Sweet Jesus, That's Smooth! The 1970s Guitarists of Steely Dan (Part 1)

This latest blog posting will be covering a group of players very dear to this reporter's heart. The music of Steely Dan in the 1970s, as well as being some of the most melodic and aurally-satisfying  pop music one can come upon, can be seen as a potted history of the electric guitar. Across a series of seven long players, Messrs Becker and Fagen provided the platform for a host of the era's axe-wielders to show off their enviable skills. What follows is an brief introduction to some of these talented muthafuckas. Let us begin with a familiar air.

Steely Dan began in New York as a songwriting vehicle for two slightly snobby, highly-talented, jazz-obsessed misfits, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. Both had gained experiences working in the lower echelons of the  Brill Building, the legendary songwriting factory that produced most of the iconic pop tunes of the 1960s. Having grown tired of the Brill Building slog, the two writers hooked up with the precocious jazz guitarist, Denny Dias. Pretty soon though, Becker and Fagen got songwriting work on the West Coast, only calling on Dias when this work dried up. It is in Los Angeles that Steely Dan really came together, with Jeff 'Skunk' Baxter and Jim Hodder joining on guitar and drums respectfully. With temporary lead vocalist David Palmer, the group recorded their 1972 debut, Can't Buy A Thrill. Even at this early stage, Becker and Fagen's perfectionist tenancies would come to the fore, with the employment of session-head Elliot Randall to rip it up on tracks like Reelin' In The Years and this next one when Baxter or Dias was not cutting the mustard.

After the release of Can't Buy A Thrill, Steely Dan went on the road. However, it soon became apparent that the natural habitat for Becker and Fagen's sarky material for the foreseeable would be air-conditioned L.A. studios, full to the brim with the latest in recording technology. By 1974's Pretzel Logic, it was also clear that they would be handpicking instrumentalists to suit their songs, rather than depending on a consistent band lineup. While they would employ Denny Dias and his formidable jazzy chops on future albums like The Royal Scam and Aja, guitar wildman 'Skunk' Baxter and his winning handlebar mustache was shown the door. He would find himself part of another band of West Coast smooth merchants, The Doobie Brothers. Here is one of Skunk's last hurrahs with the Dan. Remember him like this, guitar nuts.

For good measure, he is a track that showcases Dias and Skunk's contrasting solos styles. Dias could out-bop any jazzhead you care to name, while Baxter was a rock 'n' roll animal, injecting the Dan's music with some welcomed fuzztone. Denny goes first while Skunk takes the outro.


Stay tuned kids for some more Dan-related postings in the future. G'Luck.

Recommended Listening: Countdown To Ecstacy (1973)
http://allmusic.com/album/countdown-to-ecstasy-r18941

Some Great Early Dan Guitar Highlights: The Boston Rag (Countdown To Ecstacy), My Old School (Countdown To Ecstacy), Parker's Band (Pretzel Logic)

Adrian Belew: Lion Tamer Extraordinaire

There are players who wow us with great feats of speed and endurance. There are those who blind us with their melodic erudition. Then there are those whose musical outpourings of pure emotion knock us for ten. Finally there are those who make us giggle by making funny noises with their guitar. Adrian Belew falls into the latter category. That is not to take away from Mr. Belew's obvious instrumental talents. However, any person who can make elephant noises on their guitar is eh-ok in my book.



In 1960s Kentucky, Adrian Belew was a teenage guitar obsessive listening to the experimental rock sounds of Hendrix, Beck and The Beatles. He began to emulate their studio-created sounds on his solitary electric guitar, soon developing a very personal and eccentric style. In the late 1970s, he was spotted by Frank Zappa playing covers in a bar band. Zappa offered him a place in his touring act, which the eager Belew accepted. He describes his short tenure with the notoriously demanding Zappa as a crash course in music theory.

The experience he gained from Frank served him well when he joined David Bowie's band for the Heroes tour of 1978, subsequently added demented lead guitar and backing vocals to Bowie's Lodger album of 1979, the last of his Berlin Trilogy. Here is a select cut from that album, a perfect encapsulation of Belew's freaky noise workouts.



Talking Heads were the next legends to come knocking. He joined them in the midst of the arduous recording sessions that produced Remain In Light. Tracks like The Great Curve are taken into another rhelm thanks to Belew's heavily-processed solos and led to his addition to the expanded touring version of Talking Heads. He also featured on the band's off-shoot project, Tom Tom Club.  



In the early 1980s, he joined the act with whom he is most recognised. Belew and Robert Fripp had both worked on albums by Bowie, but never met. They eventually bumped into each other at a Steve Reich concert (why doesn't this surprise me?). They hit it off, and began a new project together, Indiscipline. This would eventually morph into a new lineup of Fripp's legendary prog godfathers, King Crimson. This new lineup would resemble some bizarre Talking Heads tribute act rather than the heavy-riffing art rock monsters of the mid 1970s. Here is sample of this new direction, complete with Belew's animal noise guitar.



As well as serving as King Crimson's frontman for nearly three decades, Belew has been a popular session man. Pau Simon, Joe Cocker, Cyndi Lauper and even Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner have requested his services. He has also released a steady stream of Beatles-inspired solo albums and noise experiments.

 As you have seen from these clips, Belew is naturally drawn towards bizarre noises and outlandish sounds. He seems to take great glee in washing over conventional pop songs with his distinct guitar style, the weirder the better. To finish, some more animal noises. I never get tired of this.

Recommended Listening: King Crimson - Indiscipline
http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:kvfrxquald0e
Some Choice Belew Craziness: Oh Daddy (Solo Hit), Flakes (Frank Zappa - Sheik Yerbouti), I'm Down (Beatles Cover)

Funky Cuts, Pt. 1: Eddie Hazel: P-Funk’s Fuzzmeister

I turned to my sibling Declan for our next entry. He’s the funk fan amongst us and has chosen that acid-fried Strat freak, Eddie Hazel.

The P-Funk collective, consisting of Funkadelic & Parliament, was bandleader George Clinton’s distilled concept of the ultimate funk act. Clinton believes that a life without “The Fonk” (I am using the vernacular here) is a life not worth bothering with. “The Fonk” is the answer and the solution to all of life’s worries and strife. The P-Funk universe has played host to a number of colourful and talented individuals over the years. These include bass legend, and permanent inhabitant of “The One”, Bootsy Collins, keyboard maestro Bernie Worrell, and nappy-wearing musical director Garry Shider. For guitarists though, the mysterious man in the bug-eye shades and occasional cape manhandling his Fender Stratcaster is the focal of our interest. Dear cats and kittens, I give you Eddie Hazel.

Eddie first came in contact with George Clinton in the late 1960s, when the young guitar hotshot joined Clinton’s Parliaments, an up-and-coming soul combo based in Plainfield, New Jersey. This act eventually morphed into Funkadelic, losing the matching suits and dance routines along the way and gaining a more psychedelic rock sound and look. Combining the spaced-out rock of Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa with the burgeoning funk of James Brown and Sly Stone, Clinton had created an outfit that could jam like a rock band, as well as lay down the groove like no one else.

Eddie Hazel was key to the early Funkadelic sound. He co-wrote legendary P-Funk tunes like Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow, Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On and Ret Hot Mama. His screaming, echo-drenched fuzz guitar solos washed over these tunes like a psychedelic blanket of stars. His signature tune is, without a doubt, is Maggot Brain, the title track of Funkadelic’s 1971 magnum opus. The track is, basically, a ten-minute guitar solo, with only sounds of wars and a lightly plucked rhythm guitar to accompany it. The legend goes that Hazel was locked into the studio and told to play like his mother just died. Did he achieve the desired effect? You be the judge.

Eddie, as well as recording a fine solo album “Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs”, continued to contribute to various P-Funk related recordings throughout the 1970s and 1980s until his untimely death in 1992. What I like most about his playing is that he seems to be taking a great sound (In my opinion, Hendrix’s Band Of Gypsies record) and running with it. That is not to say Hazel was a mere Hendrix copyist. Rather he took up the torch of insane funky guitar soloing for a new generation, putting his own stamp on the sound as he went. He influenced near contemporaries like Ernie Isley of The Isley Brothers and Ron Asheton of The Stooges, as well as modern funksters like Prince. If you are a fan of rock music, give Eddie and Funkadelic a try. Consider them a gateway drug into the murky world of “The Fonk”

Recommend Listening: Funkadelic - Maggot Brian (1971)

http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:jifixqy5ldfe

Some Choice Hazel Grooves: I Wanna Know if it’s Good to You, Red Hot Mama, Funky Dollar Bill (All Funkadelic tunes)

Please do check back soon for some more Funky Cuts.