A Teen Band Needed a Pianist. They Called Donald Fagen.

I'm crossposting this amusing account of how Donald Fagen, the creative linchpin in the Dan sound, showed up recently as pianist with a teen band. (He is 77 years old and the rest of the band is 17!) Fagen can be prickly and reclusive and hasn't performed anywhere else this year. But here he unexpectedly agrees to sub for another musician on a lowkey gig. Enjoy! - Ted Gioia.

In April, a curious video began circulating among Steely Dan fans online. It showed a trio of very young-looking musicians playing with the silver-haired eminence Donald Fagen.

The performance at the Barn at Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock, New York, was the first time Fagen had been seen onstage since Steely Dan canceled the last nine of their tour dates with the Eagles in the spring of 2024. The show also marked his first public appearance following the October 2024 death of his wife of more than 30 years, the singer-songwriter Libby Titus.

Exactly how, fans wondered, had the Nightfly been coaxed back behind the piano? To get the story, I spoke in April to the members of Roche Collins: Ronan Roche and Sam Cousins, who trade guitar and bass, and drummer Lavon “Lee” Collins. At that time, all of them were 17.

Collins’s mother, the singer-songwriter Amy Helm, is the daughter of Titus and Levon Helm, the famed drummer and vocalist of the Band. Which makes Fagen, technically, Collins’s step-grandfather. As it turns out, this wasn’t the first time Collins had asked Mr. Steely Dan for a little help.

The video of you guys playing with Donald Fagen at the Barn made the rounds among Steely Dan fans.

Lavon Collins: Wait, really?

People were excited to see Donald onstage playing music again.

Collins: That’s really funny that it got circulated that way.

How did that appearance come about?

Collins: It was really kind of a simple thing. I’ve been playing with Donald sometimes just for fun, and he, of course, has a good feel and can play chords. I had an idea for this groove kind of thing [for the song “Words to Live By”], and then I asked Donald for some help on it, and we just did it together. So before the show, I said to him, “Hey, we need a piano player for that song,” and he just did it.

Ronan Roche: We had a dire need. We had a piano player who was going to do that whole gig with us, but then he couldn’t get off work.

Sam Cousins: So we figured our last option is Donald Fagen, I guess. [Laughs.]

by Jake Malooley, Expanding Dan |  Read more:

Image: uncredited

[ed. Nice to see him back in action, plus discover a new Steely Dan substack/website.]