Becker was the Steely Dan's bass player and later it's lead guitarist after Jeff "Skunk" Baxter left for The Doobie Brothers and co-wrote all of the group's songs with Donald Fagen. During the 1970's, Steely Dan released seven albums including Katy Lied, Pretzel Logic & Aja and hit singles such as "Do It Again", "Reelin' in The Years" and "Rikki Don't Lose That Number". In 2001, Steely Dan would win Record of the Year Grammy for Two Against Nature.
The two would meet as students at Bard College fifty years ago. Fagen described how they met in a 2006 Entertainment Weekly article:
One day in 1967, Fagen happened by a long-gone campus coffee shop, the Red Balloon. ”I hear this guy practicing, and it sounded very professional and contemporary,” he says. ”It sounded like, you know, like a black person, really. And that was Walter. I walked in and introduced myself to him. I just said, ‘Do you want to be in a band?”
Talk about serendipity. What if Fagen had stayed in his dorm that day? Or decided to go somewhere other than the Red Balloon? Or went to the Red Balloon when Becker wasn't playing guitar? And what if Becker wasn't at the Red Balloon? If Fagen walks into the Red Balloon a few seconds or minutes later there is a distinct possibility the world misses out on some wonderful music as exemplified by "Rikki Don't Lose That Number". R.I.P.
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