Conclusion. Chevy Chase was not a Steely Dan member. However, he used to play in the college band The Leather Canary, together with Donald Fagen and Walter Becker. Initially, Chevy got expelled from the college due to the “cow incident,” and the remaining band members would later form the band, Steely Dan.
Early in 1972, the original Steely Dan group - guitarist Denny Dias, guitarist Jeff Baxter, drummer Jim Hodder, and with Donald and Walter on keyboards and bass respectively - started rehearsing in an unfinished wing of the ABC building.
Which comedian was a drummer in a band that would later become Steely Dan?
When Chevy Chase was in college, along with studying acting, Chase was also a musician. Chase played drums in college for a band called The Leather Canary, which he referred to as a “bad Jazz band.” After he left the band, two band members and classmates went on to be quite successful as the band Steely Dan.
Working with ABC producer Gary Katz, they secretly assembled Steely Dan (named after a prosthetic phallus in William S. Burroughs's novel Naked Lunch) with other young musicians, notably guitarists Jeff (“Skunk”) Baxter and Denny Dias, emerging in 1972 with Can't Buy a Thrill.
Jim Hodder, Steely Dan's founding drummer, was reduced to a background singer on the album, which instead features Jim Gordon and Jeff Porcaro on the drums. In addition to playing guitar, Jeff "Skunk" Baxter can be heard playing pedal steel guitar and some hand drums.
Jon Herington is a longtime New York city based guitarist, singer/songwriter, producer, bandleader, and educator. He has been the guitarist of choice with the iconic band Steely Dan for both recording and touring since 1999.
Because of their well-earned legendary statuses, both bands have their own cult of die-hard followers. For the Grateful Dead, it's Dead Heads, and for Steely Dan, it's Dan Fans.
"Once I met [session musician] Chuck Rainey", he explained, "I felt there really was no need for me to be bringing my bass guitar to the studio anymore". A rift began growing between Becker-Fagen and Steely Dan's other members (particularly Baxter and Hodder), who wanted to tour.
The band, which was set to open Monday and Tuesday's bill, canceled due to an illness, Gainbridge said. Steve Miller Band will perform in Steely Dan's place.
According to reports in 2012, Chase had allegedly left after he used a racial slur on set while questioning a line of dialogue involving Black characters played by Donald Glover and Yvette Nicole Brown.
Chase was named for his adoptive grandfather Cornelius. The name Chevy was a nickname bestowed by his grandmother, derived from the medieval English Ballad of Chevy Chase. As a descendant of the Scottish Clan Douglas, the name “Chevy” seemed appropriate to her.
Liberal actor and comedian Chevy Chase also misled his draft board. In 1989, approximately two decades after the fact, Chase revealed on a television talk show that he avoided the Vietnam War by making several false claims to his draft board, including that he harbored homosexual tendencies.
What was the meaning to Pretzel Logic by Steely Dan?
Steely Dan FAQ author Anthony Robustelli describes "Pretzel Logic" as a bluesy shuffle about time travel. Fagen has stated that the lyrics, including anachronistic references to Napoleon and minstrel shows, are about time travel.
To dance on a dime was to grind bodies tightly together in clothed but sexual contact, without moving from that spot; taxi dancers working for a dime (immortalized in the 1930 Lorenz Hart lyric ''Ten Cents a Dance'') were exhorted by their bosses to keep the customers moving.
In 1978, studio engineer Roger Nichols developed the Wendel to sample audio and drums, and in 1979, he put his machine to the test on “Hey Nineteen” on Steely Dan's album, Gaucho. His invention gave birth to a new class of musical technologies, and today, Nichols is considered the pioneer of digital drum replacement.
As Gadd's reputation spread among musicians and producers, he started getting calls for record dates in Los Angeles. In 1977 he appeared on the title track of Steely Dan's Aja album.
