Steely Dan - Ultimate Music Guide

From previous posts you will have worked out that I'm quite keen on Steely Dan, so I was pleased to see Uncut add them to their Ultimate Music Guide series. These magazines are a great way of getting started with an artist, I have bought several, The Byrds, Van Morrison, & The Beach Boys issues all sent me off to the record shop.

With the Steely Dan one I have better insider knowledge and while it is very good, certainly making anything I could write to advise you where to start redundant, there are gaps...

The first is that as far as I can see nowhere does the song F.M. get a mention. It won awards and was released in various versions which surely gives it trainspotter appeal.

Number two nit-pick is the Hoops McCann Band. Named after a character in "Glamour Profession" (Steely Dan fans love this stuff) their "Plays the Music Of Steely Dan" album is a Jazz-lite set of covers. Not a musical sensation but part of the lore. And lore is one of the important things about Becker and Fagen. Bard College, Jay & The Americans, Chevy Chase, Muswellbrook... If you don't know what I'm talking about then catch up with Brian Sweet's excellent Biography called "Reelin' In the Years" (what else). If you ever see his other book "Complete Guide to the Music of Steely Dan" for less than ridiculous Amazon prices grab it. As a supplement to the interviews in the Ultimate Music Guide get Barney Hoskyns' "Major Dudes: A Steely Dan Companion". There is a small overlap of interviews, but not enough to matter.

Something else that is of interest to the train spotter in me are Steely Dan covers.

Woody Herman's "Chick, Donald, Walter & Woodrow" marries a suite from Chick Corea with five Steely Dan songs, far more effective big band Dan than Hoops McCann.

Herbie Hancock covered 'Your Gold Teeth II' on "The New Standard", an album by the way that is high up on the list of best Jazz albums of recent years.

"The Nightfly" has attracted its share of easy listening covers. Mel Torme took on 'The Goodbye Look' and 'Walk Between the Raindrops' on his Reunion album with Marty Paich, (whose son David covered Bodhisattva with Toto), and the Four Freshmen had a stab at Maxine and I.G.Y.

Best covers? The Pointer Sisters' take on Dirty Work clearly influenced Steely Dan's own live arrangement of recent years.

 Wilco's version of 'Any Major Dude' is good as is 'King Of The World' from Joe Jackson. Oddly Waylon Jennings managed a not bad rendition of 'Do It Again'..

Buy the Steely Dan Ultimate Music Guide, if you are a fan or not. Becker and Fagen make good copy whatever your opinion of their music. Personally I love it and am patiently waiting for Donald to get his finger out and release some better live albums and proper expanded editions of the albums.

Postcript: 

My dwindling opinion of Donald Fagen took another hit this week with the headline "Steely Dan Singer Donald Fagen Sues Bandmate Walter Becker's Estate". While it's hardly the first unseemly scrap for control of a band name, Yes do it every second Thursday after all, the comments in my obituary of Walter Becker stand.

Kim Edgar - A name you should know.

Out there in the world there are hundreds, thousands of people quietly making a living from music sitting off the radar as far as the average music lover is concerned.

Last year Kim Edgar visited us in Crianlarich. here she is in the bar at The Ben More promoting her show. Sadly I didn't get to see her play, (drinks to serve, plates to clear) but I did investigate her albums, and found gold.

You may think you can classify her music by looking at the website and have parceled her off as folky singer/songwriter, true up to a point but each of her albums has a definite character and, most unusual in today's musical climate, show her writing and performing maturing and evolving.

Debut "Butterflies and Broken Glass" appeared in 2008 and drew the inevitable, lazy, comparisons with Sandi Thom and Amy MacDonald. Kim's songwriting was more assured and the arrangements less obvious than either of those relentlessly commercial artists. A review said "very moving, literate, allusive and expressively sung", and they were right, another review clearly written by some who had listened on fast forward described it as slick folk pop, no!

Album two "The Ornate Lie" in 2012 was a step forward particularly musically. Extra bite to the songs, a bigger production, and a more confident performance overall. The Tori Amos influence was more overt this time, but a perceptive review spotted signs of Aimee Mann as well.  

Most recently "Stories Untold" from 2016, is less ornate. Simpler arrangements, more folk, less Tori. Some of the songs, particularly 'Significant Other Deceased' remind me of Cara Dillon. It sounds like Kim has wanted to focus the listener on the lyrics, which have again taken a step forward. Try 'Well Worn' and especially 'Things Crack, Then Shatter' an affecting song simply sung and played.

As well as her solo work Kim plays, mostly in Germany, with the band Cara operating more in the Irish music world, does sessions, workshops, and directs choirs. So overall she is making a living (as far as I can see) playing her music, and finding an audience. In 2017 that is an achievement. The inevitable stripped down, keyboard & guitar live shows are part of life (Over The Rhine make the same compromise). She reminds me of Nerina Pallot in some ways, although she is 6 albums into her career has gone the big label route a couple of times, and had closer brushes with the "big time". But Nerina seems from the outside at least to have made more effort to satisfy commercial demands and her albums are less consistent and only intermittently hit the highs routine in Kim's music.

I've talked before about the difficulties of making a living in music, Kim has a good website, has the Social Media firing and gets good reviews for albums and live work. But you haven't heard of her and you should. Kim Edgar is a major talent, the equal and better of anyone in her field. As a fan I would like her to be heard widely and receive the rewards her music deserves (try Bandcamp Kim). This may of course not be what Kim wants.

Artist Choice; Bill Nelson

I'm gutted, Bill Nelson played an album launch show for his "Songs for Ghosts" album at the end of October and I couldn't go. There is the risk that every show might be his last, and having made it to the last two I was keen to get there.

The history from Be Bop Deluxe, through Red Noise and the solo decades is accurate enough on Wikipedia to get the picture, although for recent years it breaks down rather. As I write this Bill has a brilliant new website just launched. You should go there to understand the breadth and depth of his music and also to have a tour round the forum. This is far and away the best on the interwebs with a genuine community feel, and regular contributions from the object of our affection himself.

My Nelsonic journey started with the Be Bop De Luxe single "Japan" I doubt Bill would choose this as a point of entry to his work, but there you are...

When "Drastic Plastic" came along in 1978 I was undecided, the easier stuff was fine, but it took until the release of the Futurist Manifesto box set to really give this the attention it deserves. I'm not particularly a fan of Be Bop De Luxe, but as a stepping stone to the good stuff "Drastic Plastic" does it for me.

The good stuff being "Sound On Sound" by a group he called Red Noise. If you have any leanings towards the best 'Post Punk' or end of the 70s music you need to hear this. It's one of those albums that should be heard as an album. No substandard songs at all. Also responsible for a causing a lifetime of pain for others, as it is the album where I first took notice of fretless bass, still a work in progress.

In a story you may have heard before on the blog, I drifted with Bill in the mid 80s, vaguely aware of his new stuff and playing his old regularly. I reconnected in 2012 with "Joy Through Amplification" when it was reviewed in Classic Rock. Vortexion Dream is now one of my favourite Nelson songs. Sadly you will have to wait for it to appear as a download as the CD is sold out. (Update 19th June 2018, it's out - get it now - probably Bill's best "rock album")

Bill presses typically 500 cds which by and large sell out quickly, sadly often appearing on EBay at inflated prices fairly soon after. There are some great albums still available in his back catalogue at ridiculous prices, my choices would be "Fantasmatron" & "Signals From Realms Of Light". One of the joys of Bill Nelson's music is its diversity and if you are new I would have a happy hour browsing through the soundclips and reading the wonderful notes that accompany each entry. Some of his best work is being slowly re-released through Bandcamp. The three volume Dreamers Companion series is a good introduction to Bill's recent work, but you will be buying the complete albums as well.

A recent innovation was a live album of last year's show. "Tripping The Light Fantastic" currently on heavy rotation on the iPod, I hope there is one of this year's performance. This is Bill at the launch of the Blip! album in 2013.

Compare "I Always Knew You Would Find Me" here, on Tripping... & on "Plectrajet" for Bill's seemingly endless inventiveness over the same theme. He seems to be on a sort of stream of consciousness never ending recording session, with one album merging into the next, but with each still retaining a sense of completeness and individuality. And that is for me a lot of the appeal of Bill's music, while it is all undeniably him, with a clear definable style, you never know quite what you are going to get. Recent albums have shifted from Special Metal, one of his most 'rock' albums for a long time, to "All That I Remember" an instrumental reflection on his early life. The homespun quality of his work, warm & giving while remaining the work of a consumate professional, is another appeal in the age of the airbrushed, protooled to death recording.

Recommendations? I have 32 solo albums plus Red Noise & Be Bop De Luxe on the iPod so how to narrow it down. The albums mentioned above are all good starting points. Bill himself often mentions "The Alchemical Adventures of Sailor Bill" as a favourite. I'll admit I took a while with this one but persevering paid dividends and I agree it is one of his best and that I think is one of the big rewards of listening to Bill Nelson, for every "Special Metal" that is an instant win, there are two "Sailor Bills" that demands something in return for giving up their charms. By the time they have worked their way in to your soul you will have made friends for life. So, my advice, read the store page, visit the forum, and immerse yourself in some of the most thoughtful, considered music you can buy.

My next purchases will be the Trilogy of "Silvertone Fountains", "Illuminated at Dusk", and "Mazda Kaleidoscope" before one of them sells out. I'm feeling brave so will post this blog to the Dreamsville Forum and invite other people's reflections on the appeal of Bill. I'm sure there will be far more eloquent explanations than mine. Find it here.

Bill Nelson is one of those artists who people have "heard of" but who remains just off the radar for many. This is going to become a theme for the next few blog posts. Next time, Kim Edgar. Who?