Walter Carl Becker was an American musician, songwriter, and record producer.
21 Facts About Walter Becker
2.
Walter Becker was the co-founder, guitarist, bassist, and co-songwriter of the jazz rock band Steely Dan.
3.
Walter Becker released two solo albums, 11 Tracks of Whack and Circus Money.
4.
Walter Becker was made to believe by his father and grandmother that his mother was deceased; however, sometime between his childhood and late adolescence, he discovered that she was living, and he maintained a rocky relationship with her from that point forward.
5.
Walter Becker was raised in Queens and Scarsdale, New York by his father and his grandmother.
6.
Donald Fagen overheard Walter Becker playing guitar at a campus cafe when they were both students at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.
7.
Walter Becker left the school in 1969 before completing his degree and moved with Fagen to Brooklyn, where the two began to build a career as a songwriting duo.
8.
Fagen played keyboards and sang, while Walter Becker played bass guitar.
9.
Walter Becker's exhaustion was made worse by commercial pressure and the complicated recording of the album Gaucho.
10.
Walter Becker produced albums for the new wave bands Fra Lippo Lippi and China Crisis, and is credited on the latter's 1985 album Flaunt the Imperfection as a member of the band.
11.
Walter Becker produced albums for Michael Franks and John Beasley.
12.
Walter Becker produced Rickie Lee Jones's album Flying Cowboys and played bass on the main title track co-written by Pascal Nabet Meyer, which was certified gold by the RIAA in 1997.
13.
In 1991, Walter Becker appeared in Fagen's New York Rock and Soul Revue.
14.
In 2003, they released the album Everything Must Go with Walter Becker singing lead vocal on "Slang of Ages".
15.
In 2005, Walter Becker co-produced and played bass guitar on the album All One by Krishna Das and played guitar on the album Tough on Crime by Rebecca Pidgeon.
16.
Walter Becker co-wrote "I'm All Right" from the album Half the Perfect World by Madeleine Peyroux, and "You Can't Do Me" and the title track from her album Bare Bones.
17.
Walter Becker was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2008.
18.
In 1984 Walter Becker married Elinor Roberta Meadows, a yoga teacher, and the couple had two children, including adopted daughter Sayan.
19.
Walter Becker wrote the song "Little Kawai" for his son, and it became the final song on the album 11 Tracks of Whack.
20.
Walter Becker died from the disease on September 3,2017, at the age of 67, at his home in Manhattan, New York City.
21.
Rickie Lee Jones, whose album Flying Cowboys was produced by Walter Becker, recalled her long friendship with him in an editorial she wrote for Rolling Stone.