Major Dudes: A Steely Dan Companion

Beginning in 1972, the jazz-rock-pop fusion and acerbic, witty lyrics of Steely Dan's Donald Fagen and Walter Becker have streamed over the wavelengths of American and worldwide radio, stereos, and concert stages with a distinctive sound that never fails to be appealing to the ear. Writer and journalist Hoskyns (Small Town Talk) has assembled over four decades of journalism, interviews, reviews, and commentary on the music (and personalities) of Steely Dan, drawing on magazines and newspapers from both the United States and the UK. From pieces in the early 1970s as the group was starting out to profiles and reviews from their commercial apex to more introspective conversations that Fagen and Becker were more apt to do during the past 20 years, the work concludes with a tribute to Becker following his death in 2017 at age 67.