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Donald Jay Fagen (born January 10, 1948〔(The Times ) January 10, 2009, Retrieved January 9, 2010〕) is an American musician and songwriter, best known as the co-founder (along with Walter Becker) and lead singer of the rock band Steely Dan. Following the initial breakup of Steely Dan in 1981, Fagen launched a long-running, if sporadic, solo career in 1982, spawning four albums to date. In 1993, Fagen and Becker reunited and have since toured and released albums as Steely Dan. ==Early life== Fagen was born in Passaic, New Jersey, on January 10, 1948, to Jewish parents Joseph "Jerry" Fagen, an accountant, and his wife, Elinor, who had been a singer in upstate New York's Catskill Mountains.〔Sweet, ''Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years'' 7.〕 His first cousins Alan (actor, president of the Screen Actors Guild) and Mark Rosenberg (SDS leader and film producer, d. 1992) also grew up in Passaic.〔 ''art/sci'' misspells Fagen's name but identification is clear.〕 The Fagen family moved from Passaic first to the suburb of Fair Lawn around 1958, then quickly moved and settled into a house on Bedford Road in the Kendall Park section of South Brunswick, New Jersey.〔(10/14/1987 -Henry Mancini's Anomie Deluxe – Premiere, October 1987 )〕 The transition greatly upset him since he detested living in the suburbs. He would later recall to an interviewer that it "was like a prison. I think I lost faith in (parents' ) judgment... It was probably the first time I realized I had my own view of life." His life in Kendall Park, including his teenage love of late-night radio, later inspired tracks on his album ''The Nightfly''.〔 Fagen became interested in rock and R&B music in the late 1950s. His first record purchase was Chuck Berry's "Reelin' and Rockin'".〔 Around age 11, after receiving musical recommendations from a cousin and attending the Newport Jazz Festival, he quickly became a self-declared "jazz snob". "I lost interest in rock 'n' roll and started developing an anti-social personality." Fagen regularly took the bus to Manhattan to see Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis perform. Soon afterwards, he learned to play the piano, and also played baritone horn in the high school marching band.〔Sweet, ''Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years'' 8.〕 Fagen also began a lifelong fondness for table tennis during his teenage years.〔Sweet, ''Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years'' 9.〕 After graduating from South Brunswick High School in 1965, Fagen enrolled at Bard College to study English literature, having been inspired by Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.〔Sweet, ''Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years'' 10.〕 At Bard, Fagen met musician Walter Becker. The duo, along with a revolving assortment of musicians which included future actor Chevy Chase, formed various groups called The Leather Canary, The Don Fagen Jazz Trio, and the Bad Rock Band.〔Fruchter, Rena. ''I'm Chevy Chase...and You're Not''. Virgin Books, 2007.〕 Fagen later described his college bands as sounding like "The Kingsmen performing Frank Zappa material".〔Sweet, ''Steely Dan: Reelin' in the Years'' 12.〕 None of the groups lasted long, but the partnership between Fagen and Becker would. The duo's early career included a stint with Jay and the Americans (where they went by pseudonyms), and in the early 1970s, as pop songwriters for ABC/Dunhill Records, which released all of Steely Dan's 1970s output. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Donald Fagen」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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