Walter Becker

Walter Carl Becker (February 20, 1950 – September 3, 2017) was an American musician, songwriter, and record producer. He was the co-founder, guitarist, bassist, and co-songwriter of the jazz rock band Steely Dan.

Becker met future songwriting partner Donald Fagen while they were students at Bard College. After a brief period of activity in New York City, the two moved to Los Angeles in 1971 and formed the nucleus of Steely Dan, which enjoyed a critically and commercially successful ten-year career. Following the group's dissolution, Becker moved to Hawaii and reduced his musical activity, working primarily as a record producer. In 1985, he briefly became a member of the English band China Crisis, producing and playing synthesizer on their album Flaunt the Imperfection.

Becker and Fagen reformed Steely Dan in 1993 and remained active, recording Two Against Nature (2000), which won four Grammy Awards. Becker released two solo albums, 11 Tracks of Whack (1994) and Circus Money (2008). Following a brief battle with esophageal cancer, he died on September 3, 2017. He and Fagen are the only two members of Steely Dan who appeared on every studio album by the band.

Becker was born in Queens, New York City and grew up in Forest Hills, Queens. After Becker's parents separated when he was a boy, his British mother returned to England. Becker was made to believe by his father and grandmother that his mother was deceased. However, at some point between his childhood and late adolescence, he discovered that she was living. Becker maintained an unsteady relationship with her from then on. He was raised in Queens and Scarsdale, New York by his father and his grandmother. His father, Carl Becker, sold paper-cutting machinery in Manhattan where Walter graduated from Stuyvesant High School. After starting out on saxophone, he switched to guitar and received instruction in blues technique from neighbor Randy California, who later formed the band Spirit.

Donald Fagen overheard Becker playing guitar at a campus coffee shop, the Red Balloon, when they were both students at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. In a 2007 interview Fagen said, "I hear this guy practicing, and it sounded very professional and contemporary. It sounded like, you know, like a black person, really." They formed the band Leather Canary, which included fellow student Chevy Chase on drums. At the time, Chase called the group "a bad jazz band."

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.