Steely Dan’s Walter Becker dead: Co-founder and guitarist dies aged 67

In its heyday the band became famous for songs such as ‘Reelin’ in the Years’, ‘Do it Again’, ‘Rikki Don’t Lose That Number’ and ‘FM’

Walter Becker (l) with co-founder Donald Fagen (Reuters)

Walter Becker, the guitarist and co-founder of the influential band Steely Dan, has died aged 67, according to his website, which did not disclose the cause of death.

Becker was lead guitarist of the sophisticated, jazz-flavoured Steely Dan, which he formed with Donald Fagen, the keyboardist and lead vocalist.

In its heyday in the 1970s, the band had a string of hit albums on both sides of the Atlantic, including Katy Lied, The Royal Scam and Aja. Best-known songs included ”Reelin’ in the Years”, “Do It Again” and “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”.

Becker and Fagen became friends as students at Bard College in New York in the late 1960s.

After working as touring musicians they moved to Los Angeles, releasing the first Steely Dan album, Can’t Buy a Thrill, in 1972.

The band took their name from a fanciful dildo that appears in beat novelist William S Burroughs’s Naked Lunch.

Fagen paid tribute to his friend as “hysterically funny” and promised to keep their music alive as long as he can.

In a statement to ABC News, he said: “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.”

In July Becker missed Steely Dan’s Classic East and West concerts as he recovered from an unspecified ailment.

At the time Fagen told music magazine Billboard: “Walter’s recovering from a procedure and hopefully he’ll be fine very soon.”

The band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland in 2001, where their official biography describes their 1970s albums as “wry, nuanced and hyper-literate” that are “highly regarded by connoisseurs of pop hooks, jazz harmony and desiccating wit.”

After a long hiatus, the band reunited in the late 1990s to record its first studio album in 20 years.

That album, Two Against Nature, would go on to win Album of the Year in 2001 at the Grammy Awards.

The band is slated to play shows in Dublin and London at the end of October.