Note to readers: I’ve broadened the Expanding Dan Podcast to include audio stories in addition to music mixes. Before launching the podcast, I had published two audio stories: the first featured Michael McDonald on his origins with Steely Dan (that one also includes a video); in the other, Elliott Randall discussed his “Reelin’ in the Years” solo. In this one, drummer Ed Greene talks about “I Got the News.” Enjoy!
By the time he was summoned to a Los Angeles recording studio at the behest of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, Ed Greene had become one of the most in-demand session drummers in the world, owing to his masterful ability to lay down deep grooves with remarkable R&B feel.
In previous years, Greene had been a frequent drummer for Barry White, who had a policy of not crediting individual musicians on his albums; the soul maestro feared rival producers might hire away his talent and pilfer his sound. Though his name may not be listed in the liner notes, Greene is the rhythmic backbone to White’s most classic songs, including the lush proto-disco hit “Love’s Theme” (a rare instrumental No. 1) and the irresistibly funky “I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby,” which has been sampled by Beastie Boys, Daft Punk, the Notorious B.I.G., Nas, and countless others. In his Zelig-like career, Greene would be the percussive link between such disparate material as Hall & Oates’s “Sara Smile,” Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy,” the chart-topping theme from the TV show S.W.A.T., and the Jacksons’ “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground).”
Becker and Fagen happened to be outspoken admirers of Bobby “Blue” Bland, and Greene had played all the drums on Bland’s 1974 album, Dreamer, which contains one of the singer’s best-known songs, “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City.” Amid work on Aja, producer Gary Katz tapped Greene for a rather tricky assignment: “I Got the News.” With lyrics that read like something from Playboy’s “Party Jokes” column, the song is driven by a slippery, syncopated rhythm that mirrors the sort of pelvic thrusting that causes the narrator to remark, “I may never walk again.” On top of that, the track’s “Broadway Duchess” bridge—featuring the high-flying vocal stylings of Michael McDonald—may be as close as Steely Dan ever got to disco.
Could one of the regulars from the Dan’s coterie of A-list session drummers—Bernard Purdie or Rick Marotta or Jeff Porcaro—have pulled off “I Got the News”? Of course. But their choice of Greene is exemplary of the Becker-Fagen method—an inspired pairing of a certain player’s strengths to the needs of the track.
“I Got the News” would be Greene’s first collaboration with Becker and Fagen but not his last. He would go on to play on the original studio recording of “The Second Arrangement,” which was infamously erased by a hapless engineer. “And so,” Greene says with a sigh, “I wasn’t on Gaucho.” (Stay tuned next week for much more on “The Second Arrangement.”) A couple years later, Fagen invited the drummer to play on his first solo album, The Nightfly; Greene holds it down on both “New Frontier” and “Maxine.”
In this audio story, Greene recalls the recording of “I Got the News,” the inspiration he took from Funk Brothers drummer Benny Benjamin, the time “Peg” guitar soloist Jay Graydon tallied each and every drum fill in the song, and more.
“That’s one of my favorite things that I played on,” Greene says of “I Got the News,” which became the B-side to “Peg.” In the decades since, the song has tended to be a relatively divisive topic among Danfans, some of whom believe such a curiosity is the only shortcoming on an otherwise perfect album. To Greene, his love for the track has only grown. Reflecting on his many credits, he says, “It’s one of the highlights.”
How one of Steely Dan's quirkiest songs got its beat