The Royal Scam [Remaster]

Performer: Steely Dan
Artist: Victor Feldman; Larry Carlton; Elliot Randall; Dean Parks; Bernard Purdie; Tim Schmidt; Michael McDonald; John Klemmer
Engineer: Elliot Scheiner; Roger Nichols
Producer: Gary Katz
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Steely Dan: Donald Fagen (vocals, keyboards); Walter Becker (guitar, bass). Additional personnel: Larry Carlton, Elliot Randall, Dean Parks, Dennis Dias (guitar); Chuck Findley, Bob Findley, Slyde Hyde, Jim Horn, Plas Johnson, John Klemmer (horns); Victor Feldman (keyboards, percussion); Paul Griffin, Don Grolnick (keyboards); Chuck Rainey (bass); Bernard Purdie, Rick Marotta (drums); Gary Coleman (percussion); Venetta Fields, Clydie KIng, Sherlie Matthews, Tim Schmit, Michael McDonald (background vocals). Recorded at ABC Studios, Los Angeles, California and A&R Studios, New York, New York. Includes liner notes by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen. Digitally remastered by Roger Nichols (Digital Atomics, Miami, Florida). All tracks have been digitally remastered. It was the year of America's bicentennial celebration, but on 1976's THE ROYAL SCAM, Steely Dan masterminds Fagen and Becker did not share in the exultant spirit of the times. The title track--a vision of fallen America from the point of view of immigrants--has a mock-celebratory chorus: "See the glory of the Royal Scam," which typifies SCAM's heartfelt cynicism. In their next two releases (their last), Steely Dan's sound would smoothen and incorporate less rock. This is perhaps their darkest record, and for a band known for its arch mixture of L.A. cool and ennui, that's saying something. Guitar heroes were roundly worshipped in the '70s, and two of the record's standout tracks, "Kid Charlemagne" and "Don't Take Me Alive," feature incendiary axe work by Larry Carlton. Interestingly, both glorify outsiders: The former tells the story of legendary drug chemist Owsley Stanley, and the latter is a first-person account of a murderer on the lam. Other highlights: the crisp "Green Earrings" the lounge-chair funk of "Haitian Divorce" and the inscrutable "Fez," whose principal lyric is "I'm never gonna do it without the fez on/don't make me do it without the fez on."

Rolling Stone (p.101) - 5 stars out of 5 - "Fagen and Becker assembled a talent pool composed primarily of jazz specialists who showed they could rock and swing all at once when so inspired." Q (6/00, p.131) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...Sleek, smart, deliciously cynical....Sounding like a million dollars and crammed with the low-life tales...[it] instantly raised the standard for sophisticated quirkiness..."

Steely Dan--a name derived from a sex toy in William Burroughs's "Naked Lunch"--spent much of the '70s atop the charts with jazzy, smart-ass pop-rock. The brainchild of hipsters Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, Steely Dan was less a band than it was a laboratory for the duo's singular musical vision, deftly rendered by a cast of studio heavyweights to rule the airwaves, but (owing to either stagefright or sheer impossibility) rarely trotted out on stage. After almost disappearing for more than a decade, Becker and Fagen had re-emerged by the '90s, throwing fans a few bones before finally taking the plunge into a full-fledged reunion.

Click Here for Shipping Options and Policies

Shipping or Dimension weight in pounds: 0.25