On this day 30 years ago, Steely Dan released their first live album. We kicked off the anniversary celebration of Alive in America with last week’s newsletter, which featured Donald Fagen’s 1995 appearance on Dan Neer’s Up Close radio series. In this edition, Walter Becker joins Fagen to discuss the album as part of Words + Music, a Warner Bros. promotional series produced by the late journalist Davin Seay. Becker and Fagen talk about relearning old songs by listening to their greatest-hits albums, freshening up classics such as “Reelin' in the Years” with dynamic new arrangements, and how they approached picking their setlists for Steely Dan’s early-’90s tours.
