Donald Fagen

Donald Fagen is an American singer-songwriter, keyboardist, and vocalist best known as the co-founder, lead singer, and main songwriter of Steely Dan with Walter Becker. His music blends jazz rock, sophisticated pop, R&B, funk, and rock, with polished studio production, complex harmonies, and dry, literary lyrics. The official Steely Dan biography says Donald had taught himself jazz piano before college, met Walter Becker at Bard College, and later formed Steely Dan in the early 1970s.

His key solo albums include The Nightfly (1982), Kamakiriad (1993), Morph the Cat (2006), and Sunken Condos (2012). Important songs include “I.G.Y.,” “New Frontier,” “The Nightfly,” “The Goodbye Look,” “Maxine,” “Green Flower Street,” “Tomorrow’s Girls,” and “Snowbound.” Apple Music lists I.G.Y., New Frontier, The Goodbye Look, and The Nightfly among his top songs, while Deezer and Amazon Music list his major solo albums.

Donald Fagen is known for creating one of the most refined and distinctive sounds in jazz-rock and yacht-rock-adjacent pop, both through Steely Dan and his solo work. The official Steely Dan bio calls The Nightfly a critical and popular hit, and notes that Kamakiriad was produced/performed on by Walter Becker; it also lists later solo albums Morph the Cat and Sunken Condos.