Released in March 1975, the often-overlooked Katy Lied marked the first album after the breakup of Steely Dan’s original lineup. From now on, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker would choose from among music’s most talented and sought-after sessions players. As the following five deep cuts show, Katy Lied was better for it.
Fagen continued to emerge as a nuanced vocalist whose eccentric inflections tip off the sinister meaning behind seemingly innocent phrases like “You must know it’s right / The spore is on the wind tonight / You won’t feel it till it grows.” He wanted Michael McDonald, who makes his initial appearance as a background singer here, to take over as lead vocalist – but thankfully got voted down. McDonald’s contributions gave these sessions some fantastic lift, but he couldn’t match Donald Fagen’s feel for the songs’ complex lyrics and moods.
Of course, you can’t have a discussion about Katy Lied without also touching on the infamous dbx debacle. Obliquely referred to in Becker and Fagen’s 1999 liner notes, this mixing issue was explained in gory detail by guitarist Denny Dias, who has a standout moment on “Your Gold Teeth II.”
“Mixing was an absolute nightmare. Every song was mixed at least twice, and not because we were being fussy,” Dias later recalled. “In fact, we had mixed the entire record before we realized that there was a problem. We were using the new dbx noise reduction system, which was supposed to give us a better signal-to-noise ratio than Dolby, and for some reason the dbx units could no longer decode the mixes on tape. They sounded dull and lifeless, and no one could explain why.”
Even legendary engineer Roger Nichols was reduced to a mere, dumbfounded mortal. Ultimately, the task of remixing and mastering fell to Dias by default, because no one else wanted to do it. To the great credit of Dias and Walter Becker (who stepped in late into the process), Katy Lied was salvaged sufficiently enough for release. The 1999 remaster further improved the audio fidelity, even if marginally so.
Still, that shortcoming – real or perceived – doesn’t rise to the level of distraction. Maybe it would have, if the music itself had been mediocre, but there are way too many accomplished traits found in every song as Katy Lied skillfully reconciles rock, jazz and blues into a radio-friendly format.
You hear it in radio favorites like “Black Friday” and “Bad Sneakers,” of course, but also in the album’s lesser-known moments. Let’s return to five of them here:
‘ROSE DARLING’
“Rose Darling” is one of the band’s fairly rare love songs, but in true Steely Dan fashion, it’s really more of a lust song. The narrator seems to be pleading so hard with the object of his attempted affair that he even begins to drop the pretense that this is about romance: (“All my empty word of love / can never screen the flash I feel”) and even gets nasty (“you won’t feel it ’til it grows”).
While Walter Becker and Donald Fagan are cracking themselves up over the lyrics, the music behind them is, as usual, seriously good. “Rose Darling” benefits from tasteful piano comping, crisp drumming and the newly added Michael McDonald lifting up the chorus. There’s also a clean, bluesy guitar courtesy of Dean Parks. Parks was a long-time favorite sessionist of Steely Dan, having appeared on records ranging from Pretzel Logic to Two Against Nature. Before he got his first call into a Steely Dan recording session, Parks had already done dates for Stevie Wonder, Helen Reddy, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Marvin Gaye and Billy Joel.
For “Rose Darling,” Parks’ liquid, string-bending lines found a perfect place alongside that piano. This was also one of the rare times where he soloed on a Steely Dan record, since Parks was typically brought in only for rhythm work. Sounding a bit like Larry Carlton (another legendary L.A. session guitarist who appeared on the next track from Katy Lied), Parks is never about flash but is all about taste. Dean Parks’ understated performance ensures that “Rose Darling” still holds up, decades after it was taped.
‘DOCTOR WU’
Supposedly a tale of a breach of trust between a physician and patient, “Doctor Wu” represents one of the finest examples of Steely Dan’s signature mastery of an intricate yet soulful harmonic progression.
Though it didn’t catch fire with me at first, this artful combination of prose, melody and execution has to rank up there as one of the group’s best-ever moments on record. The cherry on top of this Steely Dan sundae is Phil Woods’ guest appearance. Already an alto-sax legend well before he taped this date, Woods’ advanced but smooth execution is here in full glory.
It took someone of that stature to hold his own inside a perfectly crafted tune such as “Doctor Wu.” The bop legend, whose lavish phraseology also graced Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are,” offers a passionate swing you rarely hear from saxophonists of later generations.
‘YOUR GOLD TEETH II’
Steely Dan is famously known for performing rock with a heaping dose of jazz elements, but those songs would rarely swing, as jazz does. Here’s a notable exception.
“Your Gold Teeth II,” the obvious followup to “Your Gold Teeth,” is only connected to the earlier version lyrics-wise. There’s some reference to a William S. Burroughs novel, I believe, but musically it’s much different.
“II” was, up to this point, the most sophisticated song Steely Dan had attempted, and a harbinger of the style they perfected later on with Aja. The best performances are provided by Jeff Porcaro and Denny Dias.
Porcaro had to not only pilot through shifting rhythms but also give “Your Gold Teeth II” the right feel. Donald Fagen suggested Porcaro listen to a Charles Mingus record featuring drummer Dannie Richmond in order to understand the particular drumming style Fagen wanted. As a teen, Fagen used to take a bus into New York City to watch Mingus’ band perform, and he was looking for the drum performance he remembered seeing from Richmond back then. Porcaro returned a couple of days later and nailed it, shuffling with the mastery of Elvin Jones – never mind Richmond.
Dias was incredible on this song, too. Though he often played in the shadow of Jeff Baxter, Denny was the guy Walter Becker and Fagen called when looking for liquid jazz phrasings and dense note patterns over intricate chord and rhythmic changes. It was one area Denny Dias excelled in, even over Skunk. That ability is on display here, as he offers one of the best (and unheralded) of all the great Steely Dan guitar solos.
Steely Dan is a rock band that was capable of doing things most rock bands can’t even comprehend, much less carry out. “Your Gold Teeth II,” one of my top two favorite Steely Dan songs overall, is one of those moments that clearly sets them apart from the pack.
‘CHAIN LIGHTNING’
Early on, Steely Dan liked to occasionally break from cerebral arty jazz-rock and just jam out on a simpler, blues-based ditty. “Chain Lightning,” with its standard 12-bar approach, is a fine example of the form.
Featuring another appearance by guitar great Rick Derringer, “Chain Lightning” can also be construed as a follow-up to the earlier “Show Biz Kids” – a one-chord song where Derringer was allowed to play his vicious slide from beginning to end. “Chain Lightning” has far more chords and Derringer doesn’t slide, but he once again owns the song.
His raw, biting licks alone put an edge to the song that more than canceled out Fagen’s airy and harmonized vocals. In the intervening time between the songs, Derringer had attained a measure of stardom from this first solo album and the evergreen boogie-rock hit “Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo.” But Rick Derringer is first and foremost a blues guitarist and, as with his first time out in a Steely Dan session, he fit the bill for “Chain Lightning” perfectly.
‘ANY WORLD (THAT I’M WELCOME TO)’
On occasion, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen would bring one of their heroes into the studio for a guest appearance. Ray Brown contributed acoustic bass to “Razor Boy,” and Wayne Shorter later played sax on “Aja.” “Any World (That I’m Welcome To)” boasts the drumming of the great Hal Blaine.
In terms of chart success, there’s been no one even remotely close to him: Forty, that’s right, 40 of the songs Blaine drummed on topped the charts – and a total of 150 made it into the Top 10. The Grammy award for Record of the Year went to songs featuring Blaine for six consecutive years between 1966-71.
“Any World (That I’m Welcome To)” is one of many Steely Dan songs where the drumming sounds easy, but that’s only because Hal Blaine is making it sound easy. The verses are low key, but the transition to the chorus is more uptempo, and the chorus itself shifts to a fills-laden crescendo and then back again to the gentle gait of the verses. Blaine was able to handle all the discreet modulating of cadence and timekeeping the song demanded with aplomb.
Jeff Porcaro, who handled drums on the rest of Katy Lied, could have tackled this, too. But sometimes you gotta make room for the champ – or, as been reported, Porcaro slept in that day. Either way, Hal Blaine’s appearance on a Steely Dan song is something that just had to happen. For whatever reason, it did – and I’m glad.
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