Nightfly: The Life of Steely Dan's Donald Fagen

by Peter Jones

Donald Fagen will forever be associated with Steely Dan, the band he formed with Walter Becker and four other musicians in 1972.

The smooth, radio-friendly veneer of the duo’s songs made Steely Dan internationally popular and famous in the 1970s, but the polish glossed over the underlying layers of anger, disappointment, sleaze, and often downright weirdness lurking just beneath the surface. The elliptical lyrics were—and continue to be—an endless source of fascination. What kind of person was capable of writing such songs?

Fagen has always kept his true self hidden behind walls of irony, confounding most journalistic enquiries with a mixture of obscurity and sarcasm. Nightfly cracks open the door to reveal the life behind the lyrics and traces Fagen’s story from early family life in suburban New Jersey, to his first encounter with Walter Becker at Bard College, their long struggle for recognition as songwriters, and the formation of Steely Dan. The band’s break-up in 1981, re-formation in 1993, and Fagen’s parallel solo career are covered in detail.

Author Peter Jones seeks to explain the public’s continuing fascination with Fagen’s music, both in collaboration with Becker and as a solo artist.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction

368 pages, Hardcover

Published September 13, 2022

Reviews

[Michael Burke · Rating 3 out of 5]

No Static At All

“You go back, Jack, Do It Again”... The mysterious voice and strange hypnotic music seeped its way out of transistor radio waves in late 1972. This stood out from the other fare coming from AM radio. An otherworldly electric sitar and plastic organ drove the tune up the charts. A few months later “Reeling in the Years” popped with a guitar solo that Jimmy Page said is his all time favorite.

Donald Fagen was the reluctant voice behind most of Steely Dan’s music. He and Walter Becker founded the group, wrote the material, and charted its course. He was uncomfortable performing and they both absolutely hated touring– describing the ordeal as “nights of shame and terror.” Clips of the group on The Midnight Special verify this, even to the point of having a designated lead singer covering the vocals Donald performed on record. By the completion of the third album, Pretzel Logic, the band dissolved into Donald and Walter and an array of the world’s finest studio musicians. Touring was stopped cold and sworn off forever.

Donald always kept to himself and showed reluctance to open up to the press. The mystery has been to figure where he ended and where Walter began. Their song lyrics are enigmatic and often cynical, including sordid tales of characters on the outskirts of accepted society. The music, too, was a complicated mixture of pop, jazz, R&B, blues and standards unlike anything anyone else was conjuring.

The “Gaucho” album, the group’s seventh official album in nine years, was released in 1980. And then nothing for twenty years. In 1982 Donald released the brilliant, semi-autobiographical “The Nightfly” album and we finally saw clues as to what he brought to the studio apart from Walter. Finally, in 1993 the two reunited to work on Donald’s second solo album, “Kamakiriad” and eventually started touring and recording again.

“Nightfly: The Life of Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen” conquers some difficult challenges. It succeeds in giving us enough background to understand a very private man. Donald was never one to jump into the media promotion circus. His darker side is revealed, too– there is more than one allegation of financial promises that were not kept. A nasty domestic violence episode is also brought up. We are not just presented with a Saint Donald bio.

The author, Peter Jones, has a jazz musician background, but he does not overcomplicate the explanations of the very technical demands of Becker and Fagen’s craft. We see the world’s greatest musicians tested to their limits with the long, grueling sessions in search of perfection.

Questions are answered. We see why the two seemingly inseparable geniuses broke apart for so long and what was happening during those dark days. The vehement anti-tour mindset slowly morphs into an aggressive performing outfit. Finally, we see how Donald took Walter’s death and where things stand today, with Donald as Steely Dan.
While the book is essential for die-hard Steely Dan fans, casual rock music fans should enjoy it, too. It fills in a lot of the holes behind the enigma. An enjoyable read.

Thank you to Chicago Review Press and Edelweiss for providing the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Brian Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This new book on Fagen, and by extension Steely Dan, covers the major aspects of the creative process of the musical works. It is not easy on Fagen, including his struggles with mental health and - what I perceive - as obsessive compulsive disorder. However, they make him the artist he is.

If you're looking at this review, you probably have an interest in the book. It does cover the material from a musician's perspective, and multiple pages for each album dive into the construction and topics of the songs. I had fun and learned a lot I didn't know. It's also a relatively brisk read but not lacking depth.

If you're interested in the topic, this book covers a niche that needed to be covered. Or better yet, try the albums from the 1970s. Daring and refusing to cater to popular tastes, it opens up the underbelly of American society with wit and satire. The book on the subject.

[Online Eccentric Librarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

More reviews (and no fluff) on the blog http://surrealtalvi.wordpress.com/

This is a very well researched book by a musician who understands the language that Donald Fagan and Walter Becker spoke. It is what you want to read in a biography in that we get a very non biased and neutral account derived from archives, interviews etc. At the same time, the book is dense, unfriendly to read, full of paragraphs 5+ pages long, and with a constant barrage of useless information getting in the way of what you do want to know.

This biography is chronological and places special emphasis in the beginning of Fagan's Jewish roots/heritage - and how that impacted his view on life. The initial bands and then Steely Dan are covered through the middle. And the last portion of the book gives information about Fagan's solo projects, touring, through to Becker's death. The constant thread throughout is that Fagan is extremely asocial/antisocial, very caught up in himself, and incredibly difficult to worth for/with.

I imagine that Fagan must be a monumentally difficult subject to write a biography about. Author Jones gives more than a straight biography but also opinions/views on the music itself that are very helpful. He summarizes reviews/viewpoints of each album or concert to give an idea of reception. Those opinions are well founded and not intrusive or invasive to the biography itself. In that way, the author gives us a bigger picture but doesn't insert himself and viewpoints to where it would be more about him than Fagan.

That said, at times it felt like the author focused on the wrong topics far too often. This might be a result of having to write about someone like Fagan who is very private and doesn't have a lot of friends from which to draw more information or insights. But at the same time, I really didn't want to have to slog through paragraphs listing every studio or band musician for each and every album or tour. Similarly, there is a lot of information given about Becker but I never felt like I got enough insight into the Becker-Fagan relationship. The same with girlfriends/wives/family are glossed over and rarely discussed.

Because the writing was so dense and because there was far too much superfluous information, my rating is lower than it should be considering the sheer amount of research that must have gone into this project. At the same time, I appreciated that it was written by a Jazz musician who could give insight into that most important inspiration to Donald Fagan's work. In the end, it is very hard to like Fagan: from his obsession with underage girls to broken promises and bad dealings with former bandmates. But it does make for an interesting biography. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

[Tobin Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is billed as "the life of Steely Dan's Donald Fagen" however, it really is the biography of Steely Dan, as well as Fagen and, to a slightly lesser degree, Becker. How could it not?

The things I did find interesting were, the author's assessments of all the output by Steely Dan, Fagen, and Becker pretty much aligned with my own, which is a rarity. Also, it was nice to see that Jones didn't shy away from the negatives. We saw no Saint Fagen here, and a couple of times, Jones almost got as snarky as Fagen would, which was fun.

Overall, I don't think I learned much new from the original Dan years, but this did fill in a lot of the gaps from the ensuing forty-odd years after the initial breakup.

A decent book.

[Dave Stone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts out good
This biography has two of the problems that many biographies have one or the other of:
How to tell the whole life of someone who did everything interesting early, but kept on living?
What if your subject is a bit of an asshole?
I always feel a little let down when I read a biography and like the subject less afterward. I know that's often unavoidable. Luckily anybody who listened to the lyrics had a pretty strong clue this guy was acerbic. and you know, not everybody should be cuddly.
The story of Steely Dan proceeds pretty much in accordance with Rock & Roll legend, with a few surprises. They actually were something of a band for a while early on (Not exclusively studio musicians). Donald Fagen was taking fewer drugs than I'd thought. They were way more obsessive than it was implied. Way past the point you'd be impressed by their dedication to the craft and also past the point were you'd recognize mental illness. Oh and lastly, there was less money than I'd thought.
Still if you wanted the how & why this is pretty good.
But then the "band" breaks up and the book keeps going and you're only at the half way mark with a long slog of fighting over the money and the rights and rehab and therapy.

[Charlie White · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a Steely Dan fan, this is the best book ever written about its brilliant leader, Donald Fagen. It takes an unflinching look at this prolific musician who mastered a variety of types of music, including jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, funk and blues.

Besides being an accurate record of Donald Fagen’s life, its author offers the most realistic depiction of what it’s like to work in a recording studio and create a hit song.

The perfectionism Fagen brought to Steely Dan and his own solo works was legendary, and you can see why each of the tracks he recorded is as close to perfection as has ever been achieved in the recording art.

If you are a working musician, songwriter, music producer or recording artist, you will like this book as much as Steely Dan fans will. Going out on the road with a band is a singular experience, and you can get a realistic feeling of what that feels like by reading this book. It’s entertaining, revealing and important, because I think Donald Fagen is a musician who will be remembered across the ages.

[Steve Erickson · Rating 1 out of 5]

1)Peter Jones is terrible at writing about lyrics - for the amount of pearl-clutching about sex and drugs he engages in, you'd think he could actually analyze Steely Dan's lyrics about the latter. (He praises the beauty of "Here at the Western World" without seeming to realize it's about heroin.) 2)Donald Fagen's life, at least as written in this biography, has very little interest after 1980 and the context of Steely Dan.

[Barbara Adde · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was thrilled to snag a free copy of the advance I corrected proof of “Nightfly” by Peter Jones from the publisher at the 2022 American Library Association conference. I’d been to see his concert at Wolf Trap just a few weeks ago (it was amazing) and have been listening to their music since it first came out.

Will be interesting to see what changes are made to the final version - hopefully some spacing on the pages between paragraphs - the pages run long. Jones goes into great detail about how each of their albums was made, who was on it, the process involved - it got a bit technical at points. So this is a book for true music geeks.

Neither Fagen or his partner Walter Becker sound like they’d be easy to live or work with, but their music is undeniably brilliant.

And I’m glad to hear Donald is enjoying touring again - he sure seemed to be having fun and loving the crowd’s enthusiastic response to a fantastic show.

[John Wheeler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Donald Fagen biography. A lot of emphasis on each of the songs on their albums and who played on them gave me a much better sense of who Donald and Walter are and why they wrote songs the way they did. They are talented but also troubled and real human beings.

[gerald marlette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of DF’s career. Great musician, writer and artist. Play on…

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nightfly, which claims to be a biography of Donald Fagen, tries to avoid being also primarily about Steely Dan. That the band’s name is prominently highlighted on the cover says more about marketing strategy than the intentions of the author. Throughout history there have been those whose lives have been fascinating enough in themselves whereby a biographer can treat their master works as further dazzling chapters in the captivating overall portrait of the artist. The life stories of Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo and Gabriel Garcia Marquez come to mind. Donald Fagen’s biographer, Peter Jones, approaches his subject from this perspective but soon enough this proves a dire misjudgement. Certainly Fagen has a life separate from his creation, but is it notable enough to justify a biography that so shabbily presents the masterly art of Steely Dan as if it was just a thing that he once did among all the other things? Only a fool would say that.

For those who might not know, Donald Fagen’s small recess in music history is golden. In summary he wrote and recorded more brilliant songs than not during the 70s with his partner-in-crime Walter Becker as Steely Dan, conjured renewed scintillation with his first stunning solo album The Nightfly in 1982, then retreated into isolation and therapy for a decade only to re-emerge, disappointingly, as a lesser creative force. More solo albums of varying quality, a slow-burn reunion with Becker, two new Dan albums which were admired but not much loved and regular low-key touring of the oldies circuit followed. It’s kind of a shitty narrative arc to rely upon as the framework for a page turner. Cranky uncle Don, as portrayed in his erudite 2013 autobiographical portrait Eminent Hipsters is likeable enough in his gleefully snide but elusive way. As a stand-alone subject for a biographer however, he ain’t much to write about.

He was talented as fuck but quickly developed a public persona early on that was cool, detached and witheringly sarcastic. It became an open secret that his and Becker’s approach to recording was unhealthily obsessive, but the results were so uniformly amazing and revered that this was generally regarded as a positive. Despite their frequent chart success, Steely Dan from 1972 to 1980 were no mere hit-makers. In an age where glam and glitter shared the world stage with confessional singer/songwriters, Steely Dan existed slightly outside the celebrity sphere to deliver cryptic, earthy tales of outliers struggling for air in their hidden corners of existence. Sometimes sordid, occasionally humorous, more often intriguing, these highly literate vignettes were paired with an exquisite jazz leaning rock/pop hybrid which repeatedly struck hitherto undiscovered sweet spots at each turn that clearly targeted the insatiable reward centre of your brain. Venerated then, as now, by musicians and authors along with the general music-loving public, the Becker/Fagen credits on a record label sticker have always been regarded as a near-guarantee of top tier song craft.

Regretfully Peter Jones skills as an interpreter of this output is inadequate. We are told plenty about what happened but very little space is dedicated to an appreciation of the art in a meaningful way. His analysis of the lyrics is facile. The song “Green Earrings” is reviewed as if he had never really given the words much consideration, if any. There are some basic factual errors that don’t inspire much faith in the writer’s hard-wired knowledge of the band, for example when he writes that the album Pretzel Logic has “three songs with a historical theme—the title track, ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Chain Lightning’”. These last two songs, as any Dan fan knows, appear on Katy Lied, not Pretzel Logic. Maybe a trifle, but a mistake like that wouldn’t pass without disbelief in a book about, say, The Beatles. On this matter he makes a bizarre attempt to draw parallels between the careers of Steely Dan and The Beatles, which while flimsy to the point of being transparently invalid, enters the realm of embarrassment when he claims that Abbey Road is one of The Beatles “less celebrated albums”. It means nothing, but it also means everything if you are wanting your little book to be taken seriously. There is more cringe to be found at various places among the okay stuff, of which there is thankfully enough to keep you going.

While fans of Donald Fagen will find much of interest here, we need to wait for a scribe with greater gifts than Peter Jones to write the definitive history of Steely Dan, which is the infinitely more interesting story. Jones has done a workmanlike job of compiling the component parts but has failed to provide the absorbing narrative and scrutiny this enduring body of work and its place in time deserves.

[Ray Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I'm Lester the nighfly, hello Baton Rouge..." In Nightfly, Peter Jones talks about a particular male demographic that worships the music on Steely Dan. I fall into that catagory and worship them. I love every nuance. So, Jone's book was an enjoyable look behind the scenes. Jones begins with Fagen's early life and influences before moving on to college and the origins of the band that would become Steely Dan. However, the book title is a bit misleading. When Fagen meets Becker, Jones tells Beckers's early story and then continues as a dual biography. The two men are so close and suck complete partners in Steely dan that it is impossible to tell Fagen's story without Becker.

Since Fagen outlived Becker, we get more late details, but even Fagen's solo projects involve Becker. I will admit that while jones mentions Beckers solo works as a musician, writer and producer, a Becker biography would have gone into much more detail. When jones talks about the Steely Dan albums, he gets into who played the guitar solos on each of the dozens of takes - some real detail. When discussing Becker's solo work, he doesn't go into anything more than the basics.

Over-all, this is an excellent and enjoayble read. It helped that I could hear the music in my head as Jones talked about songs and who played. Like other artists, Fagen's life was Steely Dan and the biography spends a great deal of time in the studio, on stage, and with Becker writing and managing - exactly what a fan would hope to learn about. He has a life and is marries outside the band. Those stories are interesting as well, but the bulk of the book is Fagen, Becker, and the story of Steely Dan.

[Fred Pscion · Rating 1 out of 5]

Axe To Grind!

This was the most difficult book to read on my Kindle Ever! The author is for some reason very bitter at Donald & Walter, since throughout he calls them Pedophiles at least 14 times & a flattering word is like pulling wisdom teeth from him while he's driving a car!! Actually read 5 other books ranging from 784 to 1,383 & between while I slogged through this drivel & put up with the authors preconceived notions of what good music was/is/should be, since while he is full of opinions I had actually seen Steely Dan in the early 70's & bought every single album/8track/CD over the past 53 years I could get my hands on while now having downloaded on my Spotify account some of the rare music mentioned by this begrudging author!!! I guess that is why I justified having paid for such drivel & actually forcing myself to finish the book, but looking forward to now reading the authorized biographies for Steely Dan & its members as it can only be up from here!!!!

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although billed as a Donald Fagen biography, this really ends up being a Steely Dan biography, since Fagen and his Dan partner, Walter Becker, were inseparable during the band's heyday. Credit to Jones for trying to get behind the genius and cynicism of the secretive Fagen. There might be a tad too much technical music talk about chords and which musicians played what on which albums, but that only adds to the impression that Jones has done his homework and knows what he's writing about. In any event, this book sent me back to listen to Steely Dan records for the first time and years, and I did so with a new appreciation of their music.

[Gary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a bad recap of all things Donald Fagen, but tends to come across more like a Steely Dan story where Walter Becker is given short shrift. It soon becomes apparent why you can’t discuss one Dan without discussing the other Dan though.

In any case, there are lots of relevant facts included, and if anything the book tends to be a little dry through recitation of those facts (specific concerts, personnel, dates, etc.).

The biggest problem though is that the two Dan’s aren’t ultimately very likeable, though their story is compelling to the extent you appreciate the band I guess.

[Charles James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened to this on audio book . I don't know if it's the narration or the subject of the Biography , but it all felt rather flat . The book seems to offer few additional insights into the life of Mr Fagen (which would probably please him ) . It does not appear the author has either interviewed of met Mr Fagen . All seems to be pulled together from existing external sources .


Some interesting observations on the later Solo Albums . Would recommend if you don't much about the subject , otherwise much of this is probably covered in other Steely Dan books .

[Paul Kulyk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the connection to Helm and the rest. Midnight Ramblers sound amazing.

Great way to get more out of a relisten to the albums. Appreciate the music and lyrics even more.

Great read on DF for DFs.

[Ben Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like Donald Fagen, then you'll like this. It didn't have enough lyric(s?) breakdown(s?) for my taste, but then again, it couldn't.

[Les · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full of details of early years, gets annoyingly judgey about Fagen later on and becomes full of author's point of view instead of bio detail. Plus, I think his musical judgements are off.

[Dick · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are a fan of Steely Dan then you will appreciate this book as a very good account of their story with a follow up of Fagen's solo career. Well written and pretty comprehensive.

[Gregp · Rating 4 out of 5]

8 out of 10

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a good outline of his career and personal life. I enjoyed listening to most of it while walking.

[Paweł Sajewicz · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was ok but this was an unauthorized biography using old interviews . I would recommend the autobiography Eminent Hipsters . It has a lot of interesting info but you can find it anywhere

[Doctor Occulator · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a huge Steely Dan & Fagen fan, sorry, but there is nothing in this book that cannot be found in numerous interviews and reviews from Donald Fagens's whole career. There is nothing original or enlightening in this book of compiled previously written thoughts. The only redeeming aspect of the book is that it is easier to find all the 'quotes' here than in numerous other articles. IMO, a very amateurish effort to tell the life story of a very significant artist.