Lost Walter Becker at 67, RIP

[Chordite]

So sad, this guy really was one of my heroes. Someone who bought something new to music. My Dan vinyl has seen countless spins over the years. It was the soundtrack to my life for 2 decades.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41140441

[1001gear]

So sudden. RIP

[Bucksstudent]

Jesus.

[onelife]

I'm thinking that today would be a good day to get out a stratocaster and play along with 'Two Against Nature'

[gardo]

I heard some Steely Dan on the radio today and it never sounded better. An all time great,he will be missed RIP

[Chordite]

Babylon Sisters Live in 2000 . So tight you just can't fault it, true professionalism.

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[Axisplayer]

The quintessential musician. In my circles growing up, you were not really a guitar player until you could play SD music. For most of my life, anytime I wanted to hear excellent music that I was ALWAYS in the mood for, it was theirs. Probably 40% of all the music listening in my entire life has been their recordings. RIP.

[Etienne Rambert]

This one hurts. But for the talented Mr. Becker, the danger on the rocks has surely passed. He's no longer lashed onto the mast. Could it be, he has found his home at last?

 

A friend of mine grew up with Walter Becker (1950-2017). He posted this reminiscence on Facebook.

I'll share part of it.

---

"Even at ten there was something older about him, and most certainly wiser. He had his aesthetic down cold, as if received. And was generous about letting the rest of us know what to listen to, what to read, what to watch.

 

He gave me my first Borges, my first Nabokov, my first Burroughs. He told me what movies to see....While the rest of us were (awkwardly; clumsily) fashioning our personas, his seemed always to have been there. Part Terry Southern, part Lenny Bruce, but always -- as was the case with him, and not yet with us -- far more than the sum of his influences.

 

We got together a few times when he was at Bard and I was at Cornell -- weekends of music and oblivion. Two years later I was living in basements and Walter's band was on top of the charts. Yet he was never condescending, and was even generous in helping me understand that there was little shame in the fact that I was still lost.

 

Over the years there were times we were in good touch, stretches -- decades -- when we were not....In 2011 Mary Beth and I went to see the band at the Greek, visited Walter briefly in the green room before the concert....That was the last time I saw him.

 

Our correspondence broke down soon after, we lost touch (as we'd done before, and not infrequently). But I always assumed that we'd see each other again, or that I'd wake up one morning to an email from him telling me, once more, who to listen to, who to read. Who to be, really.

 

That will never happen now. And the loss of that possibility is more devastating than could have been anticipated, or now can imagined. My debt to him is large and impossible. I'm ten years old again, and sad, and lost."

[Phil O'Keefe]

Great eulogy - thanks for posting that!