Who is Aja?

New information about the enigmatic namesake of Steely Dan's 1977 album

Back in August, shortly after I published an oral history of the Steely Dan song “Aja,” a reader left an extraordinary comment.

“The famous Aja was my first wife, whom I married in Korea in 1963 when I was in the Army,” wrote the commenter, identifying himself as Chris Battis. “Donald [Fagen] was our neighbor in Kendall Park [New Jersey] and my younger brother’s best friend all through high school. He also smoked his first doobie and many more at my house.”

Of course, I wanted to know more from Battis, particularly about his former bride. Soon we began a correspondence, during which the septuagenarian from Bellingham, Washington, pulled back the veil of the great album’s namesake, offering the clearest view yet of the woman who inspired the title more than 46 years after the record’s release.