Expanding Dan

The original LP cover for the soundtrack to You’ve Got to Walk It Like You Talk It; Walter Becker and Donald Fagen circa late 1960s To my subscribers— This is the kind of story I started Expanding Dan to publish: reporting that dives deeply into a piece of Steely Dan history that otherwise might never get told in full. These pieces take a lot of time and effort.

Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -0:17 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. Nearly three years ago, I received a message from the British DJ, radio host, and Oasis cover boy Sean Rowley. He told me he had started curating compilations for the UK reissue label Ace Records. He’d put together Ladies Sing the Boss, which showcased Bruce Springsteen covers by the likes of Bettye LaVette and Emmylou Harris. Next, Rowley said, he wanted to do a Steely Dan–related comp.

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Walter Becker circa Circus Money (photo by Sandrine Lee); Nicole Zuraitis and Larry Klein at EastSide Sound in New York City during the recording of The Devil I Knew When I interviewed the producer Larry Klein earlier this year about his work on Walter Becker’s 2008 solo album Circus Money, he casually dropped the news that a song he and Becker had written during that period had finally been cut after collecting dust for 18 years.

At the Grammy Museum in Los Angeleslast month, photographs of Steely Dan taken by the audio engineer Roger Nichols in the early 1970s were exhibited for the first time. “Reelin' in the Early Years of Steely Dan” also included a panel discussion with founding guitarists Denny Dias and Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, session legend Dean Parks, vocalist Royce Jones, Cherokee Studios cofounder Bruce Robb, and former ABC/Dunhill Records A&R chief Steve Barri.

Courtesy of the Recording Academy / Photo by Rebecca Sapp, Getty Images © 2026 Early this month, I had the honor of cohosting a discussion at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles with some of the towering figures in the history of Steely Dan. The panelists included founding guitarists Denny Dias and Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, legendary session guitarist Dean Parks, vocalist extraordinaire Royce Jones, Cherokee Studios cofounder Bruce Robb, and ABC/Dunhill Records A&R chief Steve Barri.

BEASTS WITHOUT A NAME Zox pictured with his painting that was used on the cover of The Royal Scam In late April, Sotheby’s auctioned a work of art well known to Steely Dan fans: a painting by the artist Zox, featuring skyscrapers capped by the heads of monstrous beasts. Originally made for Van Morrison’s album Naked in the Jungle, the piece was repurposed for the cover of The Royal Scam in 1976.

Expanding Dan Listen to Donald Fagen's favorite records 1× Preview 0:00 Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -0:35 -0:35 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade.

Expanding Dan 'They're gone': Donald Fagen's premature obituary for Steely Dan 1× Preview 0:00 Current time: 0:00 / Total time: -1:08 -1:08 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. 'They're gone': Donald Fagen's premature obituary for Steely Dan "This is actually the only time I've ever actually said this, so it's a real exclusive," Fagen says during a 1989 interview on New York radio.

Photographs from the Roger Nichols archive will be exhibited publicly for the first time during an event at the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles on June 3. Cimcie Nichols couldn’t believe her eyes. One day in August 2023, she was sorting through the archives of her father, longtime Steely Dan recording engineer Roger Nichols, who died in 2011. She removed the lid of one unfamiliar storage box, and inside she saw dozens of envelopes full of photo negatives.