YEAR
2001
INDUCTED BY
Moby
CATEGORY
Performers
Wry. Crafty. Cerebral. Acerbic. The perfectionists of Steely Dan made deviously slick music.
Donald Fagen and Walter Becker met in college, a fitting environment for the inception of this highly conceptual band. Steely Dan’s synthesis of jazz and pop is peppered with witticisms and references and has garnered critical acclaim and widespread fans alike.
Donald Fagen
Walter Becker
HALL OF FAME
ESSAY
By Ashley Kahn
Rhapsodically, and revealingly, Walter Becker, Steely Dan’s cofounder, recently described paradise: “It’s the club where all the jazz greats who are dead still play.
Ellington and Monk and Coltrane and Parker, and it’s the original music and the old arrangements and the original styles, and there are beautiful waitresses and cheap beer.” Virtual as Becker’s venue of choice may be, it houses the stuff that Steely Dan are made of.
