forgotten jazz singers the Boswell Sisters. He singles out Connie—whose career was affected in some measure by an early brush with illness (likely polio)—and praises her last recording, saying that she sounds like a “toned-down Wanda Jackson or Brenda Lee.” Fagen sends a kind of love letter to Henry Mancini, telling the composer of the theme from the television show Peter Gunn—a theme whose first notes every neophyte guitarist tried to learn back then—that his music continues to be young and fresh. Fagen vivaciously recalls his college days at Bard, meeting his future Steely Dan bandmate Walter Becker, and playing at a Halloween party with Walter and actor Chevy Chase on drums. In 2012, Fagen, Michael McDonald, and Boz Scaggs toured as the Duke of September Rhythm Revue; during the months of the tour, Fagen kept a journal, included in these pages, that’s filled with irony, sarcasm, humor, anger, and flat-out honesty about what it’s like to be on the road playing to houses filled with aging hippies: “Tonight the crowd looked so geriatric I was tempted to start calling out bingo numbers. By the end of the set, they were all on their feet, albeit shakily, rocking.... So this, now, is what I do: assisted living.” Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency.

February 1, 2014

Steely Dan cofounder Fagen makes his literary debut with a quasimemoir that offers a rare glimpse into the musician's mostly cynical worldview and his life as an aging, reluctant pop star. The first half of the book consists of new and previously published essays paying tribute to the musical and literary artists who inspired Fagen as a young boy growing up in 1950s suburban New Jersey. Fagen, who also narrates, sounds burned out and oddly uninterested as he discusses his early influences. The author's spirits rise somewhat in "Class of '69," a vividly engaging portrait of his time at Bard College, highlighted by the story of how he met future Steely Dan partner Walter Becker. But rather than offer insight into his famous band, Fagen skips forward several decades with a long, candid, and extremely cranky piece detailing a recent and obviously unpleasant tour with Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs. Fagen's narration of his own book is disappointingly wooden. VERDICT Only for devoted fans who can appreciate Fagen's grouchy observations and overlook the lack of Steely Dan content. ["Rather than a straightforward memoir, this collection provides music fans a distinctive perspective on an artist's inspirations and life, written in a sardonic and uniquely entertaining voice," read the review of the Viking hc, LJ 10/15/13.]--Douglas King, Univ. of South Carolina Lib., Columbia

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