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Revision as of 05:29, 14 September 2005
Walter Carl Becker (born February 20, 1950 in New York, New York) is the guitarist (and sometimes electric bassist) half of the duo at the core of the jazz-rock group Steely Dan. Becker is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School in New York, NY, class of 1967.
Becker had a youthful career with various performing bands — for instance, Becker performed with Jay and the Americans — and in the early 1970s he hoped for a career as songwriter, prior to forming Steely Dan with Donald Fagen and others. As a guitarist, Becker is known for his intelligent, tasty, rhythmically savvy playing, and has continually improved. In much of his best known playing, he plays in a rock style that can lean strongly toward funk or jazz.
Following Steely Dan's breakup in 1981, Becker moved to Hawaii and began a career as a producer, producing artists as diverse as Rickie Lee Jones, China Crisis and Michael Franks. He reunited with Donald Fagen briefly to collaborate on the debut album of US singer Rosie Vela and later to tour as Steely Dan in 1993, and produced Fagen's album Kamakiriad. In turn, Fagen produced Becker's belated solo debut, 11 Tracks of Whack (1994).