http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thread...becker.694422/
http://www.walterbecker.com/
Please, nobody post from that stupid Mediamass site about 'hoaxes'- it's from his official site.
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thread...becker.694422/
http://www.walterbecker.com/
Please, nobody post from that stupid Mediamass site about 'hoaxes'- it's from his official site.
I'm speechless. 67 years old. A real loss. RIP Walter, thanks for all the great music!
Wow. RIP. My condolences to family, friends, and fans.
I think I'll be a long time processing this one...
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.
Damn.RIP and thanks for the music.
"please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide
From my FB page today-
Really sorry to wake and hear Steely Dan's Walter Becker passed away. I knew he'd been ill for awhile so I guess it's not a shock, but it's still a drag. He and Donald Fagen were the architects behind the Steely sound. Of course Don is the better known of the two, but I cannot understate Walter's input and influence. He played bass on the first three albums and here and there on others. He also was a unique guitarist- laying down some of Steely's most memorable solos- Josie, Black Friday, Gaucho, Bad Sneakers, Home At Last and The Fez are a few that come to mind. Solos as memorable as any put down by the myriad of studio guitarists they used on their later records. He also brought the snark to the proceedings lyrically. RIP....
www.walterbecker.com
Last edited by Sean; 09-03-2017 at 11:20 AM.
Man, that's way too young. Didn't see this coming.
There were rumours of ill health and strange behaviour at recent shows.
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/thread...decline.680900
Was he sick? I hadn't heard of him being ill. Way too young.
Very sorry to hear about this.
Holy fuckin shit - I was just talking to the wife last night about how I thought Walter and Paul Simon seemed to be showing some signs of what we saw her father go through when he started suffering from dementia. I think Walt has been ill for a while. What a shame - absolutely top class musician - how many people can you think of who seriously could be considered on the level of Lennon and McCartney? RIP
RIP. A great talent in a great band.
Also produced China Crisis in the 80s. RIP
A *major* loss for highbrow creative rock/pop music.
So sad to hear this.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
http://variety.com/2017/music/news/d...an-1202546352/
Fagen weighs in-
Walter Becker was my friend, my writing partner and my bandmate since we met as students at Bard College in 1967. We started writing nutty little tunes on an upright piano in a small sitting room in the lobby of Ward Manor, a mouldering old mansion on the Hudson River that the college used as a dorm.
We liked a lot of the same things: jazz (from the twenties through the mid-sixties), W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, science fiction, Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Berger, and Robert Altman films come to mind. Also soul music and Chicago blues.
Walter had a very rough childhood — I’ll spare you the details. Luckily, he was smart as a whip, an excellent guitarist and a great songwriter. He was cynical about human nature, including his own, and hysterically funny. Like a lot of kids from fractured families, he had the knack of creative mimicry, reading people’s hidden psychology and transforming what he saw into bubbly, incisive art. He used to write letters (never meant to be sent) in my wife Libby’s singular voice that made the three of us collapse with laughter.
His habits got the best of him by the end of the seventies, and we lost touch for a while. In the eighties, when I was putting together the NY Rock and Soul Review with Libby, we hooked up again, revived the Steely Dan concept and developed another terrific band.
I intend to keep the music we created together alive as long as I can with the Steely Dan band.
Donald Fagen
September 3 2017
Oh goddamn. I had no idea he was this ill. It had been noted that on the last couple of Dan tours he wasn't up to snuff but I just cracked it up to getting older. This just sucks beyond sucking. Walter and Don's music form a huge part of my musical life from my college days until now. I am just stunned and saddened.
RIP Walter, I'll be playing your music until the day I die.
I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart
Just saw this. You could tell just by watching recent videos that he was not in great shape, but it's still a serious loss. And 67 is way too young.
Thank you, Walter, for all the incredible music.
RIP.
I'm holding out for the Wilson-mixed 5.1 super-duper walletbuster special anniversary extra adjectives edition.
Rest in Peace Maestro Becker!.
Last edited by TCC; 09-03-2017 at 01:31 PM.
RIP Walter. Love your music and will miss you ☹️
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Rest in peace, Walter, and thanks for all the great music.
We're trying to build a monument to show that we were here
It won't be visible through the air
And there won't be any shade to cool the monument to prove that we were here. - Gene Parsons, 1973
Rest in Peace, Walter. Spinning "Aja" in his honor.
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