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Music

Donald Fagen lightens up

On the heels of his successful solo album Morph the Cat, the Steely Dan frontman is open, animated and just a little goofy.

By SEAN DALY
Published August 10, 2006

I'm expecting a call from Donald Fagen, notoriously harrumphy frontman for jazz-rock smart alecks Steely Dan. But when my phone finally rings, it's a flak for the band with a mysterious "change of plans."

Dial this number, the rep says. Request this hotel room. And then, ask for . . . Mr. Lee.

"Mr. Lee?"

"Mr. Lee," he confirms with an ominous chuckle.

It stinks like a setup, a way-inside joke from a hipster-cool duo famous for prickly media manipulation. After all, does the 58-year-old Fagen, co-writer of such snarky hits as Hey Nineteen and Deacon Blues, really need a pseudonym to ditch randy groupies and the rabid press?

Well, maybe. There's the much-anticipated summer tour, which stops at Ford Amphitheatre in Tampa tonight. For a group that took two decades off from making music, any appearance by Fagen and partner Walter Becker is a hot to-do.

Plus there's the lingering brilliance of Fagen's latest solo album, Morph the Cat, a darkly themed yet curiously bouncy rumination on love, death and hot security guards. Morph is the final chapter in Fagen's 24-years-in-the-making solo trilogy, which started with 1982's The Nightfly, a young man's view of love and the future, and continued with 1993's Kamakiriad, a 40-something's view of love and the future.

And finally, there's the Owen Wilson Scandal. Before Mel Gibson's mugshot dominated Entertainment Access Insider, Billy Bush et al. dissected Steely Dan's "feud" with the blond star of You, Me and Dupree. In a letter posted on its Web site, the band claimed that Wilson's summer comedy was a blatant ripoff of Cousin Dupree, a Steely Dan song about a lascivious slacker that appeared on 2000 Grammy-winner Two Against Nature. "We can't guarantee what kind of heat little Owen may be bringing down on himself," the letter ominously warned.

So maybe Fagen does need an alias these days. Nevertheless, I proceed with caution: "Could I please speak with . . . Mr. Lee?"

"Yes" - a snicker, a snort - "this is Mr. Lee."

Jersey-born and New York-groomed, Fagen has the nasally voice of a surly cabbie, some failed poet shuttling fares back and forth on the George Washington Bridge. But although Fagen often sounds as if he's annoyed with you - Mr. Lee simply likes his privacy - he's actually an engaging, entertaining guy. Heck, he even laughs about the Owen Wilson Scandal, on which he was reportedly giving "no comment."

"We thought (the letter) was going to be one of those things that 12 people read and get a laugh out of," says Fagen. "The letter was a friendly warning to Luke Wilson that his brother is getting out of control. But it's now become this threat to Owen" - Fagen cackles out a laugh - "that he's responsible for stealing something from us, which wasn't the intent of the letter at all."

That anyone thought the band was actually considering legal action is funny in itself. After all, this is a duo named after a sex toy.

"I figure (the filmmakers) probably did rip off the basic idea of the character from the song, but it would be a miracle to get any recompensation, so we figured we'd at least get a laugh out of it," Fagen says. "We were actually going to write a second letter. We read that Owen is going to make a . . . movie in India. So we were going to write another letter to Luke, saying, 'Thank you for talking to your brother! He's had a spiritual awakening and he's making an art movie!' "

At least one person got the joke. Owen Wilson later issued this statement: "I have never heard the song Cousin Dupree and I don't even know who this gentleman, Mr. Steely Dan, is. I hope this clears things up and I can get back to concentrating on my new movie, HEY 19."

That probably cracked Fagen up pretty good. He says he's having a lot of fun on Steely Dan's current tour, and that's certainly noteworthy. Fagen's career has often been an intense, meticulous, careful experience. Every crisp, crackling note in its perfect place - and then some.

"The only time when (making music) was easy for me was when I was in my teens and 20s," says Fagen, who met Becker at Bard College in 1967; Steely Dan came into being in 1972, with the release of Can't Buy a Thrill. "I just didn't think about it. It was pure intuition. I had plenty of time and no responsibilities and it was pretty much all I did."

Morph the Cat, on the other hand, was written during a time of both personal trauma (his mother died) and global disorder (Fagen lived not far from the World Trade Center). Add to that stress his famously fanatical work ethic, and you'd think the man's head would have exploded while making one of the finest albums of his career.

But Fagen survived - lucky for his wife, lucky for us. The album is by far Fagen's most personal work, a smart, sly tutorial in trying to find hope amid gloom. What happens when a hipster-cool dude grows up and can't fend off the bad news with a witty quip? "Whistling in the dark is the theme of my work and Steely Dan, generally speaking," he says, adding that the studio provided a brief respite from the outside world.

One of the warmest, most revealing songs on the new disc is What I Do, an imagined conversation between the artist as a young man and the ghost of Ray Charles, with the specter being much cooler than the pretender. "I never met Ray, but I always wanted to," Fagen says. "I was once in an elevator with his manager. He was pretty scary. He was having an argument with some other people in his entourage. It was definitely something I didn't want to get involved with."

Another great track is Security Joan, about having the hots for an airport bag-checker. Fagen deftly addresses both his libido and the intense new world order: "An angel straight from heaven, asked me to step behind the screen/When I felt her wand sweep over me, you know I never felt so clean."

"Since they clamped down and had that (airport) security review, it's not so much fun anymore," Fagen says with a soft laugh. "I don't think there's a specific Security Joan out there. But whenever I'm bored, or the ennui sets in, it becomes spring in my mind. A young man's fancy, etc., etc." He pauses: "Actually, an old man's fancy. Even more, a dirty old man's fancy."

Now that the solo trilogy is complete, Fagen fans will flip to know that Rhino Records might release all three albums in box-set fashion, possibly with bonus tracks. ("I actually don't like that kind of stuff. But fans like it, so I've been looking to see if there's anything to put on there.")

But revisiting his past is not exactly a thrill for Fagen.

"I actually don't listen to my albums after they're made, unless I hear them on the radio or had to remaster them," Fagen says, adding with a slightly sinister chuckle: "But that has to do with various subtle, psychological events that go on in my mind."

Fans shelling out to see Steely Dan shouldn't expect to hear much of Fagen's solo work. But they can look forward to a big helping of hits (Do It Again, FM, Rikki Don't Lose That Number) and maybe a few surprises. At a recent San Francisco show, Bonnie Raitt showed up to sing Dirty Work. (Sing along: "I'm a fool to do your dirty work, oh yeah.")

Opening act and longtime collaborator Michael McDonald will also sit in with the duo. "With Michael, the audience is there to have a party," he says about the band's crowd-friendly set list. "We don't want to disappoint them. We sing, we dance. We'll be there with snowbells on."

The fact that they'll be there at all is a marvel. Before 2000's Two Against Nature, Steely Dan had gone 19 years without working together. But with Becker and Fagen, you just never know. At that year's Grammys, their comeback album went on to shock the world by beating out front-runner Eminem for album of the year.

"We were afraid that Eminem was going to assault us at the Grammys themselves," Fagen laughs about the victory. "Actually, I was more afraid that Madonna was going to assault us. I was much more scared of her. She looked very disappointed."

But hey, wouldn't a dirty old man like Mr. Lee like a tussle with the Material Girl?

"Yeah," Fagen snickers. "I would have enjoyed it."

Sean Daly can be reached at sdaly@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8467. His blog is at www.sptimes.com/blogs/popmusic.

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Steely Dan, with Michael McDonald, performs at 7:30 p.m. today, Ford Amphitheatre, Interstate 4 at U.S. 301 N, Tampa. $22.50-$85; mostly lawn seats are available. 813 740-2446, (813) 287-8844 or (727) 898-2100.

[Last modified August 9, 2006, 10:42:27]