Just Guitar

My Old School, a Steely Dan song from their second album, Countdown To Ecstasy, but with just Skunk Baxter's guitar parts.  The whole thing is great, but goes absolutely insane with the closing solo starting at 2:31.  There is nothing predictable about that solo and it's also very humorous.  The guy covering this is quite good.

Bodhisattva (Yet Again)

We've visited this song several times because it contains my favorite Steely Dan guitar solo, courtesy of Denny Dias, one of the least known of the great guitarists of rock.  I spent some time looking at cover versions of the solo on YouTube.  Most weren't very good.  Then I came across the one below by Tom Lane.  It's the closest I've seen to Dias, almost capturing his tone, and to my ear only a little off in a couple of places.

Most impressively, Lane attempts the four phrases at the end of the solo, unlike most others who don't even try.  Lane has a lot of other outstanding covers which you can find by going here.

Return Of The Dan

We did a post awhile ago on THC's favorite Steely Dan guitar solos with links to youtube videos.  Now, with the availability of Dragontape, we can indulge ourselves by editing a video consisting entirely of those favorite solos (for THC's other Dragontape adventures go here).

To get more background on each song, including which one is actually about the Munich Beer Hall Putsch and about Skunk Baxter's post-Dan career as a missile defense consultant to the Pentagon go here.

These are the Top 12 with the lead guitarist.

12.  Peg (Jay Graydon)
11.  King of the World (Denny Dias)
10.  Night by Night (variously attributed to Dean Parks or Skunk Baxter)
9.    Chain Lightning (Rick Derringer)
8.   Aja (Dias)
7.   Boston Rag (Baxter)
6.   Your Gold Teeth II (Dias)
5.   Reelin' In The Years (Elliot Randall - according to Baxter, Randall did this on the first take)
4.   Sign in Stranger (Randall)
3.   My Old School (Baxter)
2.   Kid Charlemagne (Larry Carleton)
1.   Boddhisattva (probably Dias for entire solo, Baxter is one ending solo which is not included)

Bodhisattva Isolated Guitars

While researching the post on The Edge, THC ran across this isolated guitar track from the Steely Dan's Bodhisattva which contains his favorite Dan guitar solo (see Steely Dan guitar solos).

On it you just hear the guitars and it's thrilling; despite the title of the Dan's first album, Can't Buy A Thrill, it turns out you can.  Guitars courtesy of Denny Dias (it's his solo that starts at about 1:35) and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter.   

Countdown To Ecstasy: Steely Dan Guitar Solos Part 3

Part 3, and the conclusion of our series:  Part 1, Part 2

6.  Your Gold Teeth II (Denny Dias)

Throw out your gold teeth
And see how they roll
The answer they reveal
Life is unreal

Floating, almost ethereal, guitar from Mr Dias in some pretty weird time signatures.

5.  Reelin' In The Years (Elliot Randall)

The Dan's second hit single (following Do It Again) and its first memorable guitar solo.  The story most often told is that after Baxter and Dias laid down the rhythm guitars they could not nail a solo.  Elliot Randall happened to drop by the studio (he was a childhood friend of Skunk Baxter) and they suggested he take a shot at the lead and supposedly he came up with the multiple solos on the first take.

, Randall turned down an invitation from Becker and Fagan to become a member of Steely Dan though he played on several of their albums.  He was well known for turning down such offers, also declining an invitation from John Belushi to be musical director for The Blues Brothers and to be a founding member of Toto.  Along with playing on a zillion studio sessions for everyone he's played, produced and written jingles for a wide range of business clients including Coca-Cola, Miller Beer, Burger King, MTV and Proctor & Gamble.

4.  Sign in Stranger (Elliot Randall)

And who are you?
Just another scurvy brother

Four years later, Randall returned for the guitar track on this tune.  It's a call and response with some nice keyboard interplay.  Some of the guitar work is very humorous and it's another one where you want to listen right to the end.


3.  My Old School (Skunk Baxter)

Sputtering, staccato phrasing that starts out terrific and gets even better as it goes along.  Listen to the last licks as it fades out.


2.  Kid Charlemagne (Larry Carlton)

Now your patrons have all left you in the red
Your low rent friends are dead
This life can be very strange

Perfect guitar tone and phrasing at the break and in the closing.  During the 1970s and 80s, Carlton played on up to 500 recordings a year.  Along with numerous Dan appearances he also recorded with Joni Mitchell, Billy Joel, Michael Jackson and Barbra Streisand among others.
   (Carlton)

1.  Bodhisattva (Dias/Baxter)

Sorting out which solos to include in the Top 12 and how to rank #'s 12 through 2 were tough and THC would not argue with anyone ranking them differently or moving any of the Honorables up to the Top 12 but deciding on #1 was the easiest part of this exercise which should come as no surprise if you'd read THC's prior post on this song.  Simply amazing guitar solo by Denny Dias in the extended break and great work by Skunk Baxter on the closing.

If you were keeping track both Skunk Baxter and Denny Dias appear 4 times in the Top 12 (that is, if Baxter is the soloist on Night By Night).  They had very contrasting styles with Baxter being the rocker and Dias the jazz guitarist.   Dias was there at the start.  According to Wikipedia, in the summer of 1970 he had a band in Long Island and placed an ad in the Village Voice reading "Looking for keyboardist and bassist. Must have jazz chops! Assholes need not apply".  Becker and Fagen responded and the band quickly began playing their material.  Dias fired the rest of the group and the remaining three became Steely Dan.  Dias remains a respected jazz guitarist and again according to Wikipedia is currently a computer programmer in L.A.

Buying A Thrill: Steely Dan Guitar Solos Part 2

You can find Part 1 here which explains the criteria and rules.  Today we'll countdown from #12 to #7.

12.  Peg (Jay Graydon)

Very sleek and sinuous.  For the back story on the six or eight guitarists Becker and Fagen tried out on this solo watch this video about the general process of making the Aja album.  The discussion about the guitar solo for Peg starts about 4 minutes in.  Jay Graydon is an L.A. session musician, producer and songwriter and also appeared in several Doonesbury strips in 1977 as Jay "Wah-Wah" Graydon.


11.  King Of The World (Denny Dias)

Any man left on the Rio Grande
Is the King Of The World as far as I know

This might have moved higher if it was about 30 seconds longer.  Unusual in that there is no lead guitar until the last 45 seconds.  Great jazzy sound - nice how it moves from lower registers to bubble up above the other tracks in the mix.  Listening to the guitar you'd never know how apocalyptic the lyrics are. 

10. Night By Night  (Dean Parks or Skunk Baxter)

When the dawn patrol gotta tell you twice
They're gonna do it with a shotgun
Yes, I'm cashing in this ten cent life
For another one

The solo is attributed to different guitarists in different sources.  The first attempt by the Dan to be funky.

9.  Chain Lightning  (Rick Derringer)

That's Rick Derringer, former lead guitar for The McCoys (of Hang On Sloopy fame) as well as owner of a strong solo career in the 1970s (Rock n Roll Hoochie Koo anyone?).  Sounds like they recorded the first part of the solo separately from the second part as there is a distinct tonal change.  Both are great.

THC read an interview with Donald Fagen many years ago in which he claimed that this song was about the Munich Beer Hall Putsch.  Now you need to know that you cannot take anything Becker and Fagen say at face value so this might be completely bogus.  On the other hand, if you know the history of the putsch and then listen to the lyrics  . . .  


8.  Aja  (Denny Dias)

A beautiful, glistening solo.  The first part of the solo starts just after 3 minutes in and the second part shortly after 4 minutes (see if you can hear the police whistle in between the two sections).  Stick around to listen to the section immediately after featuring Wayne Shorter on sax and Steve Gadd on drums (Gadd returns at the end to show some more dynamite chops).

This clip below includes a piece where Dias explains just how hard it was to play the solo written by Becker.   The guitar discussion starts 2 minutes into the video.

7.  The Boston Rag (Skunk Baxter)

Bring back the Boston Rag
Tell all your buddies that it ain't no drag

Oddly enough, the song is set in the borough of Queens in New York City and not Boston.  Moves along at a stately pace through the verses and chorus and then it changes into a stomp.  Skunk kicks in with moaning and extended single notes and then escalates to a barrage of multi-note fuzz distorted sounds which seems like it must be overdubbed but if you listen closely it's not.

Part 3 will be posted on Wednesday.

Twelve Against Nature: Steely Dan Guitar Solos Part 1

There are plenty of good rock guitar solos but for sheer consistency of fine playing it's hard to beat what Steely Dan achieved on its first six albums - Can't Buy A Thrill, Countdown to Ecstasy, Pretzel Logic, Katy Lied, The Royal Scam and Aja from 1972 to 1977 (the title of this post is modified version of the title of a later Dan album).  In the next two posts we'll count down THC's picks for the Top 12 guitar solos by the Dan.  In this post we'll go over the criteria, rules and talk about the Honorable Mentions. (TH
                 
In selecting the top solos, THC has focused on three aspects; melody (as opposed to blizzards of notes demonstrating virtuosity but nothing else - sometimes Eddie Van Halen, a spectacularly good guitarist, can lapse into this), tone (THC does not like tinny, listless sounding guitar) and creativity; is it something you've never heard before or is it predictable like one of those songs that after you've heard the verse and they get to the break you can probably already hum the solo they are going to play?.  Here's an example of how this affected the Dan selection process: let's take Larry Carlton's solo from Don't Take Me Alive; just about the best tone you'll ever hear, good melodic flow but very predictable so low on creativity and doesn't make the Top 12.
              
With only a couple of exceptions, Dan guitar solos come in two varieties.  The most common is that the lead guitar makes its first big appearance at the break after the first two verses and then shows up again in the closing.  By the way, some of the best Dan guitar licks are in the last ten seconds of the fade outs so make sure to listen to the end of the songs.  The other form is where the guitar pops up throughout the verses and choruses and is found almost from start to finish.  To accommodate this the links in these posts are done in two ways; when the lead shows up at the break click on the link and the YouTube video will start at the guitar solo (but stick around and listen to the encore soloing at the end).  For those songs where the playing is scattered throughout the song the entire video is embedded in the post.

The last thing to mention before we get rolling is the sticky issue of identifying the guitarists.  THC didn't realize this for years, but the Dan were never a conventional band, except briefly during the Countdown to Ecstasy period.  The band was founded by Donald Fagen and Walter Becker who wrote the songs and they treated everyone else from the start as hired hands and increasingly over the years used flocks of studio musicians on the recordings. This also poses difficulties in figuring out who played lead on some of the tunes as you'll see in the next couple of posts.                                                                                        (Becker & Fagen)

THC used to think of Denny Dias and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter as the Dan guitarists.  Dias does occasionally play throughout this period but Baxter quit halfway through the third album because he could not longer stand Becker and Fagen.  Before joining the Dan, Baxter was the guitarist for Ultimate Spinach.  After leaving the Dan, he joined the Doobie Brothers, an experience he always said he liked much more than playing in Steely Dan (though his finest playing was with the Dan).  More recently Baxter has been a missile defense consultant to the Pentagon. THC is not joking, if you doubt it please read this article  and you can hear directly from Skunk about how a self-described "hippie guitar player" got started with his new career by listening to the first few minutes of this talk).
(Dias)               (Baxter)
As a result, you will hear the work of seven different guitarists on the twelve cuts.

Honorable Mentions

Fire In The Hole (Skunk Baxter).  Nifty pedal steel guitar at the end.  Good piano solo also.

Parker's Band (Denny Dias).  Unusual in that lead guitar is only at the start.  The Dan's tribute to Charlie Parker.

Throw Back The Little Ones (Elliot Randall)

Rikki Don't Lose That Number (Skunk Baxter).

Part 2 is coming on Monday