Bid to win this Donald Fagen signed The Nightfly Trilogy box set.
Donald was born in Passaic, New Jersey on January 10, 1948 to Elinor and Joseph (Jerry) Fagen, then a C.P.A. working for a large accounting firm in New York City. He was exposed to popular music by his mother, who, as a child and teen, had sung professionally in the Catskills under the name Ellen Ross. She introduced him to the works of Kern, Warren, Berlin, Arlen, Gershwin, Porter, and so on. After seeing Chuck Berry on the Dick Clark show, Donald started a collection of rhythm & blues singles including Chuck, the Everly Brothers, vocal groups such as the Coasters and the Drifters, and the odd Spike Jones record.
After being exposed to modern jazz by his older cousins, Donald passed on his R&B collection to his little sister and started listening to the jazz radio personalities broadcasting out of New York City like Symphony Sid, Mort Fega, and monologist Jean Shepherd. He took trips to nearby New York City to see live jazz at clubs like Slug's and the Village Vanguard and concert performances by Duke Ellington, Stan Kenton, Maynard Ferguson, Charles Mingus and others. Donald started playing the piano at 11, inspired by players such as Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Red Garland, Wynton Kelly and Bill Evans.
In the fall of '65, Donald entered Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, majoring in English literature and music. After meeting guitarist Walter Becker, the two undergraduates began collaborating on songs and playing in assorted pickup bands.
In 1971, producer Gary Katz, an A&R man for ABC-Dunhill Records in L.A., convinced President Jay Lasker to take the duo on as staff songwriters. They moved out to the west coast where they were given a tiny office containing a desk and a piano. While attempting to come up with pop material for the label's roster of artists, they schemed to assemble a band and continued to add songs to their other book of songs, which they laughingly call “the dynamite”. When Lasker agreed to a recording budget, Becker, Fagen and Katz sent for some east coast players and rehearsals commenced in a vacant room at ABC-Dunhill after hours. The original lineup (in addition to Donald and Walter on keyboard and bass) was: Jim Hodder, drums; Jeff "Skunk” Baxter, guitar; Denny Dias, guitar; and Dave Palmer, vocals.
In '73 and '74, the band, now named Steely Dan, toured the U.S. and Britain and released two albums, Can't Buy A Thrill and Countdown to Ecstasy. Always experimenting, Becker and Fagen expanded the personnel to include, at various times, former Disneyland singers Porky and Bucky, singer/percussionist Royce Jones, singer/keyboardist Michael McDonald and drummer Jeff Porcaro. Nevertheless, in the summer of '74, the band broke up.
In 2010, Donald and his friends Michael McDonald and Boz Scaggs created the Dukes of September Rhythm Revue. The Dukes have completed several national tours and filmed a concert at Lincoln Center in New York for PBS.
2013 saw the publication of Donald’s book of essays, Eminent Hipsters. The paperback edition is due out in the fall of 2014.